Shit.
And now I’m tearing up again.
I have to do something.
I have to get over this fear.
I have to find his phone number, and I have to call him. I need to hear his voice.
“Afternoon, old chap,” Simon says out the window. “Would you be interested in trying the best burgers in the entire world? I recommend at least two. One’s never enough. And not because they’re not big. They’re healthy-sized. They’re so delicious that one will never be enough.”
Bea cracks up. “One is a good-size meal,” she tells the new customer.
“Are you Bea?” a familiar voice replies.
I jerk upright at the table. Did I—did I manifest this, or am I imagining it?
I can only see Bea’s profile, but I see one of her eyes flaring wide and her jaw going a little slack. “I am,” she says.
“And who are you?” Simon says. “And how many burgers would you like?”
“Simon,” Bea hisses out of the corner of her mouth, but she’s smiling.
And I don’t think she’s smiling simply because Simon’s being Simon.
“Where’s Daphne?” the customer asks.
His voice—his voice.
Oliver’s here.
He’s here, asking for me, and it hasn’t even been a full week, and I need to stand up and get my ass out of this bus and tackle him with a hug and a kiss and tell him that I love him and I never want to leave him behind anywhere again, especially in a jail cell, but my hands and feet are suddenly tingling and my eyes are flooding with tears and I have forgotten how to move.
I can barely make out the sight of Bea leaning into the window beside Simon. “Why?” she asks.
“Because I miss her and I hope she misses me and it’s been too long since I saw her, we have a winning lottery ticket from Pennsylvania that we need to put to good use, and also, I have this polar bear for her.”
Something thumps onto the counter.
Something that looks suspiciously like Angelina Juliana Priestly would look if I were staring at her through blurry eyes.
“Come inside the back of the bus,” she says to Oliver. “Simon only has one security guy with him today, and you’re basically the most famous person in the world at the moment, and I’ve already seen what can happen with that one too many times this summer.”
Oliver makes a frustrated noise, but he clearly does as he’s told because she turns to me with the biggest smile that I can see even through my tears and adds a double thumbs-up to it.
And then I hear, “I don’t need any damn secur—Daphne.”
It’s Oliver.
All of him.
In jeans and a T-shirt, leaping into the back of the bus.
I twist in the seat and try to stand, but I can’t make it up.
My legs are too wobbly. It’s like every emotion I’ve ever felt in my entire life is surging through my body and short-circuiting the parts that make me work.
But then I’m being crushed against a solid, dependable, perfect chest while two strong arms engulf me. “Who made you cry? Tell me. They’re dead. Absolutely dead.”
