Page 17 of I Love You, It’s Ruining My Life

“Yeah, I know,” I nodded, “but Uncle Jack doesn’t like to listen to other people. Especially when it'd help him.” Cassidy clearly had some thoughts on this, but it wasn’t something she could easily verbalize. The fact her Uncle was doing everything her therapist told her not to do was clearly giving her something to think about, though I couldn’t tell if it'd help or hurt in the long run. But she was right; Jack was angry. He'd admitted RaineFall was some sort of distraction. It was an interesting piece of information, one he wouldn’t have meant to tell me.

The problem was, if he was serious about getting the band back together, he was going to have to be honest with Noah and me. And I wasn’t sure he’d be willing to do that.

Chapter thirteen

Nalini

My phone was buzzing. Nonstop.

I woke with a start, my watch reading 9:47 in the morning. I’d overslept and was late for work. Severely late. Like had missed the first three periods of the day late. I was going to get fired, and… then I realized it was fall break.

It explained why I’d slept so late; I always did the first few days I was away from my energy-vampire students. I loved them to death, but the closer we were to a break, the harder it was to get through a day without a nap.

Misty and Peri knew to avoid me the first few days of a break, which didn’t explain why my phone was buzzing.

I blinked a few times, realizing I had a missed call and multiple text messages from Kameron. Yawning, I reluctantly got out of bed and started up my coffee maker. The buzzing stopped, and I decided it wasn’t an emergency.

Or he was dead, and his sudden communication stop was how I found out.

The Terminator

Sorry, I realized you were probably asleep.

Cassidy isn’t, though. She’s been up and hyper all morning

Anyway, not the point. Do you like plays?

Nalini

I don’t know, the only time I saw one was when you and your brothers were in You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown in high school.

And it was yikes. Minus Noah.

The Terminator

That’s why Noah is on Broadway, and I’m not.

Anyway, he has tickets to this weird experimental show I don’t really want, and he’s desperate to get rid of them. Want them?

Nalini

That’s a joke. Right?

The Terminator

No?

I didn't have enough coffee for this conversation. I knew NYC was a few hours away, but with how late those shows went, I wouldn’t get home until 4 AM — and I wasn’t willing to mess up my sleep schedule that badly.

Nalini

In what world can I afford a last-minute hotel? Or go on any kind of vacation?

I’m a single teacher who lives alone and barely has any extra money!

The Terminator

Did I mention Noah is footing the bill?