Howie
Mayhem's couch is worse than Rookie’s, but it seems like it costs less, at least.
It's a brown corduroy thing that smells like a dog, even though Mayhem is a cat dad, and my feet hang off the end. His Observatory Hill house is quiet — no barge horns, drunk people sauntering around outside, just birds and the distant hum of Riverview Park waking up.
My cheek throbs. My knee throbs. My everything throbs.
I lie here staring at Mayhem's ceiling, which has cracks in the plaster like a regular-person house, and I think about Ella telling me to go home.
So I went. Because she asked. Because I'm trying to be the man who listens, not the man who takes.
I thought Mayhem would talk to me for once, tell me what to do about that apartment with her clothes in my closet and the ghosts of my promises filling the space.
But he just fed me along with his furball and went to bed.
Mayhem appears in the doorway now, though, with two mugs of coffee. He's already dressed in black sweats, bare feet. He is fully awake, like he’s been up for hours reading. He hands me a mug and sits in the armchair across from me and doesn't speak.
We drink our coffee in silence for a few minutes. I fully understand why Cappy nicknamed this guy Mayhem. He’s anything but. Dude is stoic and calm, but clearly filled with opinions he’s patiently waiting for you to acknowledge.
"What's the plan?" he asks eventually.
"I don't have one."
He nods. Sips. Waits. His orange cat wanders into the room and sits beside Mayhem so both of them are staring at me, waiting.
"I don't know what to do, Cameron.” I almost never use his real name. It comes out raw. "She told me to leave, and it felt like abandoning her in a parking lot. But I also don’t think it would have been right to insist on putting her in my car against her—”
My phone rings with Rookie’s custom sound effect: the “where’s the beef” commercial from the 1900’s.
My stomach drops. I stare at it until Mayhem says, "Answer it."
So I do.
"Howie." Jason's voice is wrong. Not angry. Not the low, dangerous quiet from the parking lot. This is something tight, fast, like Rookie is barely holding it together. "Is Ella with you?"
"No. Why?"
"She's gone."
I sit up so fast that coffee sloshes on the corduroy. "What do you mean she's gone?"
"I mean, she's GONE, dude. Her stuff — the closet is empty. Everything she had is gone." His breath is ragged. "She left my laptop open on an airline site about flights to Minneapolis."
The floor tilts. I grip the arm of the couch.
"I tried calling her," Rookie says. "Straight to voicemail. I texted. Nothing. She's not at the hospital. I already called the ER desk."
“Rookie—”
"I chased her away." His voice cracks, and I hear something I've almost never heard from Jason Rujkowski — not anger, not bravado, but genuine, chest-deep anguish.
"I drove her out of my home. My own sister. She came to Pittsburgh because I told her I’d help her out, and I sucked at that, and now she's going back to Minnesota. "
I close my eyes. My own guilt is a living thing in my chest, clawing for space next to the fear.
"We both did this," I say. "I should have told you weeks ago. I should have been honest with you instead of sneaking around behind your back. That's on me."
Rookie is quiet for a beat. "Yeah. It is." Another beat. "But I'm the one who punched you and told her she was making a mess of things. After her big exam." His voice drops. "What kind of brother does that?"
"The kind who shows up to drive her home from a test he didn't even know about until yesterday."
"And then ruins it."
"Yeah," I say. "And then ruins it. Like I said, we both contributed to this mess."
Mayhem is already on his feet, pulling on shoes. He heard enough from my side of the conversation. I put Rookie on speaker.
"Rookie, I'm at Mayhem's. I'm going to find her."
"How? She's not answering—"
“Call the crew, and we split up,” I offer, and Mayhem nods. I grab my keys from the coffee table and shove my feet into my shoes. "You should check the airport. Spinner has McKenzie's number.”
“Who?” Rookie sounds like he, too, is grabbing keys.
I pinch the bridge of my nose, frustrated that this guy missed so much in the short time Ella was living with us.
“One of Ella's nurse friends. They might have heard from her."
"Okay. Yeah. Okay." Rookie’s voice steadies. "Howie."
