AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She ended the call and left Gemma frowning at her phone. Although it felt like it, she knew her best friend was not abandoning her but instead trying to help her. And she really could not deny that it felt like fate. The day had brought her and Jack together in a way that led them to his house, which happened to be right down the street from her father’s house. She feared that calling it a coincidence might crack the snagged universe in half.
But the thought of visiting her father without her brother there as a buffer still did not sit well.
“Oh my god, Patrick!” she suddenly said out loud. In all the mayhem of her interview, lunch, visiting the studio, and then Angelica, she hadn’t checked in with him for a few hours.
She pressed his name in her phone and returned it to her ear.
Patrick answered on the first ring. “Gemma?”
The worry in his tired voice reminded her that their last conversation consisted of her all but hanging up on him when he told her he was permanently moving to Africa.
“Hi, Patrick. How are you?”
“I’m fine. All good. How are you?”
She smiled in appreciation of his propensity to put everyone before himself, always. He really was a wonderful person.
“I’m fine. Just checking on you. Have you found a flight yet?”
He sighed. “And here I was thinking you were calling to set me free. No, still on standby.”
“Damn.”
“What are you doing?”
“You’re not going to believe this, but I’m actually outside Dad’s house.”
Patrick paused. “You’re what? Why?”
The thought of explaining it all to him was not only exhausting, but she also knew it would only lead to more questions, most of which she did not have answers to.
“Long story.”
“Well, I’ve got nothing but time.”
Gemma thought about what she could tell him without causing him to panic from three thousand miles away.
“I’ve had a really interesting day,” she said. “I met someone, and he turned out to live up the street from Dad.”
“Met someone? He’s not a musician, is he?”
The protective bite in Patrick’s tone made her smile. The only time he had ever come home during one of his six-month stints in Lagos was when the Nick situation imploded. He had crashed on her couch for a week, eating junk food and bingeing sad TV with her and Lila. He talked Lila out of slashing Nick’s tires, though he offered to do it himself.
“No, he’s not a musician,” she said, and wondered if telling her brother the truth about the current situation would result in another offer of criminal mischief on her behalf. She hated to think Jack could fall into the same category as Nick.
“Good. Who is he, then?”
“He’s...”
Gemma thought about how she could describe Jack. In the span of half a day, he had gone from stranger to potential soul mate to heartbreaker. She realized they had covered a lot of ground in the short time they’d known each other. It usually took a few months for a guy to disappoint her, and Jack pulled it off in the same time she could have binged half a season ofMac Drake.
“He’s not who I thought he was,” Gemma told her brother.
“But you like him.”
“What? That’s not—I don’t—How can you even tell?”
He laughed like he used to when he’d prank her as a little kid. “Well, first of all, your reaction just told me.”
