Page 7

“What happened?” I ask, a million terrible scenarios already running through my head.

“Relax. Nobody’s dying.” Nikko’s voice is quiet. “I’m at Nina and Pete’s.”

I let out a relieved breath. “It’s five a.m. there.”

“It’s four thirty-three, thank you. And I’m awake because I stayed over last night to watch the game with Pete. Ended up drinking a few too many and didn’t want to drive home. Anyway, Nina had a rough night. Ari was up three times. I finally got up around three and told Nina I’d take Ari so she could go back to sleep.”

“You have the baby right now?”

“She’s asleep on my chest. If I move, she’ll wake up, and if she wakes up, Nina will hear her, and if Nina hears her, she’ll come downstairs, and I need her to sleep another hour at least.”

“You’re a good uncle, Nik.”

“The best.” He pauses. “So.”

Here we go.

“So?”

“So you left a week ago for a head-clearing drive. Normally, those are four days max. Where are you? Which, by the way, isn’t a question I’d have to ask if you hadn’t turned off your location settings.”

I look at my surroundings. Finn’s magnet collection on the fridge, the takeout menus pinned to a cork board, the mistletoe on the counter. I could be on the moon as far as I can confess where I am.

I take a bite of cereal to buy myself two seconds.

“Honestly?” I say through the cornflakes. “I was getting horny. Thought I’d do a multi-state tour of the best gay bars in America, and then help Bastian write songs about it.”

There’s a long, dangerous silence on the other end of the line.

“You’re such a liar.”

“I’m insulted.”

“You are the most private, most celibate, most allergic-to-strangers man I know. You have not, in the entire time I have been alive, done a bar tour of anywhere. You once refused to go to a bar in Nashville because it was ‘too crowded.’ It was a Tuesday, and there were seven people in it.”

I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.

“In case you’ve forgotten, we’re sort of recognizable. Seven people soon turn into a crowd.”

“Foster Michael Crue.”

“Full-naming me isn’t going to work.”

“Where are you?”

“On my multi-state gay bar tour. I told you. Currently in… Let’s see…” I glance at the small magnet on Griffin’s fridge from a diner in a town two hours from here. “Actually, you know what, I can’t tell you the exact location. That’s private. Bar crawl code of honor. Hence, location settings turned off.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“It’s absolutely a thing. Look it up.”

“I’m not looking it up. It’s not a thing.”

“Suit yourself.”

Another silence. This one is different. I can practically hear him narrowing his eyes.

“Fox,” he says slowly. “I hate to ask you this because you are a whole-ass ten years older than me. Are you in trouble?”