Chapter 20 Adrian #2
Pickle had asked for the truth. Had asked multiple times, in multiple ways, with increasing clarity. And every time, I'd given him a partial answer wrapped in reassurance.
I'm handling it.
Trust me.
Just a little more time.
The lies of a man who thought love meant management.
I thought about his face in the storage alcove. Not the anger—I'd expected the anger. It was the moment before, when he'd stepped back from my reaching hand. The look in his eyes that said I wanted to believe you. I was ready to believe you. And you made that impossible.
Disappointment. Quiet, devastating disappointment from a man who'd spent his entire life being told he was too much, finally finding someone who seemed to accept all of him—and discovering that person had been editing him the whole time.
I accepted it.
Not because I thought I could talk my way out of it. Not because I had some speech prepared that would make everything okay. Because Pickle deserved to know what had happened to his image, and how strangers planned to mock him with it.
He deserved to know, and then he could decide what happened next.
Not me. Him.
I crossed to the door. The hallway was empty when I stepped out. Beige carpet stretched in both directions, interrupted by identical doors and the soft hum of climate control.
I walked toward the elevator.
Each step felt deliberate. Heavy. The kind of walking you did when you knew you were heading toward something that couldn't be undone.
I pressed the button. Waited.
The doors opened, and I stepped inside.
When they closed again, I was already rehearsing the first words.
I need to show you something. And then I need to tell you everything I should have said at least a week ago.
***
The green awning looked different in the late afternoon light.
I'd stood under it a dozen times over the past two weeks—waiting for Pickle to buzz me in, watching him wave from the third-floor window, once catching him mid-descent on the stairs because he'd gotten impatient and come down to meet me.
That was Pickle. He didn't wait. He moved toward things.
I pressed the buzzer for his apartment.
Waited.
The intercom stayed silent. No static. No fumbling. No Pickle's voice saying coming, coming, hold on, I dropped my—never mind, just come up.
I pressed it again. Held it longer this time.
Nothing.
A woman exited the building, wrestling a stroller through the front door. She held it open with her hip, glancing at me with slight wariness.
"Thanks," I said, and slipped inside before the door swung shut.
The lobby smelled like wet carpet and someone's microwaved lunch. I took the stairs two at a time. I expected to feel the thump of my computer bag against my side.
In my exhaustion, I'd left it at the hotel. Too late to go back. I could share the specific footage if Pickle chose to go back to the hotel with me.
If.
Third floor. Left at the landing. The door with the crooked 3B that Pickle was meaning to fix.
I knocked.
The sound echoed in the hallway—flat, hollow. No footsteps inside. No crash of Pickle tripping over his gear bag on his way to answer. No muffled swearing or shouts of one second!
I knocked again. Harder.
"Pickle?"
I pressed my ear to the door. Listened.
The door across the hall opened a crack. An older man peered out, suspicion etched into every wrinkle.
"He's not home," the man said. "Left last night. Heard him on the stairs."
"Did he say where he was going?"
The man's eyes narrowed. "You the camera fellow?"
I didn't know how to answer that. "I'm a friend."
"Mmm. Haven't seen him since. Usually hear him, though. Kid's not quiet."
No. He wasn't. Pickle existed at full volume. Even when he tried to be still, energy leaked from him. Bouncing knees. Tapping fingers. The constant low-grade hum of a mind that never stopped moving.
"Thanks," I told the neighbor. He grunted and closed his door.
I stood in the hallway staring at the crooked numbers on Pickle's door.
Left last night.
Probably left shortly after returning from the arena. He didn't sleep in his apartment last night.
He'd gone somewhere else. Somewhere that wasn't me or an apartment full of memories he couldn't escape.
Jake and Evan's, probably. I pulled out my phone. Stared at the screen.
I could text him. I'm at your apartment. Where are you? We need to talk.
That was pressure.
The staircase felt longer on the way back down. Each stair creaked under my weight. The woman with the stroller was gone.
I pushed through the front door into the cold.
Pickle was out there somewhere. Processing. Hurting. Deciding whether I was worth another chance.
My phone buzzed.
I grabbed it so fast I nearly dropped it.
Not Pickle.
Hog.
I answered before the second ring finished.
"Hog."
"Adrian." His voice was level. Controlled. "Where are you?"
"Outside Pickle's building. He's not here."
"I know."
Of course, he knew. Hog always knew. That was his role on the team—the one who understood someone was struggling before they admitted it to themselves. He showed up with knitting and silence and let you fall apart without judgment.
"He stayed at Jake and Evan's last night," Hog said. "After he left the arena."
I closed my eyes. The cold pressed against my face, sharp and clarifying.
"Is he okay?" I asked.
"Define okay."
Fair. I deserved that.
"Is he—" I searched for the right question. The one that would tell me what I needed to know. "How bad is it?"
Hog was quiet for a moment. "Juno called him. Last night. While he was at Jake's."
I swallowed.
"She'd been hearing things. Industry gossip. A documentary coming out of Thunder Bay with viral potential." His voice had an audible edge. "A relatable disaster."
Relatable disaster.
The network's phrase. The angle I'd been fighting.
"What did she tell him?"
"Enough. She asked if he'd seen the footage. What he knew about the direction. Whether he understood what was being done with his image."
I pressed my free hand against the brick wall of Pickle's building, steadying myself.
"He didn't know," I said. "He didn't know any of it until I told him in the storage room. And even then—"
"Even then, you didn't tell him everything."
"No," I admitted. "I didn't."
"Here's the thing," Hog said. "Pickle's not stupid. He's loud, and he talks in weird tangents, but he's not stupid. He sat there in Jake's living room, and he listened to Juno, and he put the pieces together."
I couldn't speak.
Hog spoke barely above a whisper. "And you know what he did? He didn't spiral. He didn't call you at 2 a.m. demanding answers. He didn't show up at your hotel and make a scene."
"What did he do?"
"He decided to give you a chance to explain first."
My jaw dropped.
"He woke up this morning," Hog continued, "and he told Jake he was going to hear you out.
That maybe there was more of the story he didn't have.
That you'd been trying to tell him something, and he'd walked away before you finished, and the least he could do was listen to the whole story before he decided what to do. "
I slid down the wall until I was crouching on the sidewalk. The cold from the concrete seeped through my jeans.
Pickle had chosen trust. Again.
"When?" My voice came out raw. "When did he leave Jake's?"
"Couple hours ago."
"Where did he go?"
Hog was quiet for a beat too long.
"Hog. Where is he?"
"He was walking to your hotel, Adrian."
Pickle was either on his way to my hotel or already there.
I stood outside his empty apartment, rehearsing speeches and congratulating myself for finally choosing honesty. He'd gone to find me, and I wasn't there.
"I have to go."
"Adrian—"
"I have to go."
I hung up before he could say anything else. My legs were already moving, carrying me toward the parking lot where my rental sat waiting.
I'd finally chosen the truth.
I just hadn't chosen it fast enough.