Page 30 of Restored By You

“Shea!” His voice booms, far too awake, and behind it I can hear the clink of glasses, the murmur of a restaurant, somewhere where it’s a civilized hour to be making a phone call. “How are things? Did I catch you at a bad time?”

I press the heel of my hand to my eye. “It’s two in the morning here.”

“Is it?” He sounds genuinely surprised, like he just learned a fun fact. “We’re just sitting down to brunch. Michelle, it’s two in the morning there.”

“Really?” Michelle’s voice, bright and close—speakerphone, I’m guessing. “Oh, honey, we’re so sorry! We just realized we hadn’t checked in all week.”

“We wanted to make sure the two of you were settling in all right,” Dad finishes.

A week. It’s been a week and this is the first call. And at 2 AM while they sip wine somewhere with a view, and I’m expected to be grateful? I’d expect this behavior from my father, but Michelle? Maybe she isn’t as different from the rest as I initially thought.

“We’re settling in fine,” I say, and my voice comes out steady, my annoyance in check once again. The good daughter, reporting in.

“And the house?” Dad’s tone shifts into the register I know best. Judgmental. “Progress?”

“We’ve made great progress.”

“Good. Good.” I can hear him nodding. “And the boy?”

The boy. Not Tyler. The boy.

I bite back the urge to grind my teeth. “Tyler is doing great,” I say, standing. I turn on a light or two as I walk toward Tyler’s closed door. I hate to wake him up, but I’m guessing that’ll be the next call they make if I don’t. “He met some friends actually. They went down to the—”

I push open Tyler’s door, light flooding in behind me to illuminate the space.

The bed is empty. The room dark.

My heart drops.

“—arcade,” I finish, and my voice doesn’t crack, which is a small miracle, because everything else in me just did.

“How nice,” Michelle beams through the phone. “Is he—”

“Sick,” I blurt out, hurrying through the suite to check my room, the bathrooms, the closets for whatever reason. “He, um, wasn’t feeling well when he got back, so he’s, uh, sleeping. I don’t want to wake him, you know.”

“Oh, no.” Michelle’s voice pitches with worry. “Is he all right? Should I—”

“He’s fine, totally fine, just tired,” I rush to say, pulling open the balcony doors. “You know how he is. Probably just overdid it.”

“Well, tell him his mother says to rest up,” she chirps. “And drink plenty of fluids!”

“I will.” I scan below the empty balcony and off toward the dimly lit slopes. “I should let you two go. It’s expensive to keep me on international, right, Dad?”

He chuckles, pleased I’d think of it. “That’s my girl. We’ll call again soon.”

“Enjoy,” I manage before the line goes dead.

For one full second I stand in the middle of the suite in the ringing silence, phone still against my ear, and let myself feel exactly how not-fine I am.

Then I move.

“Tyler?” I check his room again like he might have materialized, which is insane, but panic is not a reasonable state. The shoes he was wearing earlier are still gone. His phone! I call it, and it goes straight to voicemail. “Tyler, it’s me, call me the second you get this.”

I slide on a pair of slippers by the door and I’m in the hallway a second later, jamming the elevator button. The arcade. He said the arcade, by the pool. He’s there. He lost track of time, his phone died, he’s fine, he’s playing the stupid racing game and he’s completely fine and I’m going to kill him.

The elevator opens on the lower level and the whole floor is dark.

Not dim. Dark. The pool is a black sheet behind a locked glass door, deck chairs stacked and chained. The arcade gate is pulled down and padlocked, the machines glowing their idle screens into an empty room. A sign on the glass: POOL & RECREATION HOURS 6AM–10PM.