“My family.” I squeaked weakly.
“That you don’t get along with,” he deadpanned.
I sat on the bed, resigned. “My job.”
“That you don’t actually wanna do.”
“You’re there.” Ha! I found one reason why I had to stay.
“Babes, we call and we talk all the time when you are gone. And you can live without me. Can you live without him?”
A heavy pause hung on the line.
I groaned and put my head between my knees. “Fuck.”
“Exactly.”
“But he didn’t ask me.”
“Did you? Love just happened to you, and you’re gonna let it slip through your fingers?” His sigh on the other end was one of frustration. Or was it disappointment? I was used to hearing the latter.
“Maybe he doesn’t want me. We agreed on a Christmas fling. That’s all.”
“You have until tomorrow morning to fix it. Your flight is at three in the afternoon, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m hanging up to give you all the time to figure this out. Call me when you’re done.” He disconnected, and I stared at my phone.
Panicked, I began to pack. Keeping myself busy would help me think. Stuffing my clothes and souvenirs into the suitcase onlyopened a vast chasm of doubt into which I spiralled deeper and deeper, replaying my three weeks with Spiro.
Chapter Twenty
Spiro
Kaos was not in the house.
He was gone.
The moment I woke up, the place felt off. I jumped out of my bed and ran through all the rooms. He was not doing any last-minute laundry, or preparing a surprise breakfast. His room was empty. He’d packed his suitcase and left when I was still asleep. In my panicked search, I missed the note stuck with a magnet to the fridge, written in beautiful cursive.
Thank you for everything. I will remember our time forever. I need to say goodbye to Chicago too. Have a wonderful life. Kaos.
I pulled the piece of paper to my chest. “No, Kaos. Fuck.” I had been planning to spend the morning with him and say our goodbyes properly, making sure we’d keep in touch.
After he’d shifted, he behaved off all day. He wouldn’t eat, avoided proximity, and insisted on spending hours packing his suitcase alone in his room. I’d assumed he’d wanted our sex the night before to be our last. It had been absolutely perfect, so that made sense. I didn’t push him for contact, and he refused to talk to me about his change or anything else.
In the evening, I’d been hoping he’d see the open door to my bedroom and come over to sleep next to me.
He hadn’t.
I’d waited for him for hours, which resulted in me sleeping way later than usual in the morning. It was my own damn fault. Then again, I couldn’t force him to stay. But I had to make sure he was okay.
His flight was late in the afternoon, so I took the car and stopped at all the local stores and places we’ve visited in hopes he was shopping nearby. When no one had seen him there, I drove downtown and traced all the spots we'd been to until it hit me. He’d wanted to say goodbye to Chicago, so he’d gone somewhere he liked the most. It wouldn’t be the cemetery; that was too cold.
That left one place.
When I finally found a parking spot, I left the car and ran to the tiny pizzeria under the L train tracks.
