Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
NOAH
Twelve hours earlier.
D eparture day is always chaotic, but today is breaking my record.
It started when I woke from a criminally vivid dream about Victoria and me doing a few camp activities that would definitely get us fired. I had to run fives miles before dawn to get those images out of my head, but then we had that meeting with Roxy, and Vic had her hair piled up in one of her messy buns again and my brain went straight to the part of that dream where I’d finally— finally —gotten my hands on those unruly curls, pulled her tight against me and kissed her until we were both dizzy.
Not the best thoughts to have during our morning meeting with my boss.
Then I managed to spill my to-go coffee (the delicious kind, from my French press) straight down the front of my shirt while driving the kids to the airport. A massive wreck on the interstate meant we were over half an hour late. Then an emergency bathroom stop for Ethan, who decided to have every kind of dairy at breakfast despite knowing it would spark a revolution in his entire digestive system, added another fifteen minutes to our delay.
Now I’m racing the kids through the airport, where two flights have already changed gates. I check my phone for an update from Sophie and see a text message from Victoria. I don’t even have time to read it as I hustle the kids into the line at security, reminding them to empty their pockets and take off their shoes, and also to grab everything at the end of the line because, yes, at least one kid always forgets to grab their shoes and heads off to the gate in only socks.
It happens more often than you might think.
Once the five of us are through security, I begin the real gauntlet: delivering the four kids to their departure gates.
First is Becca, whose flight leaves in thirty minutes. I say a little thank-you to the universe for this tiny airport as we jog over to her gate, where the boarding has begun. She says her quick goodbyes, and once she’s on board, we head to the next gate.
And then the next.
Ethan and Derrick are on the same flight out. We’re camped at their gate when my phone buzzes with another text. I see that it’s Vic at the same moment that Ethan’s stomach makes a noise that sounds like a bulldozer.
“Uh-oh,” he says and bolts toward the restroom.
Derrick heads to a kiosk behind us and says, “I’m hungry. They have donuts.”
“Be back in ten minutes!” I holler after them. This plane is about to start boarding, and I haven’t had a kid miss a flight all year.
And I don’t intend to break that record today.
I skim Victoria’s texts—they’re her typical blend of funny and flirty, reaching out to tease me about coffee and let me know that she’s staying in touch. Below, there’s an adorable picture of her with Layla and Priya. She looks content. Calm.
Utterly gorgeous and lit from within.
I type out a reply, then delete it. I start another and delete that, too. Why is it so hard for me to tell her how I feel?
A garbled voice comes over the loudspeaker and calls for boarding group four. I spot Derrick and Ethan at the kiosk a few yards away, grabbing an armful of snacks and bottled drinks.
I let out a sharp whistle that would make Sophie proud, and both boys turn toward me. “Come on, fellas,” I holler. “Let’s go!”
They shuffle over to where I’m standing in line with their luggage, next to a woman whose pug keeps sniffing my shoe. Derrick’s scrolling on his phone as he walks toward me, balancing the world’s biggest bear claw on top of a bottle of soda. As they approach, Ethan says, “I think I lost my boarding pass,” and I turn him around and head for the nearest flight attendant. In my haste, I trip over something that feels like a duffle bag but turns out to be that pot-bellied pug that has strayed from its owner, eyes fixed on Derrick’s bone-dry, overpriced bear claw.
The dog’s fine. He’s built like a tiny tank.
I, however, go sprawling towards the floor, zig when I should have zagged, and steamroll poor Derrick, who grunts with surprise as the soda and pastry go sailing through the air. Along with his phone and mine.
I land hard on the floor, wincing as my shoulder reminds me that I am not twenty years old anymore and not made of rubber.
Derrick chases after his soda as the pug lunges for the bear claw. Laughter erupts around us as the dog lets out a victorious snort-yip and scarfs that massive pastry in one obscene gulp. His owner, a twenty-something blond woman in yoga clothes, shrieks as he yanks her off-balance and drives her right into the chest of the man behind her. This catches the eye of the nearest security guard and his German shepherd, both of whom narrow their eyes at us in precisely the same judgmental stare.
Mortified, I scoop up my phone and tuck it into my back pocket as I hustle Ethan toward the flight attendant because we have no time to lose. Derrick holds their place in line, scratching the pug behind the ears.
“Found it,” Ethan says, his hand deep in the pocket of his backpack. “False alarm.”
I let out a deep sigh as Ethan jogs back over to where Derrick is waiting for him by the gate.
“See you next year, maybe!” Derrick hollers at me, and Ethan gives me a solemn wave.
They amble down the ramp toward the plane with the last of the passengers, and I let out the breath I’ve been holding for what seems like five full minutes. I take a few ibuprofen to ease the pain that’s bloomed in my shoulder, then wait to watch their plane taxi down the runway.
I’m congratulating myself on surviving this gauntlet as I’m walking back to my car, sipping a fresh coffee so deep and rich that it almost makes up for that spill with the pug. I pull my phone from my pocket to check my messages, and then curse so loudly that a gray-haired lady in the parking deck frowns and wags her finger at me.
