But a half hour later, when we’re both clean-faced and brushed-teethed and pajama-ed, tucked into our respective beds, Tegan whispers my name again.
“Yeah?”
“If you decided to, you know . . . sneak out tonight? To see yourboyfriend?”
I throw an extra pillow at her, and she squeaks a laugh.
“I’m just saying. I wouldn’t judge you even a little.”
I snort. “I’m not going to sneak out. Go to sleep.”
But long after I hear her breathing turn deep and even, I lie awake in the pitch-black of our heavily curtained hotel room. I think about the ten years since I’ve seen my mother, and about how finding out she wasn’t sick back then doesn’t mean she hasn’t been sick since. I think about New Mexico and where Salem says we’ll start when we get there, at a place where she suspects a probably sick Lynton Baltimore might have taken himself—and his money—to. I think about being one step closer to the mother I thought I didn’t care to ever see again, how it’ll feel for me and for my sister if we find her or we don’t.
When it gets so overwhelming that I feel a press of tears behind my eyes, I think about a starry sky and a field of night-cloaked flowers, strong arms and soft words and a feeling of safety I can’t ever remember having before.
And then I quietly push back my covers, swing my legs over the side of the bed, and sneak out to find it again.
Chapter 20
Adam
The knock on my hotel room door comes at around midnight, so soft that at first I think I must’ve imagined it. Or maybe willed it into existence.
If I thought I was desperate for Jess to come down to my basement room after our first kiss a couple of nights ago, then it’s clear I didn’t truly know desperation.
Because for the last few hours—ever since I watched her and Tegan head into the hotel room next to mine, both of their expressions drawn and tired—I’ve practically been climbing the walls with worry for them both.
I’m at the door before I think much about the state of my room or the state of myself. When I swing it open, Jess stands in the hall in the same pair of pajamas she was wearing that night by the pool in Pensacola, but this time, with a pair of thick white socks pulled halfway up her shins.
She’s blinking slowly at my bare chest.
“Hi,” she whispers, to my sternum.
Obviously, given what Jess and I spent most of last night doing out in the open air, this shy taking-in we’re both doing of each other’s sleepwear is a little silly.
But not so silly that I can’t appreciate how sweet those socks look on her bare legs.
Not so silly that I don’t feel flattered about the way her eyes roam over me.
“Can I—?” she begins, at the same time I say, “Come in.”
I take a step back and she takes a step in, and as the door swings shut behind her, I open my arms and she comes to me, pressing her soft cheek against my chest and sighing against it as if she’s been waiting all day for this.
I drop my head, rest my lips at the crown of hers. I only lift my mouth long enough to ask her if she’s okay.
She nods and links her arms tighter, low on my back. I lean my shoulders against the wall and just . . .
Hug her.
Hold her close.
We stay that way for a couple of minutes, her breaths tickling across my skin, her thumbs idly stroking along either side of my spine, and I can only hope it feels as good to her as it does to me. It isn’t until right this second that I realize I haven’t spent the last several hours worryingonlyfor her and her sister.
I’ve been worrying for myself, too.
Worrying about what her dad thought of me, on that video call. Worrying about whether she would regret asking me to do it. Worrying about how I’d so readily agreed, even after promising myself I’d take a back seat on this story. Worrying about what’s next, about where Jess’s mother ended up, about whether Lynton Baltimore is dead, about what happens if I lose this job and Jess, all in one fell swoop.
Worrying about a hundred other things that have nothing to do with all this, because worrying is a runaway train.
