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I would take one.
“We’ve been everywhere,” Anika says. “We called CeCe and all her other friends. No one’s seen her.”
“We tried the taco vendor, but he hasn’t seen her all night,” Harper says like this is information that absolutely points to me being dead in a ditch somewhere.
“We talked to all the street food guys in a three-block radius,” Anika continues, and I hear her sniffle. “She hasn’t gone to any of them.”
I really need a better thing I’m known for than being every food truck’s best customer.
I quickly text them back, glancing through the increasingly frantic messages they sent.
Don’t worry about it. We’ll talk in the morning. I’m fine. Hanging with some friends.
And I add a heart emoji and send.
I hear the ping from their phones.
“It’s her,” Harper says, her relief obvious. “Thank god. Though she says she’s with friends. I thought I’d talked to all her friends. Hell, I called Nick looking for her.”
I bite back a groan. The last thing I need is Nick to think I’m walking the streets of Manhattan crying over the debacle of my life.
“See,” Heath says. “She’s good. I bet it’s some of the people we met over the last week. They seemed cool.”
“Well, she could have told us,” Harper says with a huff. “We’ve been worried sick about her.”
“Her mom hasn’t heard from her either,” Anika adds.
“I’m sure she’ll text her mom soon,” Heath promises. “I bet she got caught up in something and didn’t look at her phone for a while. Or maybe she had to charge it.”
“Ivy is never without her phone.” Harper’s tone has gone from worried to slightly annoyed. Or maybe the better word is suspicious. “She’s hyper vigilant about keeping it charged. So she was ignoring my texts.”
“You keep going, girl.” Darnell urges her on. “You’re almost there.”
“Well, you made her feel like crap, Harper.” At least Anika’s on my side.
“This isn’t about the fight,” Harper counters, suspicion creeping into her tone. “This is about what would keep Ivy Jensen from reading her texts. Because she hadn’t even read them until a minute ago, and that is not the Ivy I know. I can see her ignoring the texts. I can see her sending me a bunch of flaming poop emojis to properly express her feelings. What I can’t see is her hanging with a bunch of randos she recently met and not picking up her phone even once.”
“Well, I guess she could be somewhere else.” Heath is not good at this.
And then Harper does the one thing that is sure to let her know where I am. She texts me, and my phone trills with the unique harp sound I assigned to her years ago.
Damn it. I really should have silenced my damn phone.
There’s a gasp from Anika. “That was her phone. Is she here?”
“She shoots, she scores,” Darnell announces, and I can practically see his hands over his head like he’s at a game. “And there’s a damn fine reason she wasn’t looking at her phone, if you know what I mean.”
I slide out of bed because there’s nothing more to do.
Heath opens the door and gives me a grimace. “Sorry. I’m not ever going to be the guy who covers up a conspiracy.”
“Hey,” I say as I walk out into the hall. “I was hanging out here with Heath and lost track of time.”
“And your pants,” Harper points out.
“They got wet because someone made me walk in the rain,” I shoot back.
“She looked like a drowned rat,” Darnell explains. “It was all very pathetic. So, Ivy, when you wonder if Heath is into you only for your looks, remember this day.”
“I did not make you walk in the rain, you drama llama.” Harper has a hand on her hip and looks ready to pick things right back up. “That was pure Ivy Jensen theatrics right there.”
“And this is pure Harper can’t give an inch,” Anika replies. “You swore if we found her you would be nice, and here we are.”
“Well, that was when I thought I would find her in a hospital or a ditch, not warm and cozy with the very man we were fighting over,” Harper replies.
“I came here to tell Heath I was giving him back his business,” I explain.
Heath moves to the couch, sitting down beside Darnell. I notice he has not put his shirt on. It’s distracting. “I didn’t want it back. She’s done all this stuff I don’t understand and now there are employees, and I’ve never really wanted to manage anyone.”
“He’s bad at it,” Darnell agrees.
“I did not tell you to do that.” Harper keeps her focus on me, ignoring our superhot peanut gallery.
I point Heath’s way. “You told him to dump me.”
“Not exactly,” Heath hedges.
“I did not,” Harper insists. “I asked him if everything was going okay and to be very sure that he was covered. I told you I’m more worried about CeCe than you. I think CeCe can be ruthless when it comes to business, and I don’t want either of you getting steamrolled.”
