Chapter 16: Good Morning

Drake wanted to go find Trent that minute.

He was already half into his jeans, with the photo up on my phone and a muscle going in his jaw.

"He's at his cousin's, in the guest house on Larkin Street," he said. "I know which one."

"It's one in the morning."

"I don't care."

"I do." I took the phone out of his hand and set it face down.

"If you drive over there tonight, it's a fight in a driveway and a cop."

"He wins that."

"Callie."

"Tomorrow, with daylight. Tonight I want you to come back to bed."

He stood there breathing for a long moment.

Then he took his jeans off again.

I woke to sunshine on the ceiling and a note on the pillow in Drake's slanted handwriting.

Interview in Columbus at 9. I took the truck. Don't read anything on your phone without me. R.

Under it, he had drawn a small, bad sun.

I held the note against my chest and grinned at the ceiling.

Someone knocked.

It was two soft raps, and then a pause.

"Cal?" Gabe said, through the door. "Are you awake?"

"Is that a real question?"

"Yes. It's, uh. We brought coffee."

"We," said Finley, from somewhere behind him.

I pulled the sheet up to my collarbone and sat against the headboard.

"I'm awake," I said. "Come in."

The door opened a cautious inch.

Gabe came in first, in jeans and no shirt, balancing three mugs on a tray.

Finley came in behind him, barefoot, with his dark curls wet from the shower.

He closed the door and turned the lock without looking at it.

"Your mother and Drake's dad went to the farmers market," Finley said. "They said they'd be gone till noon."

"They said it twice," Gabe said. "Looking at all of us."

"They said it to the vent."

"Your mother actually pointed at the vent."

I laughed so hard that I had to put my mug down.

Gabe set the tray on the dresser and stood there, red to his ears, looking at the sheet.

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