In my hand is a phone with Captain America on the lock screen. The phone of teenage boy.
“Sorry,” I tell the lady, and she tsks me as she walks toward the elevator.
I howl at the injustice of it all, but that doesn’t erase the fact that the phone in my hand is not mine but belongs to Derrick. I replay the moment of our collision at the gate again and again because I was certain I’d checked this phone before I shoved it into my pocket. Certain I’d checked the time or at least made sure it was mine, because my phone and its case are identical to Derrick’s.
The same green case with the grippy silicone texture. We even joked about it that first week, when Derrick had been trying to find a signal and dropped it on the pavement right in front of me. My mom got me this case because she said it was indestructible even for me , he’d said. I’ve dropped it a million times.
But as I lay sprawled on the hard airport floor, I assumed the phone closest to my knee was mine. In a hurry to get the boys onboard, I didn’t double-check.
And now I’m stuck with a tween’s phone that’s chock full of silly games and is incapable of speed-dialing Sophie, or loading my email, or responding to Victoria’s texts that I’d told myself I’d answer as soon as the kids were all strapped into their seats and headed home.
Meanwhile, my phone is shoved into the pocket of Derrick’s jacket, probably already sticky from a candy wrapper and lord knows what else, cruising at thirty thousand feet on its way to Atlanta.
When I get back to the Institute, Sophie says, “Noah, I’ve been calling you nonstop. What’s going on?” She frowns, clearly annoyed.
“Sorry,” I say, and then tell her the short version of how I came to have Derrick’s phone. I hold it out to her as proof, as if I could make this stuff up. “I’m going to call his parents and see if they’ll overnight mine to me if I do the same.”
She pushes her braids over her shoulder. “I was starting to worry you’d been in an accident.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her again. “It’s locked with a passcode.”
She smirks, taking the phone from my hand. Before I can even ask what she’s doing, she taps the screen a few times and says, “Boom.”
“You got in?”
She taps and swipes a few more times. “My little brother’s just as predictable. Now I’m disarming the lock screen so you can keep using it.”
“I won’t need to?—”
“Yes, you will,” she interrupts. “Because your sister called here four times trying to get in touch with you and needs you to call her ASAP.” Handing me the phone, she says, “She’s okay, not hurt or anything. But she said it’s DEFCON-1, and she’s calling in her big favor.”
I let out a heavy sigh. Hannah’s kept that big favor in her pocket for years.
“Listen,” she says. “All the car pick-ups are done. Victoria’s still at the hospital with Priya and Layla. So I’ll take the second group to the airport, and you can head out early to help Hannah.”
“You don’t have to do that, Soph.”
“I know,” she says. “But your sister needs you. I can handle the kiddos, and I’m already done packing up the office. No problem.”
“You really are the best,” I tell her.
She gives me a friendly shrug. “You’d do the same for me.”
I call Hannah from the landline in the office, and she picks up on the first ring. Her voice is high pitched, and she’s talking so fast I can barely understand her. She never, ever sounds this hurried. She’s always calm and calculating, planning ten steps ahead.
“Hannah,” I interrupt. “Slow down. Are you okay?”
A breath whooshes out of her.
“I’m safe,” she says. “I’m not hurt. But I need you to come help me move out of my apartment. I want to empty this place and be out by the time Jason gets back tonight.”
“What happened?”
“The CliffsNotes version? I found out he’s been cheating on me, and I don’t want to stay in this place one more minute. But all of my work stuff is here, and I have to get it moved out so I can work from…wherever I land. He’ll be back by six, and I want to be long gone by then. Can you please, please come help me get all this crap out of here? I also need you here as my moral compass so I don’t do something cuckoo yet appropriate, like fill his bed with fire ants and use his precious record collection to start a bonfire.”
“Ugh, Hannah.” I rake my hand through my hair, knowing my only option is to go help her. It means I won’t get to see Victoria and talk about what happened last night—or explain why I haven’t answered her texts all day.
But this is my baby sister, and she needs me. Hannah never asks for my help because she always wants to handle everything herself. I have some theories about why that is—because independent women like her are often the way they are because they’re accustomed to people letting them down.
I see that in Victoria, too.
And right now, I can’t be one of those people who lets Hannah down.
“I’ll be there as fast as I can,” I tell her. “If that idiot comes home before I get there, just leave. Wait for me at a coffee shop. Got it?”
She snorts. “I can handle the idiot.”
Not the way I want to, but I keep that thought to myself. Jason’s not a violent man, based on what Hannah’s told me—but he’s a manipulative one who’ll try to con his way right back into her good graces faster than you can say heartburn . And under all that armor, Hannah has a big, soft heart.
By the time I get down to Hannah’s apartment in Charleston, it’s nearly five o’clock. Her door’s standing wide open, and half a dozen plastic tubs are piled just inside.
“Hannah?” I call.