"Yeah?"
"Find her. Please."
I hang up. Mayhem is already at the door, phone in hand, texting Spinner. "Go," he says. "I'll coordinate."
I drive, swinging by the hospital, not sure why. It’s not like I can go in there and ask if she showed up to work.
But as I’m swinging through uptown, a thought occurs to me. Ella was looking up airfare, but she’s also been working on her own version of flight.
As I drive to the silk studio, running yellow lights, muscles straining, I know that my hunch is correct. I just know Ella will be in here, trying to soar.
Because I know Ella Rujkowski the way I know the ice, it’s pure instinct understanding at this point. When everything falls apart, Ella runs to the thing that makes her feel strong. The thing that's hers.
I park crooked in front of the studio and half-jog to the entrance. Through the glass I can see the silks hanging from the ceiling, purple and red, and one of them is taut.
I push through the door.
She's in the air like a gorgeous bird. She looks so strong and powerful, back arched, thick leg sticking out behind her. The swell of her belly glows in the sun streaming through the studio window. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.
Her suitcase sits against the wall by the shoe cubbies, packed and waiting for her to come down, wheel it to the airport, and disappear from my life.
"The only flying you should be doing," I say, and my voice echoes in the studio, "is down from there and into my arms."
Her head snaps toward me. She wobbles on the silk and tightens her grip, staring down at me from her perch. This beautiful, stubborn, brilliant woman who saves lives and climbs fabric and makes me feel like I'm special.
My black eye must look spectacular because her expression shifts from shock to concern to something softer. "Bernard. Your face."
"It's fine. Get down here."
She descends a little awkwardly and lands on the mat. "You found me," she says.
"Of course, I found you." I step closer. "I'm a St. Bernard, remember? Search and rescue. It's what I do."
Her face crumples — not into tears, into something between a laugh and a sob. "You enormous, ridiculous man."
"Come here, Ella."
She crosses the mat and walks into my arms, and I hold her the way I've been wanting to since I caught sight of her at the airport — completely, with everything I have, like she's the thing I've been looking for without knowing I was lost.
Then I kiss her. Not a stolen kitchen kiss or something secret. I kiss her like she ought to be kissed, in the daylight, openly.
When we break for air, I tuck her head against my chest and tell her, “You scared me. And your brother. What made you leave?”
She pulls back and looks up at me. "I got a voicemail from Susan." Her lip wobbles. “She wants me to come in for a meeting. About my position." Her jaw tightens. "I think I failed, Bernard."
"You don't know that."
"The tone of her voice—"
"You don't know." I hold her face in both hands. "Ella. You are the most capable person I have ever met. You aced every practice test for weeks. You are a goddamn incredible nurse, and you are going to walk into that meeting tomorrow and hear what Susan has to say."
"I'm scared."
"I know. But you can be scared. I've watched you do scared. You do scared better than anyone." I press my forehead against hers. "I'll drive you there. I'll sit in the parking lot and wait. Whatever you need, but just stay. Please.”
She blinks up at me with tears near her lashes and swallows, nodding almost imperceptibly. But I’ll take it.
I release her and walk to the wall where her suitcase sits propped against the cubbies. I grab the handle and roll it toward the door.
"What are you doing?" she asks.
"Putting this in my car and taking you home."
"Bernard—"
"Your place is in Pittsburgh, Ella." I turn to look at her. "Your friends are here. Your job is here. Your weird circus hobby is here."
“It’s not weird.”
"Your glorious hobby is here." I hold out my hand. "And I'm here. So let's go home."
She stares at my hand. Then at me. I lean forward until our fingers touch, and then I wrap her hand in mine for good.
We walk out of the studio into the cold March morning. I toss her suitcase in the back of the G-Wagon beside my gym bag and open her door. She climbs in, and the heated seat hums to life. She makes that sound, the tiny sigh, a pleased little groan I've been obsessed with since January.
I pull away from the curb with our fingers threaded together, the way they’ve been in the dark. But that was before. Now that I have her with me in broad daylight, I’m not letting go.