I pull over at the first place I see—a fast food place—park next to the building, and empty both bags onto the front seat of the car.
There’s all kinds of useless crap, including six freaking lip balms, crusty, loose ibuprofen pills, a pen top, and a half-wrapped tampon. But no phone. Frantic now, I lean back and concentrate… When did I last use it? Not with the security teams, definitely. Crap. And, with the number of calls I was getting, I turned on Do Not Disturb, so it wouldn’t ring, even if I had some way of finding it. My last call, I remember, was with Candace, who does my PR.
The phone is in the pick-up, with Zion.
Great, just great. What am I gonna do without a phone? I’ll be cut off from—
My eyes land on my laptop.
With a squeal, I open it and log in to the restaurant’s wifi. Three seconds later, it starts ringing. Gigi. Thank god.
I answer and my screen lights up on my best friend and agent, also in a car, clearly on the freeway. It’s still daytime in LA and she is so perfectly Gigi—gorgeous light brown skin, pristine, perfectly-shaped brows, massive mirrored sunglasses, and crimson lips—that I want to cry.
“Oh my god, you’re alive.” Her attention flicks from the phone to the road and back, her expression finally landing on puzzlement. “Where are you? Why haven’t you answered my calls and… Wait. Are you hiding under a bridge or something? Oh my god. Did the paps corner you? I thought the security team got you to—”
“I’m fine,” I interrupt, stemming her flow of words before they turn into a tidal wave. “I’m just hangin’ in a McDonald’s parking lot. You know. Old times.”
“What?” She grimaces. “We never did that.”
I snort. “I know.” The relief of seeing her loosens something in my throat and, before I know it, tears are trying to force their way up and out. I can’t, though. Not yet. Not until I’m all cocooned someplace safe. If it starts now, it’ll never stop.
“Oh, TeeTee, babe. Don’t do it. You know how I am. If you start, I’ll lose it and then we’re fucked.” I hiccup out a laugh. “Come on. What’s going on? Just give me the CliffsNotes and we’ll get you home.”
“Home?” I let a little bitterness through. It’s better than losing my shit in a McDonald’s parking lot someplace in… Where am I? Northern Virginia? “Where’s home?”
“You can always stay with me.”
“I’m not squatting in your living room, Geege.”
“Whatever. It’ll be like college. My bed’s big enough for—”
“I lost my phone.”
“What?”
“It’s in his truck. Well, not his. His friend’s truck. This big, buff white guy, a little older and kind of solid. A painter or something, maybe? His jeans were dirty. Liev…something.”
“Shreiber or King?”
“King.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“What?”
“LievKing?The sculptor? The one who…” She’s still driving, her sunglass-covered eyes facing the road—I hope—but her hand’s doing an explicit up and down.
“What are you doing? What is that?”
“He’s the artist who did the obelisk? The new one? On the mall in DC? You’re the one who lives—”
“Lived.”
She ignores my interruption, as usual. “In DC, for god’s sake. Didn’t you see it? And, you know, all those sex agony pieces that were all over the place a couple months ago. The New Yorker, the Post, TikTok? Remember?”
“Ohhhh, right.” The sculptures come back to me: piles of people writhing in an almost feral ecstasy. “He’s really good.”
“What’s he like?”
