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Toad: If you don’t text me back soon, I’m calling the squad to look for you.
That was six hours ago. And he’s definitely called the idiot squad—the Cooper brothers—out to look for me by now.
Crap.
“What’s wrong?” Torben asks.
“Nothing,” I say. “My brother’s mad at me, rightly so, for not letting him know where I was, though I had texted him that I was spending the day with a friend. So nosy.”
My being shivers at the prince’s smoldering look while I dial up Toad, who answers on the first ring.
“The squad has been everywhere looking for you. They checked the TJ Maxx in Beckley. They went to the pool, and we checked the Fox Head bar, that park you like to walk at. Everywhere you go after work. Nobody’s seen you today since the Waffle House. We thought something happened to you. I was ready to call the cops, dammit.”
In the background, someone chastises Toad: “Language!”
My heart clenches when I hear Memaw shout at him about his cussing because that means everyone is together and probably in a tizzy, wondering where I am.
Still, I’m uneasy at the Cooper brothers knowing where I go after work. And, where I shop, where I like to go for walks, where I like to go out with April.
Geez.
Oh, but my brother is not done ranting. “And then someone tagged you in a photo at the Mothman Festival? What the hell are you doing way up there?”
“I was meeting April,” I sort-of fudge. I mean, I did meet her. He doesn’t have to know everything about it. “I’m not there now. I’m out with a friend, and we’ve been driving around, and I lost track of time.”
Ugh, why am I defending myself to my brother?
I turn back toward Torben and try not to feel things as his smoldering look heats up into a glowing ember.
“Mama’s worried,” my brother informs me. “Where are you? I’ve had a few, but Hitch is fine to drive. I’ll send him to come get you.”
“You know what, never mind,” I say quickly. “I’ll call for an Uber. My friend is staying at the Thistle Rock, and it’s out of the way.”
“Who the fuck do you know who’s staying there?” Toad sounds almost offended that I’d set foot at such a hifalutin place.
“Language!” Memaw snaps again.
“Tell Mom ’n ’em not to worry. I’m…I’m on a date, okay? I’ll be home.”
Torben makes a victorious sort of noise, and I kind of wish he hadn’t heard that. The arrogant prince.
“When?” asks my brother.
What the hell does he care?
“When I get home, buttcrack! Good night!”
I hang up abruptly and check the rideshare app, where there’s exactly one driver in the area. Of course. And the rate is higher than I currently have in my checking account.
I can’t call April to come get me as she and Bill are clear on the other end of the state. Mama’s still too fragile to drive. Memaw had her license revoked after she couldn’t pass the sight test. Same for Papaw.
I honestly don’t know what to do now.
11
Torben
I should know how to do damage control by now. I carry it out every damned day back home in Gravenland.
