“I’m an adult now. So I definitely can.”
For long minutes after she walks away from me, down the hall to her bedroom—where she shuts the door firmly behind her—I stare at the spot where she stood. Stare at the spaces where those postcards were set and then scattered.
I cannot let this happen.
I cannot let Tegan go on some podcast-sponsored road trip with Salem Durant without someone there to look after her.
I cannot let her go out there by herself, either.
And I cannot—I couldnever—let her face our mother alone.
Even if I doubt whether she’ll ever find her.
So I stare at that table for a little bit longer, until it settles into me what I know I have to do.
Protect Tegan. Take care of Tegan.
Never disappear on her, even if—right now—I’ve made her wish that I would.
Chapter 4
Adam
The morning after I first meet Jess Greene, I make my way over to a small diner that’s barely a block away from the slightly shabby, slightly suspect hotel Salem and I booked yesterday.
It’s vaguely familiar, this particular end of town, not all that far from the Horseshoe, where I played two of my best college games. But there’s Ohio State gear pretty much everywhere you look, signs of the proximity to campus, and I admit, it’s adding to the uneasiness I’ve already been feeling about how things went yesterday. I don’t have a problem with this place or this campus or that stadium specifically, but of course I’ve got problems with all the stuff it reminds me of.
Cope, mostly, and all the reasons he’s gone.
I take a breath through the pang of grief I feel and decide the diner’s a nice opportunity. I’ll get a stack of pancakes in Cope’s honor. We always ate pancakes after a big win.
Not that anything that has happened in the last twenty-four hours could be described as a win.
When I open the door to the diner, I see Salem’s already there, in a booth at the back. She’s got her glasses on top of her head while she looks down at her phone, her thumbs moving rapid-fire across the screen. She’s probably writing, or maybe texting her husband. At her elbow is a cup of coffee I bet she thinks is too weak.
When I sit, she doesn’t acknowledge me beyond pushing a plastic menu across the table’s surface and saying, “The coffee’s basically water.”
I know better than trying to open a conversation with her while she’s on her phone, but the truth is, I’m not sure I have anything worthwhile to say. Yesterday, after Tegan Caulfield sent us away with promises to be in touch as soon as she “got things settled” with her sister, Salem and I made our way to a nearby café to regroup, but that basically amounted to the decision to take the rest of the day off while we waited to hear something. Unless Salem’s holding out on me, we still haven’t, and I can’t decide whether I’m relieved or disappointed.
Because I know I’ve been thinking too much about Jess Greene.
That blast of blond hair. Those lines on her arm. That look on her face.
It’s the look that’s haunted me the most, though I’ll admit—in a weak moment last night, as I scrubbed a small amount of hotel shampoo through my short hair, I wondered if a woman with a head of hair like hers would have to use the whole bottle. Since that line of thinking involved a someone I don’t know taking a shower, I’d been pretty mad at myself, but it’s not as if returning my curiosity to that storm in her eyes had made me feel any better.
If anything, after seeing her leave her own house the way she did, it made me feel worse. Like I was being predatory, intrusive. Uncaring.
I’m trying to pursue the kind of journalism that’s the opposite of that.
Maybe I should tell Salem we ought to leave these two sisters alone.
But by the time the server comes over, she’s still ignoring me in favor of her phone, so I pass on the offer of coffee and order a stack of blueberry pancakes, extra syrup. The server’s waiting for Salem’s order so I clear my throat.
Without looking up, she says, “Two eggs, scrambled. Whole-wheat toast.”
She’s definitely writing.
Guess I’ll keep debating with myself then.
