Knock, knock, knock.
The buildingmustbe on fire with the way the knock is reverberating throughout the apartment.
I throw back the covers and sprint through the living room. Charlie and Piper are still asleep. I’ll wake them up if it’s actually a fire.
My baggy sweats fall down to my knees, and I trip, barely catching myself before I face-plant onto our wrinkled, stained carpet.
I jerk them back up and fumble with the chain at the top of our door.
I finally pull it open, and who I see on the other side is not who I’m expecting. “Nash? What are you doing here?”
He looks frazzled. He’s wearing the same clothes from yesterday, but they sort of look like someone ran him through a blender before he got here.
“I need you.” He looks frantic. His hair is poking in all different directions, and his eyes are bloodshot.
His grandfather must be gone.
“Oh, you poor thing. Of course you do,” I say softly.
I don’t ask him how he knows where I live. Just like I don’t ask him how he knew what my phone number was. Grief does strange things to a person.
I latch onto his arm and pull him into the apartment while rubbing gentle circles on his back. “I’ll make you something warm.”
I push him gently onto the beanbag couch we got at a Black Friday sale last year.
While he sits down, attempting to balance himself, I make a cup of cocoa in the kitchen.
He needs every type of comfort he can get after losing his grandfather.
I turn the electric teakettle on and then pull a cinnamon roll out of the box. I check my breath in my hand before I sit down next to him.
His eyes are darting around the apartment, and any other time, I’d be mortified, but I know, right now, he’s overcome with too much grief to mind the box of tampons sitting on the coffee table.
“It will be just a moment, and then the hot chocolate will be ready.” I pat his shoulder as I set the cinnamon roll on his lap.
Even wrinkled and worn, he looks too put together for this apartment.
I need to get him to focus on something other than the bras hanging to dry everywhere.
He picks up the fork and takes a bite, chewing slowly. His eyes close.
We sit in silence for a moment before he jerks his eyes open and slams the fork onto the plate with a loud clank.
“We have to go!” He jumps up, setting the plate on the coffee table, next to a fashion magazine.
He grabs my hand and pulls me to the door, all while muttering to himself about a miracle drug.
I’m too surprised to say anything until we reach the cold hall air.
I’m not wearing a bra, and there’s a hole in my comfy pants.
I can’t be kidnapped looking like this. No one would pay the ransom.
“Wait! What are you doing?” I jerk my hand from his. He looks at me with surprise.
“I didn’t say?”
“No, you didn’t say.” I fold my arms across my chest.
