My phone buzzed once in the cup holder. I grabbed it so fast it nearly slipped out of my hand.
Roman: You home or still “walking”?
The quotation marks were very Roman. Dry, precise, and designed to make me feel like an idiot.
I stared at it until the screen went dark.
Then I tapped his contact before I could build another half-truth and hide behind it.
He answered on the second ring.
“Well,” he said. “Look who remembered phones make calls.”
I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the seat. “Hey.”
There was a pause.
That pause was worse than the sarcasm.
“You in your car?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Outside your place?”
“Yeah.”
“Go inside.”
“I’m fine here.”
“Jace.”
I rubbed my forehead. “Can you not do the dad voice?”
“I’ll stop using the dad voice when you stop acting like I need to put your name on a mitten string.”
Despite everything, a laugh pushed out of me. It sounded rough. “I’m not that bad.”
“You once left your wallet in a smoothie place and came back with three smoothies because you forgot why you went in.”
“That was one time.”
“It was two times. Different smoothie place.”
I looked through the windshield at the lobby doors. “Did you call to inventory my crimes?”
“No.” His voice changed. Lower. Less room for jokes. “I called because you’ve been disappearing for months.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“Not physically,” he added. “You show up. You play. Mostly. You make meetings when someone drags you there or scares you into setting alarms. You’re around.”
I swallowed.
“But you’re not around,” he said.
The car felt smaller.
