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I was almost at home. I’d have to get an Uber to drive me over to his house and this time of the day, traffic would be a nightmare.
I answered: Will get it now. Leaving from home.
I got a car right away but as I’d feared, the roads were jam-packed. The workshop would start in an hour and he probably could get going without the laptop, but I knew there were important slides on it that he wanted to show. But I could email them to him from the house once I was there.
I got there after six, running up the stairs to Tate’s study at the top of the house.
“What’s going on?” Summer came in and I quickly explained to her that I needed her father’s laptop. She helped me look for it but we couldn’t find it.
“Maybe he left it in his bedroom? Sometimes he works in bed?” Summer said and we went into his room, but it wasn’t there either.
The workshop would already have gotten underway.
“What about downstairs?” I asked, growing increasingly panicky. We ran down the stairs, started looking in the kitchen and lounge but the housekeeper had already cleaned up everything there.
“Evie?” Felix came up through the open doors. He had his jeans rolled up for a walk on the beach.
I held up a hand, to show him I was in the middle of something and couldn’t talk.
I heard Summer whisper to him, “She’s looking for Dad’s laptop.”
I took out my phone, quickly texted Tate: Laptop not here. Looked all over.
He responded a few minutes later: In car maybe?
I stared at the screen.
“What did he say?” Summer asked. I told her.
“Is he at the office? Then he can get it, right?” Felix said.
I shook my head. “He’s stuck in that meeting. I’ll have to go back there.”
“But surely he can just pop out?”
“No…” I said.
“Take my car,” Felix said. “It will be faster.”
There was no time to argue. He walked out with me to his rental car. “This is not like Tate. He always knows where his laptop is.”
He was right, something felt off.
“Maybe he knows exactly where it is and is just enjoying ordering you around?”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” I snapped at him and jumped into the car. But I thought about what he said as I drove back to the city, as fast as I could. There was hardly any traffic heading back but once I was in the heart of citycenter, it was slow-moving again.
Would Tate do that? Send me out on a fool’s errand, knowing full well where the laptop was.
Of course he would, I thought. Especially after than stunt I’d pulled with the phone call earlier, wanting to make him jealous. This was his way of punishing me.
By the time I got to the car park, I already knew I wouldn’t find the laptop in his car. A little while later, his message came: Found it! All good.
I didn’t respond.
I simply got back into Felix’s car and drove it back, again, to Tate’s house.
When I got there, I marched into the house and found Felix sitting outside, having a beer.
