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“What are you doing? Come back to bed,” I mumble.
“I have to pee,” she whispers back. She kisses me lightly on the forehead. “Won’t be a second.”
I drift back into the void of my own sleep, hand hanging off the side of the mattress, reaching for her, waiting for her to take it when she comes back.
It’s daylight. Broad fucking daylight.
My eyes snap open, and ah, shhhhhit! My arm’s dead. I’ve slept with it hanging over the side of the bed. Goddamn, that hurts. I flex my fingers, trying to get some blood flow back to them, and pins and needles explode up my arm.
The digital clock on the nightstand reads eight forty-eight am. How the fuck did we sleep in so late? Rolling onto my back, I rub my eyes, stretching out my back. “Guess what time it is,” I say, my voice scratchy from disuse.
Sorrell doesn’t answer.
Lazy bones.
I smile as I open one eye, and then the other. Sunlight dapples the ceiling, bouncing off the windows, sending ripples of white undulating up the walls. It’s beautiful. It’s also warm. Not hot by any stretch of the imagination, butwarm. Sumner was tiptoeing just above freezing when we left two days ago. It may be winter in the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, but Southern California doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo.
“God. I’m almost sad we’re leaving today,” I say out loud. “Maybe we can swing by the beach for an hour before we leave or somethi—” The second I roll over and see that the other side of the bed is empty, I know.
I fuckingknow.
I expect there to be a note, but there isn’t. She probably didn’t get a chance to write one when she was sneaking around the room in the middle of the night like a fucking cat burglar. It isn’t as if I need a note to tell me where she’s gone or why though, is it. I know perfectly well where she’s gone.
I get dressed, pulling on a pair of jeans and the t-shirt I planned on wearing to the airport, and I am out of the hotel room in seconds. Seconds.
Do not check out.
Do not pay your bill.
Do not pass go.
I figure trying to flag down a taxi will be quicker than ordering an uber, but I am so fucking wrong on that front it isn’t even funny. There are no regular cabs left in Los Angeles. Rider share apps are the only option available now, and it’s peak commute time in the heart of the city. I pace up and down on the sidewalk, alternating between chewing my nails and aggressively kicking the trunk of a palm tree as I wait for Josh to arrive in his silver Toyota Prius. I’m halfway to Falcon House when I think to see if Sorrell sent me a text. And she has. God, I’m such an idiot.
From: The Kid
Received: 4.08 am
I can’t see the screen on this thing so I ho9pe I don;t fuck this up. I know you’re probably angry and Im sorty. I can’t get back on the plane without trying this. I can’t stand the thought of missing half a life with you, even if we do get to share the rest of this one. If I could gau=uarantee that we *would* spend the rest of our lives together and I wouldn’t be waiting to just turn into someone else, then maybe. But that isn’t how things are. I love you, Theodore William Merchant. I have faith that this is all going to work out. I’m so, so sorry if it doesn’t.
“Whoa, man. You okay back there? You look like you’re about to punch the damn window out or something.” Josh the uber driver is very astute. I see him watching me in the rearview and do my best to marshal the combination of anger and absolute terror that’s currently splitting me in two.
“If you could just step on it, that’d be awesome,” I say through gritted teeth.
Josh laughs. “You’re kidding, right? Rush hour traffic in L.A. doesn’t move for anyone, buddy. We’ll be there in eighteen minutes.”
Eighteen minutes is too fucking long. “How far to the destination? How many miles?”
“Uh, one point four miles.”
Yeah. Fuck this. I’m not sitting in a car for sixteen minutes to travel one point four fucking miles. “Let me out.”
“We’re moving, man. I can’t just—”
“LET ME OUT OF THIS FUCKING CAR RIGHT FUCKINGNOW!”
Josh immediately pulls over to the side of the road. No one even bothers to honk; we were crawling along, anyway. “You’re gonna get charged for the full ride, dude!”
“I don’t care.” The second the car stops, I rip the door open and I run. Following the directions on my phone, it takes me a little over nine minutes to reach my destination. I’m sweating and dizzy as fuck when I tear across the parking lot of Falcon House.
