“Hello?”
“Martin?”
“Hi! Yes. Hi. It’s Martin. Oliver, I’m sorr—”
“Where did you go?”
“I know. We—”
“It’s not your fault. I don’t know what set Seb off, but I’m sure you can only be an innocent bystander.”
“You don’t under—”
“But Parker’s pissed that you guys ran off and—”
“Oliver, it’s not—”
“And Dad’s pissed that Parker’s pissed, and mostly because he doesn’t need much of an excuse to be pissed at Seb and—”
“There was—”
“And I don’t care, really. But a phone call or a note would have been good.”
“Oliver, would you shut up and listen?”
The phone went silent. Martin was breathing hard.
“You’ve been taking lessons from my brother,” Oliver said, but he sounded nervous. Martin let the silence stretch, to make it clear he wasn’t joking.
“We got a call, on Saturday night. Or Sunday morning. Anyway. There was a fire. The bookstore. It burned down.”
More silence. Martin sat on the edge of the couch, which he’d folded up earlier when he’d stripped the sheets off.
“The bookstore?”
“Yes.”
“Is it bad?”
Martin held the phone between his ear and his shoulder and put his face in his hands. “Define bad.”
“Are you guys okay?”
Martin had the fleeting thought that he really liked Oliver. There had been so much trepidation on the drive up to see them, so many expectations about Seb’s family and how the weekend would go. Martin hoped he could count on Oliver as a friend now.
The question, though. Were they okay?
“I don’t know where Seb is.” His voice cracked.
It all came out. Thirty-six hours of tension and exhaustion, grief and fear. Martin told Oliver everything, although there wasn’t much to tell. The call, the fire, Seb truly looking like a ghost as he lay in bed or shuffled down the hall, and then disappearing altogether.
“It’s really all gone?” Oliver’s slow exhale was audible over the phone.
There was a sound. Martin’s fingers went numb as the front door swung open and Seb walked in.
“I’ll call you back.” The phone tumbled out of his hand. He might not have even hung up, but it didn’t matter because Seb was back. He looked tired. The skin under his eyes was purple, and his lips were drawn into a thin line when all Martin wanted to see was the casual smirk that meant Seb was there.
“Hey.” Seb’s voice crumbled like chalk.
