“Jace, how well do you know Kayden?” She searched my face, clearly surprised that I wasn’t concerned. Her level of alarm kickstarted my heart and I passed her the phone so she could see his text.
“What, Liv? He’s not exactly an open book. What do you know?” I asked, already pushing my chair back from the table.
“When I met Kayden, he’d been sober for three years. He’s an alcoholic, Jace. And this sounds like a cry for help.”
“Fuck,” I said, my chair hitting the ground as I threw myself out of it. “We have to go. We have to gonow.”
“I know,” she said, calling for Kaylee while I spiraled.How did I not know this?I thought back to all the times I’d drank a beer while he’d had sparkling water and the way he’d said the rehab facility was important to him.Fuck, I thought that was because of his father.
“Fuck,” I said again, tossing a bunch of cash on the table as Kaylee came running over, looking disappointed. I picked up my chair and pushed it in.
“Jace, I’m going with you,” Olivia said definitively.
“Are we leaving?” Kaylee asked.
“Yes,” Olivia said, looking at me with a question in her eyes.
“Of course you can come,” I said.
Olivia bent down to Kaylee’s level. “Mommy and Jace’s friend needs our help, baby. We need to go check on him.”
I squatted down to join them. “Do you want to visit Sloane and Lavi while we do that?” I asked Kaylee, putting one hand on Liv’s shoulder. My moms’ place was only a few blocks away and I knew they’d take her without question.
“Yeah!” she yelled.
“Great.” I picked up Kaylee and steered Liv toward the door. Liv took Kaylee from me to strap her into the car seat in the back of my car and I pulled at my hair. My heart raced and my mind was a complete fog as I struggled to pull the keys out of my pocket. “Liv, I don’t think I can drive.”
“It’s fine.” She took the keys from me. “I’ve got this. Get in and call your moms.”
I nodded, feeling like I was in a haze, and got into the passenger seat. I called Mom, giving her the high-level version of the story while skipping the part about Kayden’s tenuous sobriety.
“Ima will meet you downstairs. Don’t worry about us or Kaylee, just go check on Kayden, okay?” Mom said calmly as Liv wove through the streets of Boston.
“We don’t have much of her stuff with us,” I said.
“Jace, drop her off,” Mom said sternly. “We’ll figure it out.”
I thanked her and hung up the phone. Olivia put her hand on my knee, and I gripped it tightly. Ima was waiting outside the condo building as promised when we pulled up a few minutes later.
“Thank you so much, Lavi,” Olivia said, giving her a hug. My moms had watched Kaylee a couple of times before and I was grateful that Liv was comfortable leaving Kaylee with them right now.
“Anytime, Olivia. We love having Kaylee visit,” Ima said.
Kaylee smiled at her. “Can I sleep over?”
Olivia smiled and bent down to hug her. “Let’s see how much help Mommy’s friend needs first, okay? I love you and I’ll see you soon.”
Kaylee nodded and I hugged her goodbye. “Love you, kiddo.”
“Seriously. Whatever you need,” Ima said, giving me a quick hug. “We can do an overnight, no problem. Just give us a call when you know more.”
We thanked her and got back into the car. Olivia followed my directions to the address Kayden had given me last week. I hadn’t been to his place before, but it was easy to find his apartment building and Liv and I skipped the elevator, running up the stairs to the third floor instead.
I frantically banged on his door. “Kayden, it’s me,” I yelled.
I waited five seconds before pounding on it again. “Kayden, please open the door.”
I heard nothing coming from inside the apartment and I wound up to bang on the door again when Liv reached in front of me and turned the handle. It clicked open and I looked at her with surprise.
