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“I’d have started inviting people over for interviews, but Mayor Murray seemed eager to lay this case to rest,” he’d said during his visit. “She doesn’t want small business owners and elderly women getting arrested. Can’t say I blame her.”
But I could. Fucking Allison. Optics meant everything to her, justice be damned.
There was a knock on the door. I wasn’t in the mood to see anyone, but it could have been Rhyland, about the restaurant. I swung the door open. It was Cal.
I hadn’t seen her in three days. Not since we’d had mind-blowing oral sex, and I’d declared my love to her and gotten slammed with a rejection. She had little plastic butterflies holding her hair together, coveralls, and a stripey sweater. Her glacial blues set my heart ablaze as soon as they landed on my face, blinking repeatedly to tell me that she hadn’t been expecting me, that she was nervous. She stumbled backward at the sight of me, and I itched to catch and steady her.
“How are you doing?” Her voice was soft.
“Good. Better.” Shit. Worse than ever before. Why are we not together? I know you want to. You trust me. You’re open with me. I make you laugh. I make you moan my name. What more can you ask for? Why am I never fucking enough?
Unfortunately, I was too much of an ass to ask how she was doing.
“Is Dylan home?” She cleared her throat.
I stepped aside, jerking my chin upstairs. She ducked her head as she passed me, avoiding eye contact. Every second in her presence felt like a sucker punch straight to the gut. When Cal stopped in the middle of the small living area, I noticed the tips of her hair were dyed flint. Somewhere between purple and gray.
“Actually.” She twirled on her boots to face me, and when our gazes clashed, it felt like a fucking car crash. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“What do you need?” I asked woodenly.
I hated how transparent I was with her. An open fucking book. And a shitty one at that.
She worried her bottom lip, shooting me an uncertain look. Jesus. Had she changed her mind? Was there still a chance? “We need to get ahold of Tucker.”
Why the fuck?
“We do?” I parked my elbows on the counter behind me languidly.
“Yeah. He doesn’t know he became a father. As much as I dislike him, this seems unfair. And I also think a lot of the reason Dylan is stressed out is because she isn’t sure where they stand.”
“That all might be true, but there isn’t much of a signal in the middle of the fucking ocean.” I fished my cigarette pack out of my front pocket. It was surreal, talking to her about anything that wasn’t us right now. Especially that idiot, Tuck, who didn’t deserve my sister nor Gravity.
“He should be close to shore at this point,” Cal insisted, ocean eyes clinging to my face. “We need to at least try. We owe it to Dylan. She went through the last few weeks without the father of her baby.”
I worked my jaw back and forth, too distracted by her face to pay any real attention to the conversation. She was so fucking beautiful and the thought that, in two weeks, I’d return to not seeing her at all made my skin crawl. How the fuck did people live their lives not having a dose of Cal in it? Insanity.
“Fine,” I bit out.
“Thanks.” Cal’s shoulders sagged with relief. “Do you have his number?”
“Yeah.” I pushed the cigarette into the corner of my mouth and fished my phone out of my pocket, tossing it into her hands. She caught it. “What’s your passcode?”
Your birthday.
“Here. I’ll open it for you.”
“Great. While you’re at it, please refrain from spreading your cancer stick fumes inside a house where a newborn lives. Now and until you leave. Thankssomuch.”
I found Tucker’s number and passed the phone to her. She put it on speaker. It went straight to voicemail, just as I’d expected. When I went to grab my phone back, she yanked it away. “Do you know his captain?”
“Sure do. He’s one of the key service providers for Descartes.”
“Let’s call him. Maybe Tucker forgot to turn on his phone when they reached a signal.”
She hit the search icon on my phone and inserted his name, tapping it with her finger. The line went through.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
