Chapter 67

“Oh, no,” Jason said. “I’m told I’m unworthy because I didn’t notice that Dymok puked in the bathroom and clean it up before Kat stepped in it, barefoot. I’m relegated back to fuckbuddy until I provide her with wine, chocolate, and orgasms.”

Something warm, like a memory of laughter, unfurled in his chest. “And you’ve been sitting here talking to me? Buddy, you may need to reconsider your priorities.”

Jason shrugged. “So I’ll have to work extra hard on the orgasms later. Yeah, like that’s a hardship. Have you seen Kat? I mean…hnnnnnngh, that woman.”

Andy sighed, deep and heartfelt. “Seriously, you all have to stop trying to get me to think about Kat naked. It’s not good for my health.”

“Better than Scooter thinking about me naked. Oh, that was awkward, back in the day,” Jason said. “But, seriously. Airport? Train station? Or…home?”

The sun was up and the sky was already a deep blue that promised miserably hot and humid weather. The tourists were going to be insufferable. He took a breath and made his decision. 26

Scooter was flipping hamburgers with one hand and trying to read the damn inventory report with the other. Thursdays weren’t busy for lunch, not usually, but Thursday was Jason’s half-day, so Scooter was filling two jobs.

When Kat came in, she had her T-shirt tied under her breasts, baring her midriff.

“It is extra miserable out there today,” she said. “I hate this place. I want to go home.”

“There’s ice cream in the freezer,” Scooter said, waving the spatula absently. And getting grease on the wall, because of course he needed more work today. Sigh. “Can you go check on Andy? He hasn’t come down yet. He said he had a headache last night, but I didn’t think…If he’s sick, tell him to sleep in, and I’ll see if Melissa needs a few hours. But I’m in the weeds here.”

Kat messed up his hair on the way to the freezer, where she grabbed a pint container of coffee crunch. “Maybe I’ll stay for another few days. Until the ice cream runs out.”

“I’ll stock more,” Scooter promised.

Kat snagged a spoon from the drying rack and was already making headway on the ice cream as she headed out the back door. (Honestly, that woman did not understand the concept of breakfast. Breakfast was not ice cream. It was also not beet soup. Or raw oysters. Or, on one particularly nauseating occasion, grilled eel.)

Scooter frowned at the inventory. He was sure he’d counted five cases of raw burger and six cases of mustard, but the sheet read the other way around. And hamburger cost a considerable amount more than mustard. He glared down at the sizzling meat, tapping his foot impatiently. Hopefully it was just a numbers error, but he couldn’t add up a column of numbers in his head, so he’d have to double check it, and then use scrap paper and a calculator to—

“What did you do?” Kat was suddenly right there. In his face, poking him in the chest with the spoon. Hard. Leaving bruises.

Scooter had thought he’d seen her angry before.

He was so, so fuckingwrong. “What the hell, Kat?” Scooter backed up, away from the grill, hands held up defensively.

“What did you do to Andy?”

“What? Nothing! I haven’t—” Panic stuttered. “What’s wrong?”

“He is running. His room is empty. He is gone. His things are gone! I told you! I told you, you have to be careful with him. You have to—He’s gone. What did you do?”

What?

What? “I—”

She brandished a tee shirt at him. “He would not have left this, if you had not done something! If it was the person who hit him, he would have taken it with him. He is running, and it is your fault. What was it?”

“I don’t know.” He hit the staff table and sat down, hard. “I…I don’t know.” He was numb. There was grief and rage and disbelief right on the horizon, there. A tidal wave of despair rushing toward him. But until it swept him away, he was just…hollow. “Kat, what…what do we do?”

“You…you can do nothing. If he is running from you, you cannot chase him. You’ll just make it worse. As it is, none of us can make him stay, if he feels unsafe. Would you want him to, like that? Like a caged animal? It is his right to make that choice.” Kat paced around and Scooter caught a glimpse of her face, tear-streaked and distraught.

Which triggered his own tears. God, he hadn’t wept, not truly, since his mother died: not when the judge had read his sentence, not any of the time he was in jail, and not even when his father had passed on. He’d been beyond tears by that point. Sometimes his throat got tight, or his nose burned, his eyelids prickled, but this…he couldn’t stop it. He wiped his cheeks but…

What the hell had he done wrong?

“He’d take the bus,” Scooter heard himself saying, as if from some impossible distance. “He doesn’t have ID, he can’t buy a plane ticket. Call Jason. Maybe Jason can—”

“You cannot chase him!” Kat stomped her foot at him. “I tell you this, already. You will make him fear you.”

“Jason. Jason can talk to him, just…I can’t let him leave, not like this…Please, Kat. Please, I…ask Jason? Just…make sure Andy’s okay? Come on, Kat!”

Kat considered it for so much longer than Scooter could bear. More tears fell as she tapped her phone against her chin, then finally she sighed. “I will ask. Andy trusts Jason. It is hard won, they had much ground to recover, but…Jason can get close enough to talk with him. Just talk. I will not have him dragged back here like a runaway schoolboy.”

“Thank you,” Scooter said. He meant it. He just…needed to know Andy was okay. Safe

Kat pulled up her contact list and walked out to the dining room. She stopped in the door and pointed her finger at him. “You stay here.”

Jesus, what sort of monster did Kat think he was?

What sort of monster did Andy think he was?

Oh, God.