“I don’t have the camera on,” I say.
“Why not?”
Oh, this was a bad idea. I needed something to distract myself, but this was the wrong solution.
“Because I might have a concussion, and the doctor said to stay away from screens.”
“Jack!”
“I’m fine.” I slump down at my little desk.
“Turn it on.”
“Stef, it’s fine. The doctor said—”
“Turn it on. I want to see you.”
The glare makes me squint, but when I turn the desk lamp on, it gets easier. Stef leans in so her face gets distorted, and I can see most of her forehead and not much else.
“You look like shit.”
“Thanks.”
“What happened?”
I tell her. About the rain. The bear. About falling and hitting my head. I leave out most of the details about David. She does the appropriately sisterly thing and laughs her ass off.
“Do you know someone named Morgan?” I ask, mostly to get her to stop howling before Harper comes to see what the noise is.
Stef frowns. “Is that a first name or a last?”
“Last. Some kind of real estate bigwig in Massachusetts.”
She shakes her head. “Those aren’t really the social circles Graham and I traveled in. It was all doctors and nonprofits. Why? Is he the entitled asshole who made you go fishing in a storm?”
“It wasn’t storming when we left.” And also, despite all the fuss, I noticed Mr. Morgan wasn’t waiting on the dock when we got back. Jerk. “Never mind,” I say. “Speaking of entitled assholes, have you heard from Graham?”
She makes an annoyed face. “No, but I ran into Mrs. DeLuca from the public school. She said they need to hire a PE teacher for the fall.” The way she raises her eyebrows expectantly makes my head hurt more.
“Stef, I don’t have a teaching degree.”
“From the way she was talking, I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”
I don’t want to have this conversation right now. “How’s Robbie?”
We talk for a few more minutes. After we hang up, I sneak out—Harper is nowhere to be seen—and grab some food from the kitchen. My head doesn’t hurt as much as before, and I take that as a good sign. Back in my room, I doze for a while until a soft knock comes on my door. Harper, back from wherever, and no doubt checking to make sure I’m not bleeding out of my eye sockets.
“I’m fine,” I call.
The knock sounds again, even softer than before, like the knocker can’t make up their mind if they should go away or not. Finally, a voice says, “Uh. You have a visitor.”
Not Harper. Female, but someone else.
I grunt as I pull myself to my feet. The sleep helped. I pop a couple more ibuprofen on my way to the door.
It’s Marci. She’s shaking when I open the door. She blinks rapidly and opens and closes her mouth several times.
“What’s wrong?”
