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It started to get colder… and later. And I couldn’t find Drake. The hospital was huge. He could have been anywhere.
Defeated, I finally pulled out my cellphone and called Kylie.
She answered groggily, but when I told her everything that’d happened within the past few hours, she perked up immediately and said she was on her way to pick me up.
I sat on the curb, waiting, shivering now.
Kylie pulled up to the curb and I sullenly got into the car.
“Did you find Drake?” she asked, as she drove away from the hospital.
“No.”
“Do you think he’s back at home? Do you want to go check?”
I stared out of the window as the streetlights passed by, the sun hardly at its horizon. I could see Lake Ultimate from here, the ripples like black diamonds, fierce and sharp. Getting into those waters now would most likely result in drowning.
A storm was coming, but I wasn’t sure if it was the weather or the turmoil in my heart.
“Jen?” Kylie called softly. “Should we go by his house to check?”
“No,” I whispered. “Just take me to your house. He probably needs space.”
Kylie cleared her throat. “Okay, Jen.”
Chapter 21
Jenny
The gym looked much different during the day.
I grabbed my satchel and tossed it around me, marching for the front door of the Dawg Pit.
It’d been seven days since finding out his grandma died, and I hadn’t heard from Drake. Kylie hadn’t heard from Oscar, either. We hadn’t seen them at Animal House.
Yeah, I thought at first he was taking time for himself. But I called constantly. I text him repeatedly. He never responded.
Sighing, I pulled the door open and was nearly suffocated by the smell of rusty iron, sweat, and musty body odor.
There was a girl around my age behind the help desk.
She was fit, her hair pulled up in a tight ponytail, wearing a blue shirt with the words Dirty Dawg Pit monogrammed on the chest of it.
She saw me and looked confused. “Hi,” I said, meeting at the desk.
“Hey?” She looked me over. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Drake Davenport? I know his Dad owns this gym.”
She frowned. “Who?”
“Drake…?”
“Oh! You mean Doomsday?”
“Yeah—him. If that’s what you know him as.”
She folded her arms. “Oh. Well, he’s not here.”
“I assumed he’d be here since he’s not at work or at the Animal House?”
“Maybe he’s not in the mood to see you,” she retorted.
I raised a brow. “Excuse me?”
“Look, we get girls like you coming in here all the time asking for fighters. If the boys don’t want to see you, they don’t want to see you. Doomsday is hard to find anyway. He only shows up when he wants to show up, and that’s mainly just for the fights.”
“I’m not just some girl looking for a fighter,” I snapped. “I’m his girlfriend. I haven’t seen him in a week.”
“Hey, Jessica!” I heard Otto’s voice from a short distance away and my heart sped up a notch as I looked towards him. I was glad to see him. When all else failed, I had a twin to fall back on.
Otto’s eyes moved over to me and he smiled. “What’s up, Jenny?”
“Nothing, Otto. I just stopped by to see if Drake was around.”
Otto wrapped his arm around Jessica’s shoulder. “Is she being a bitch to you?” he asked. “’Cause you know I can get her fired,” he teased.
I shrugged. I didn’t care if she kept her job or lost it. Wasn’t my problem.
Otto watched me for a few seconds. When he realized how serious I was, he looked at Jessica and told her to take off for a few.
“I got it,” he said. She nodded and walked away, going through a swinging gray door. I watched her go, but it was when she disappeared and the door stopped swinging that I saw the wide, rectangular window right across from me. And sitting right there looking at me was Drake’s dad.
Flex.
His eyes were like hot coals, his nostrils flared. He had a stack of papers in his hand, his brows stitched together, his jaw ticking.
I tore my gaze away.
“You haven’t heard from him either?” Otto asked.
“No,” I whispered. I looked at the exit. “Do you think we can talk outside?”
My eyes darted over to where Flex was again. Flex was standing now. Otto saw him coming for the door so he walked around the counter, ushering me out.
“Otto!” Flex shouted, but he didn’t look back.
He continued out the door and down the sidewalk until he spotted my car. “Shouldn’t have come here. Drake would be pissed that you did.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t know that, because he hasn’t been talking to me!”
“Listen, Jenny, I haven’t heard from Drake since last Friday. We picked him up from the hospital and dropped him off at home the other night and that was it.”
“I heard Mrs. Richman died?”
