We fly up the basement stairs and throw open the door at the top. I need my apartment keys. They’re in my jacket. Where the fuck did I toss that thing?
“Where’s the fire, March?” Steven-fucking-Bogart calls from the couch. “Pussy emergency? You and your boyfriend finally spend so much time down there that your dick’s demanding you go find a female to stick it in?” He guffaws like he’s made some genius quip, and, as always, Sal, his trusty fucking sidekick, follows.
“I’m around the block,” Reeve murmurs, ignoring Steven. “I’ll pull around,” and he’s through the front door.
I grab my jacket from the arm of the sofa, ready to wait outside for Reeve, but on second thought, I pause. He’s going to be a minute, anyway.
“You hear from Liz?” I ask Steven. And not just because I’m still desperate to somehow convince her to cooperate with the detectives—even if that’s still truer than ever. But because as douchey as Steven can get when he drinks, he’s still my boy—my fraternity brother—and he does sincerely care about Liz. He’s not one to admit it, of course, and if it ever comes up, his default mode is to cover it up with dirty jokes and sexual innuendo. But he’s chased her since freshman year, and they’ve gotten pretty close, so no one was surprised that her attack hit him hard.
He looks back to the Jets game. “Nah.” But I don’t miss the strain in his shoulders.
So Liz isn’t talking to him, either. That’s got to hit hard, too, but no way would Bogart admit he was hurt by it, any more than he’d admit he’s worried about Liz.
I should say something comforting, or encouraging, but I can’t. I can’t even imagine how he feels, knowing how scared she must have been—that he wasn’t there to help her. If anything like that ever happened to Bea—
I’m out the door without another word, jogging to the curb to look for Reeve’s car, which by some miracle is just swerving over to let me in.
Chapter Twenty
David
Reeve and I spend the better part of two hours searching every spot on campus I’ve ever known Beth to step foot in. And come up fucking empty.
In the end, I do nothing but sit on this sadistic fucking couch, rubbing my throbbing temples, staring at my phone on the coffee table in front of me. It comes to life every now and then, taunting me with hope, only to flash with the name of someone other than the person I’m worried nauseous over right now.
I haven’t fucking moved since I got home almost thirty minutes ago, and the only thing keeping me somewhat sane is knowing that that piece of shit Brody hasn’t been around. There’s no way Beth would keep it from me if he were back on campus, even if she was mad at me.
My phone lights and vibrates, and I barely cast the screen a perfunctory glance when her name stabs me in the chest with a Pulp Fiction-level shot of adrenaline.
At least she’s returning my missed calls.
“Where the fuck are you?” I roar in greeting. But even as I silently warn myself to dial it back, there’s another voice, a darker one, reminding me she’s the one who’s out of line. Yet a-fucking-gain.
“Whoa,” she breathes. Like I’ve caught her off guard—like I’m fucking overreacting.
“Damn it, Beth! Where?”
“I’m walking home from the rec center with Toni! Fucking God!” she snaps back, her voice an octave higher than a moment ago.
But I don’t give a fuck about her attitude, and the tension in my neck and shoulders gradually loosens in relief. “’The fuck were you doing at the rec center?” I ask, light-years more calm.
It seems to take Beth aback for a moment. “Are you seriously shouting at me right now? For what? And what are you—my fucking keeper?” she demands angrily.
I don’t point out that I am not, in fact, shouting at her right now. Because now that I know she’s fine—that she’s on her way home, and not walking around alone in the dark—the urgency gripping my stomach relaxes its hold. “We’ll talk about it when you get home,” I promise her.
Fuck my fucking life.
I still haven’t moved an inch when Beth waltzes into my apartment like she doesn’t have a care in the world, tosses her bags on the floor and her keys in the bowl on the kitchen island, and helps herself to a bottle of water from the fridge—all without so much as fucking acknowledging me. So I continue to fucking sit here, elbows resting on my knees, eyes following her intently around the room.
“Beth.” My voice is low.
I frown as I notice not only her school bag, but the small sports duffel carelessly dropped just inside the door. The sight of it ignites images of her packing her things that night after Hot Box, reminding me how few cards I actually hold in this whole situation.
“Where were you?” I ask again.
Beth’s eyes flare, but she chews the inside of her cheek, holding back whatever it is she really wants to say, keeping up the casual act just to piss me off. Or to challenge me. Like we’re locked in some game of giving-a-fuck chicken, and neither of us wants to blink first. “I told you. I was at the rec center,” she says carefully, like I’m fucking obtuse.
I suck in a deep breath, my nostrils flaring with my long exhale as I try to beat her at her own game. Calm and casual. “With Toni…”
