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“I’ll get her to call her now.”
“Yes, do,” I growl. “And call me straight fucking back.” I look up when John breezes in, giving my naked, soapy form the once-over, looking over his glasses. “Don’t say a word,” I warn. “And pass me a towel.”
John silently reaches for a towel and tosses it at me, and I start rubbing myself down, ridding my body of the suds, my eyes on the screen of my phone, willing it to ring.
“Tell me why the fuck you look about ready to hit something?” he rumbles.
“Ava’s missing.” I stand and get my boxers on, mentally calculating how many hospitals I need to search and which one first. “No one can get hold of her.” I flick John a worried look. There’s no mistaking his own concern. Yes. Yes, it’s like that. “I thought she was just avoiding me again.” I grab my trousers and yank them on. “But, now I’m thinking about it, that doesn’t make any sense. We made friends and everything was fine.” I want to put a bullet in my head for letting all this time pass. I want to slowly torture myself for not insisting she spend Sunday night with me. Then I wouldn’t be slowly dying now.
My phone rings, and I dive on it. “Sam,” I breathe, my face screwing up in dread.Please tell me they’ve found her.
“She’s fine,” he says, and my hand freezes on my shirt. “She answered one of Kate’s messages, so she’s alive.”
“What?”
“Listen, my man, don’t lose your shit, but Kate mentioned something about Ava not seeing you again.”
I stand stock-still. “What?”
“I said don’t lose your shit.”
“I’m not losing my shit.”
“You sure?”
The burning sensation starts in my toes and spreads through my body like wildfire. “I’m not losing my shit,” I grate, looking up at John, who’s silently observing me.
Losing my shit.
I’ve been going out of my mind with worry, and she really is just avoiding me? Why?
“Jesse?” Sam asks quietly. Concerned. “Be cool.”
“Be fucking cool?” I bellow, catching John’s flinch in my peripheral vision. “I’ve been going fucking crazy.” I slam my phone down and fight my way into my clothes, barging past John.
“Don’t crowd her,” he calls after me.
“Fuck off!”
I throw myself in my car and roar off down the driveway, splitting my attention between the road and my phone, searching for the number for Rococo Union’s office.
I dial and bark my order when a woman answers. “I want to talk to Ava.”
“Yes, sir. Who’s calling?”
“It’s private.”
“Oh. Okay, just a moment, please.” The line goes quiet, and I scowl at the road. If she dares comes back and says—
“I’m sorry, sir. Ava is out of the offi—”
“Put her on the fucking phone,” I roar, punching my steering wheel, unable to control my temper. I’ve gone from worry to anxiety to worry to fear to worry to fury.
There’s a collection of bangs and cracks, no doubt the result of the poor woman dropping the phone in shock. “I... I... I’m... I’m... sor... sorry, sir—”
“Don’t be sorry, just put her on the phone.”
“Sir, please... I... I assure you... she’s... she’s not here.”
