"What about the other players? Have they heard from him?"
"No. Nobody has. What about Jacob? Have you tried texting him?"
"I called him. He hasn't heard from Dean since this morning."
Danny rubs his jaw. "Okay, now I'm starting to worry."
"Go to his house," Eve says, opening a bag of chips. "He's probably just sleeping, but at least you'll know and can stop worrying."
"Would you take me?" I say to Danny. "The bus will take too long."
He looks down at his full tray of food. "Yeah, we can go."
Setting his tray down, he picks up his burger and takes a bite, eating a third of it all at once.
"Could you take it to go?" I ask. "I'm kind of in a hurry."
He grabs the rest of the burger and his bottle of water. "Let's go."
"Could you take his tray?" I ask Eve.
"Sure." She smiles, but behind that smile I can see she's worried. She thinks something's wrong. She didn't this morning, but I didn't either. I assumed Dean was just late. Now an entire morning has passed and nobody's heard from him, not even his brother.
Something's wrong. I know it in my heart and know it in my gut. Something happened to Dean. Something bad.
Chapter Two
Brook
"Can you go any faster?" I ask as Danny drives down the street. I've gone beyond worried to a state of pure panic, my mind imagining every possible bad thing that might've happened.
"There's a cop behind us," Danny says, nodding up at his rearview mirror.
I glance in the side mirror and see the cop car directly behind Danny's truck. "How much farther?"
"A couple miles."
I'm shaking, which could be because I'm cold but is more likely because I'm scared.
Danny glances at me. "Try to relax. I'm sure it's nothing. Maybe it's like Eve said and he just fell asleep."
"He wouldn't have slept for this long. And why would he fall asleep right after texting me? He sent the text right before he would've left for school."
"Just try to calm down. We're almost there." Danny turns down a side street. "This fucking cop won't get off my ass. I thought I'd lose him when I turned."
"Please be okay," I whisper to myself, closing my eyes and praying Dean isn't hurt.
"You love him, don't you?" Danny asks.
"I do." I look at him. "We were going to tell people today. That's why I got so worried when he didn't show up. It was Dean's idea to do this. To tell people. He was excited about it."
"Tell them what?"
"That we're a couple." I look down at my hands in my lap, which are clutching my phone, hoping a text from Dean will pop up on the screen. "Dean called me last night and told me how he feels." I swallow. "He said he loves me. He called me his girlfriend. He wanted to tell everyone at school today."
Danny doesn't respond.
"What's wrong? Why aren't you saying anything?"
