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But this isn’t just anyone, my brain helpfully supplied, and Carl doesn’t actually need your help. He’s used you for decades—he doesn’t deserve access to you anymore. Especially not at the expense of the best thing that’s ever happened to you.

I sighed, knowing my inner voice was right. I needed to stand up to him, tell him to stop calling me to do things he should handle himself.

I needed to cut him off, and soon. But first things first.

When I got to the top of the stairs, I didn’t hear the shower running, and the room was eerily still. My brow furrowed for a second until I noticed that Tris’s clothes and the Mix It Up hoodie was gone. As were his shoes and everything else he’d brought with him, however little.

Where did he go?

“Tris?” When he didn’t answer, I yelled a little louder. “Tris?!”

Nothing.

I headed back downstairs, checking each floor as I went. He’d had a pretty thorough tour when we decorated, and there were a lot of hiding places in my effectively five-story row house. He wouldn’t have just left, right? It was cold and rainy out, and he didn’t have a coat. Surely he was still here somewhere.

But I couldn’t shake the pit in my stomach that told me something was very wrong.

After checking every hiding place I could think of—even the half bath tucked in the far corner of my basement, just off the theater room—my heart started racing as panic rose in my throat. Tristan had left, and I didn’t know why.

Pulling out my phone, I shot him a quick text asking where he was. A minute later, I saw it marked as read, but he didn’t respond. Didn’t even start a text and not send it.

He was ignoring me; I could feel it.

What the hell had happened?

When a text from Carl came in—the preview showed he was asking when I was going to be there—it all fell into place, and my heart nearly stopped. Tristan had overheard me on the phone with Carl. That had to have been what happened. And he . . .

Oh my god. He heard me agree to help Carl, leaving Tris on the weekend he said he wanted to spend with me.

Goddammit. Tris thought I cared about Carl more than I cared about him, so he’d left. His trust in me had been tenuous at best, and then I’d taken it and stomped all over it.

I’d fucked up worse than I ever had in my life. How the hell did I fix this?

***

After an evening of unanswered outgoing texts and phone calls from Tris—and a quick text to Carl to tell him I was unavailable because I couldn’t fathom dealing with him when I didn’t know if Tris was okay—I was at my wit’s end. I’d figured out why Tristan had left, and I couldn’t blame him for not replying, but what if something had happened to him? I couldn’t shake the thought, and my stomach contracted and stayed that way. I had to make sure he was okay.

But how?

I stressed about it all night, barely sleeping, my brain going around in circles. I didn’t have his address, and asking for that from Cameron or Ethan felt invasive. But . . .

I could ask Ethan to check for me. It was possible Tristan didn’t want to see or hear from me anyway. I couldn’t blame him if so.

Since it was Monday morning, I called Ethan on his cell. Surely he’d understand and be sympathetic to my plight. Certainly he’d be willing to check up on Tris. He was Tristan’s friend, too.

But the call went to voicemail, so I called his office line, and his executive assistant told me he was in an hours-long meeting but should be available around two. I thanked the man but groaned when I hung up. How the hell was I going to find out what was happening with Tris?

I tried to find Cameron’s number, but I didn’t have it. I poked around on the internet and found a contact form on his author website—his pen name wasn’t a secret—but filling it out felt creepy, so I didn’t send it.

By ten am, I was nearly pulling my hair out.

I stumbled around my house for the next several hours, blindly tidying up things that didn’t need to be tidied up and barely eating. I showered, spent way too much time in my home gym, punishing my body the way I deserved for how I’d treated Tristan, then showered again.

Waiting on the clock to strike two was excruciating, but what else could I do? Nothing but fucking wait.

After the longest goddamn morning and early afternoon known to man, the antique grandfather clock in my first-floor hallway played its familiar melody then chimed twice, and I fumbled in my pocket for my phone then scrambled to tap Ethan’s number.

Ethan answered after several rings. “Henry?”