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“Where’s Fox?”
I shrugged. “Not upstairs.” His face dropped. “He was in the basement, but I stayed out of his way.”
Without a word, Marshall made his way to the basement, and I followed. When we opened the door, Fox was passed out on the sofa along with Charlie and Archer.
“What the fuck, guys?” Marshall bellowed. Charlie opened one eye and groaned, nudging Archer awake.
“Sorry. We were trying to cheer him up,” Charlie mumbled, pointing down at the evidence of their heavy night that littered the floor.
“Wake him up. Sober him up. Clean this shit hole up.”
“Yes, Daddy,” Charlie jibed.
“He’s Daddy.” Marshall thumbed in my direction. “You can call me sir.”
Charlie’s mouth fell open as Archer burst into fits of laughter. “That told you,” he whispered as Marshall stormed from the room and I went with him, pulling my phone from my pocket and trying Lea’s number.
“She’s not answering.”
He grabbed the note on the way past, reading it as he went. “She needed us, and we weren’t there. She’s never slept alone,” he muttered as he stormed to the kitchen, pulling eggs and bacon out of the fridge. “Make some coffee. By the looks of those bottles, Fox is going to feel like shit.”
“Good,” I gritted out through clenched teeth. I knew he had a right to be pissed off, but he didn’t give me a chance to explain.
He leaned over the counter, taking my hand in his. “Not now, Dawson. I need you to help me make this right.”
All I could do was nod.
When Fox finally appeared in the kitchen about fifteen minutes later, he looked like death. His skin was almost gray, his eyes shadowed, and his clothes creased.
“Is there a reason you’ve woken me up at the ass crack of dawn? I don’t want to talk about last night, and I don’t want to be around him.” He jerked his head in my direction. “Where’s Le?” he asked as Charlie and Archer sat at the island and Marshall pushed Lea’s note across the countertop. “Fuck, I’m too hung over to read that. Just tell me what it says so I can go back to bed.”
“It’s from Lea. She’s gone.”
Fox shook his head slowly. “Gone where?”
“The venue for tonight. She left at six… after spending the night on her own. She’s furious with us all. She doesn’t want to see or speak to us.”
Panic flooded his face. “But… why did she sleep alone?”
“Well, let’s think,” Marshall replied sarcastically. “You had a row and, like a child, didn’t even listen to Dawson’s side. Then you hid downstairs without telling us you weren’t coming up to go to bed. Dawson stayed out of your way like you demanded and took a sleeping tablet, thinking you wouldn’t want him in bed with us. Oh, and then I was so frustrated by you both, I ran 20k, but I’ve not run for that long in ages, and I passed out. I only woke up when Fox came storming in this morning.”
The enormity of the situation dawned on Fox, his face dropping. “But she’s never slept alone. Since the curse, we’ve always slept together. Shit. I only meant to stay down there for a few hours. Why didn’t you stop me?” He looked at Archer and Charlie.
“Hey, don’t blame us. You were on a mission to get off your face. No matter how much we tried to stop you,” Charlie replied, holding his hands in the air. “And on that note, we should go, apologize to the beautiful women we abandoned last night. See you later.”
They let themselves out as Fox continued staring between the note and us. “And she left without any of us even wishing her good luck or telling her how great she’s going to do.” He sounded so sad it was almost painful.
“Nope. Nothing. The last time she saw any of us was when we dropped her off yesterday.”
“You tried calling her.”
“Her phone’s going straight to voicemail,” I replied, making his eyes narrow as his anger with me obviously spiked again.
“What are we going to do? What if this sets off the curse? I mean, she left us, right?”
Marshall put a plate of bacon, eggs and avo toast in front of Fox and then pushed one my way. I sat, grateful as my stomach was rumbling, but I wouldn’t have thought about eating until we’d sorted things with Lea.
“She didn’t leave us; she went to work. Annoyed with us, but still, I think it’ll be fine. But just to make sure, you’re going to eat, then shower and we’re going to go over there and make her listen to us. Give her the support and encouragement we should have given her this morning.”
