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I flicked my gaze to Jonah. His brow furrowed and his head bent in appropriate concern.
“You think she’s really missing?”
Blowing out a harsh breath, I tossed my phone in my lap and put Cherry into drive. “Who the hell knows. It could be she just got tired of being there.”
“But…” he trailed off.
“I don’t know.” I gripped the steering wheel. “Shit man, she’s never actually been reported missing before.”
“And that worries you?” His words were slow.
“Yes. No. I don’t fucking know.” I fiddled with the stereo station just to give my hands something to do. “I’m worried, but for the life of me, I don’t know why I care.” I laughed, hating the bitter sound.
“She’s your mom,” he said quietly. “That’s why you care.”
“We don’t see Astrid cut up about her mom and dad. Thatcher didn’t give two shits either. If Rhys is upset his dad is incarcerated, I’ll eat cheese off your feet. Then there’s me. The guy too full of feelings. Too sentimental over a woman that hasn’t loved me in too many years to count.”
“That says everything about who you are. It has nothing to do with her.”
Listen to him, my little brother trying to make me feel better for loving that mess of a woman. My lips ticked up on one side. We were the same, really.
He’d been devastated when he had found out about his mom. Apparently, we were Astrid’s emo boys.
“I needed to hear that,” I said in all seriousness. If anyone else had made the same claim, I would have cut them down. But Jonah? He was so much like me, felt so much like me. Coming from him, it meant something.
“What is Angel doing here? And Graves?” Jonah asked as we sped by the courthouse. Graves and Angel were walking up the steps in their normal jeans and Tees.
Shaking my head, I grinned. They were unapologetically who they were. Always.
Parking downtown was a bitch on the best of days. A parking garage was our best bet now that we were a few minutes late. After passing spot after spot of filled street parking, we pulled into a parking garage with a big public P on it.
“They’re getting ready to start.” Jonah tapped on his phone as I kept going up and up a level.
“Why are there so many people here?” I yelled at the windshield as I went up to the very top level.
“Look, there’s a spot.” Jonah pointed at the one open spot at the very beginning of the uncovered part of the garage.
Of course there was, at the very furthest point at the top of the parking garage. Sighing, I swung into it and turned off my car. We raced to the elevator, and I eyed the stairs as it seemed to take for fucking ever for the doors to open.
“Should we?” He slid his finger under the collar of his button-down shirt.
“Might as well. What’s more important? That we’re pristine and late, or on time and a sweaty mess but there to support Thatch and Trinity?” I shrugged, then pulled the handle to the stairs.
Ten fucking flights of stairs.
Running downstairs was much easier than running up, but damn if we weren’t panting by the time we exploded onto the street, narrowly missing an old man in a wheelchair.
“Sorry!” I called as we jogged across the street.
Two cars honked at us as they slammed on their breaks.
“Okay,” Jonah gasped. “We need to leave twenty minutes early anytime we have to be somewhere. This is too much work when we’re running a few minutes behind.”
“No complaints from me.” He was the reason we were late anyway.
The glum security guard eyed us as we emptied our pockets and went through the metal detectors. All in all, we passed through the line pretty quickly, but it felt like an eternity.
Speed walking like some old ladies trying to get into the Olympics, we raced to the main courtroom where Trinity’s case was being held.