“Thank goodness,” she says, plowing into me like a linebacker. She wraps me in a tight, quick hug and then says. “Thanks for coming. I’ll fill you in on everything over an expensive bottle of tequila—my treat—but right now, we need to get rolling. He’s always home a few minutes after six, and if I see his face, I’m just going to put my foot through it.”
She stomps into the bedroom in her beat-up red cowboy boots, and there’s not a doubt in my mind that those words are true.
For the next forty minutes, we pile her most important belongings into her car and mine. When the last box is in the trunk, her cheeks are pink, and her hair’s frizzy because the humidity down here stops for no one. Opal the doodle is strapped into her passenger seat, tongue lolling like this is the best day ever.
“You’re taking the dog?” I ask her.
Her brow lifts. “Of course I am. She prefers me and Jason can’t be trusted with anything that needs more care than a pet rock.” The dog barks, as if to confirm. “Plus, he doesn’t deserve her.”
“Didn’t deserve you, either,” I say, and her lip ticks up in a smile.
“I’ll follow you,” Hannah says, because it’s understood that she’ll come crash at my house. She knows I’m always her soft place to fall.
By ten p.m., Hannah’s snoring on my sofa, right where she crash-landed after we ate an entire pepperoni pizza and played our Bridgerton drinking game with some top-shelf tequila . I consider waking her so we can pull out the sofa bed, but she doesn’t move a muscle as I tiptoe around the room, gathering the last of our dishes. A couple of hours ago, she set up her workstation in the far corner of this room, claiming she only needed a laptop and a comfy chair to do her work. I offered to make a space for her in my spare room, which is basically like a study with a treadmill, but she said, “No need for that. I’ve already got a couple of leads on apartments and will be out of here before you know it.”
I drape a blanket over her and switch off the lights as I head out onto the back porch. My house is small, situated in an old neighborhood filled with mid-century style homes. With two bedrooms and an open-plan kitchen-living-dining area, it’s plenty big enough for me. It needed some repairs and updates when I bought it, but the thing that sold me on this place was the yard and the screened-in back porch. The previous owners, who loved gardening, created an oasis out back, complete with flowering shrubs, a seating area around a fire pit, and a hammock nestled in the shade. Now, as I collapse into the wicker sofa on the porch, my cordless phone lights up with a call.
“Hi,” Roxy says. “I finally got a hold of Derrick’s parents and have this phone situation worked out for you.”
“Please tell me they’re up for overnighting.”
“Yes,” she says. “I gave them your address, and they said they’d ship it to you first thing in the morning. I got you a prepaid label so you can do the same. I just emailed it to you.”
“Roxy, you’re the best.”
“How’s Hannah?”
I peek back inside the house, where she’s still motionless on the sofa. “Exhausted, but she’s okay. I owe Sophie big time for letting me skip out early.”
“Yeah, she’s one of the good ones,” Roxy says. “But so are you.”
I almost ask her for Victoria’s cell number. But then I consider the last words Vic said to me and think better of it. If she wants space to think, then I’m going to give it to her. I told her I’d wait, and I meant it. But I wish I could text her right now, just to make sure she got back safely and let her know I’m thinking of her.
“Thanks,” I tell Roxy. “For everything.”
“Of course. Enjoy your week off, Noah. I’ll be in touch soon.”
In another week, I’ll be at the next camp, this one based at one of the satellite campuses outside of Charleston. I hope that Victoria will be there, too—but now that we’re off the mountain and I’m alone on my porch, that possibility seems much less likely than it did a few days ago.
After hanging up, I go inside to check my email. When I pull my laptop from my messenger bag, Victoria’s copy of Ready Player One slips out and lands at my feet. She was right, as usual—the story hooked me from the start, and I’ve been trying to savor it, not allowing myself to read more than three chapters each night. I place it on the kitchen counter and then open my laptop.
Roxy indeed sent the mailing label for Derrick’s phone, which I print out immediately.
As I scroll through my inbox, I see another email from her—it’s a follow-up that she always sends when a camp is over, just to check in and see what went well and what could be improved. When I open it, I see that she didn’t use blind-copy to send it to our staff. My email address is fully visible—as are Sophie’s and Victoria’s.
I stare at Vic’s email address for a long moment.
There’s no doubt in my mind that she thinks I’m ignoring her texts, and I don’t want her to feel ghosted. Again.
In two days I’ll have my phone. I can read those messages I only glimpsed, and I can reply.
But right now, two days feels like an eternity.
I start typing, then delete. I repeat this five more times until I have a breezy, friendly message that’s not the hopeless rambling of a man who’s fallen so hard he’s knocked all sense out of his head.
Because that’s exactly what’s happened. I’ve fallen so hard for this woman, I might never recover.
Victoria—
I just wanted to check in and see how your day went. I’m sorry I missed you, but I had to rush home to help Hannah. I was looking forward to talking with you and wanted to at least call. But—funny story—I lost my phone. Or rather, Derrick took mine home by accident (because of course he did), and I have his.
Let’s talk soon. I miss you already.
N.
I stare at the words, then add in the phone number of my landline. It’s worth a try, right? I finish the last of my margarita and make a plea to the universe as I hit send .