“There’s a parcel in there,” Lance announces suddenly, sitting up.
I lean across automatically and pull the truck alongside the curb. The mailbox units are oversized metal ones built for deliveries. One of the doors is hanging open with a brown box shoved inside.
I grab it before he can reach over.
The second it’s in my hands, Lance snatches it off me fast enough to almost miss.
“Got it,” he chirps. He’s too quick.
The box disappears against his chest immediately, both arms around it like he thinks I’m going to take it back.
I glance sideways at him. “What’s in there?”
“Nothing,” he says. There’s color high in his cheeks now.
I don’t miss the fact he’s acting weird about it. I kill the engine.
Lance reaches for the handle, then pauses long enough to grab my forearm with his free hand.
“Thanks for the lift, man.”
He says it fast, still not looking directly at me. Then he’s gone, beelining for the building. I watch the door shut behind him.
I make it halfway to Chula Vista before I notice his hospital backpack sitting in the passenger footwell.
I stare at it for a second. He was so focused on that damn package he forgot the bag entirely. I hiss a curse and swing the truck into a turn lane.
When I get back, his front door is unlocked. I wasn’t expecting that.
I pause at the door, his bag hanging at my side, before pushing it open and stepping inside. I’ve told him a dozen times to lock this damn thing properly. Lance listens to safety advice the same way he listens to assembly instructions. Briefly, politely, and with no intention of sticking to it.
I’m about to call him out when I hear something from deeper in the apartment.
It’s not a conversation at all. Low, broken sound carrying through the room, distorted slightly through speakers. A man’s faint voice, with another answering. A rough cut of sound that stops too abruptly to be real.
For a second, I think there’s someone else in here with him. I go still before I’ve decided why. I listen again.
There’s another muffled sound, followed by a rhythmic creak and electronic crackling through speakers.
I slip further inside without making a sound. The lounge is empty. The kitchen too.
His jacket is on the hook by the door but not quite right, one sleeve twisted under itself. His shoes are left near the mat instead of properly lined up where he normally puts them. There’s a half-finished coffee on the counter and one of his trauma textbooks open face-down beside it, pages bent. He would normally have something to say about that if it were anyone else doing it.
At the end of the hall, his bedroom door is open a crack.
I set his bag down quietly near the kitchen and make my way down the hall.
Through the gap, I catch pieces of the room first. The corner of the bed. Clothes draped over the chair instead of thrown on the floor. Curtains half-drawn. The room sits dimmer than the rest of the apartment.
Then I see Lance.
He’s standing beside the bed in nothing but a towel low around his waist, fresh from the shower. Water still clings to his shoulders and chest, disappearing beneath the towel at his hips. His blond hair wet, pushed back messily from his face.
His phone is propped up on a small tripod on the nightstand.
An open box sits beside him with ripped packing paper and plastic wrappers scattered across the duvet.
He’s too focused to notice me. I nudge the door open a little further with one finger.
