Wes shrugs and gives me anI have no idealook. “Maybe if you keep it simple?”
I decide to only respond to texts. Olivia can go through the other apps later.
I typeSorry I missed it! It looked so beautiful! Got caught up helping my grandmother at work!just as Charlie adds, “But chill with the exclamation points. You’re way more upbeat than Olivia and it shows.”
And now I’m editing the message. I hate it when he’s right. I send the message then see another new one that just came in.
“This is the second message she’s gotten from this number. Olivia says it’s from some guy named Locke,” I say.
Both of them swing their heads toward me.
“Let me see,” Charlie says.
I hold her phone close. “Maybe she doesn’t want you to see?” I say.
Charlie’s forehead scrunches in confusion. “I’ll see tomorrow when I have her phone ALL DAY LONG.” And then he’s pulling it from me.
Charlie reads the message out loud: “‘I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to be an ass earlier. Hope you didn’t get in trouble.’”
“Whoa, why was he an ass?” Wes says.
“Should we reply?” Charlie asks. “Tell him to go to—”
“No!” I say before he finishes. “He’s apologizing. Maybe he’s just stressed out?”
“Locke is pretty intense. Eats, sleeps, and breathes golf.” Wes reads the text again.
Charlie shrugs. “I don’t really know him.”
“Because he’s always playing golf,” Wes replies.
Charlie is about to say something else but stops when we hear Nonna in the hall. She’s usually at the shop this time of the day, but she took the afternoon off to meet a plumber for a leaky sink in one of the upstairs bathrooms.
“I picked up those little picture frames I was telling you about. We’ll put their senior pictures in them. It will look so cute on the entrance table,” she says loudly.
I pop my head around the corner to see if she’s talking to us, but she’s sorting the mail, her phone on the hall table.
And then I hear Aunt Lisa’s voice come over the speaker. “Oh, perfect, Mom. I’ve got the pictures at my house. Had them printed before I left. Why don’t you go ahead and give the frames to Olivia and tell her to put them on my desk in the office.”
I spin back around and look at Wes and Charlie, matching expressions of panic on all of our faces.
“I’ll give it to her when I see her, but she hasn’t been here today,” Nonna says.
“Huh. That’s weird. It says she’s there,” Aunt Lisa says.
Charlie holds up Olivia’s phone, then sprints like lightning out of the back door.
“What says she’s here?” Nonna asks, her footsteps getting closer. She peeks into the kitchen as if she’s looking for some foreign device.
“Her phone. It’s an app. It says she’s there,” Aunt Lisa says.
Wes and I turn to face Nonna and she’s looking at us.
“Is Olivia here?” she asks us.
I open my mouth to say something, but I go blank and no words come out. Wes is quicker on his feet.
“She was here. Ran in for a sec while you were upstairs. But she just left with Charlie.”
