For a split second, Jim got pissed that the guy had sacrificed his physical well-being just so Matthias could get laid in the previous round. But come on. It wasn’t like Jim had a leg to stand on when it came to making questionable calls about personnel.
Adrian looked at Jim’s door, and in the overhead light his face registered all kinds of, Whatever, dude.
“I’m down here,” Jim muttered. “And so is she.”
Ad glanced over. Limped over. Didn’t sit down—then again, getting him back up from the floor would be a thing.
“I’m glad you moved her,” Ad said gruffly.
Exactly when had the guy grown a sense of propriety? “She’s still asleep.”
At least … that was the theory.
“I’m going to bed,” Ad said. “There’s leftover Pizza Hut in the fridge.”
“Where you been?”
“Out. I’ve been out.”
On that note, the guy shuffled away with his cane—and went past the door to his own room. He just kept going, heading for the staircase, and then going by that, too.
Clearly, he was crashing in a linen closet in the hall. And didn’t that make as much sense as anything did lately.
A moment later, Jim looked up at the high ceiling above his head. Footfalls in the attic sent dust down like a mist, making him sneeze once. Twice. And then there was a series of thumps, as if a box had been overturned and whatever encyclopedias had been in it were scattering across the floor.
Silence.
Ad was clearly seeking solace with Eddie.
God, if that angel had been with them right now? Jim could just imagine those red eyes staring at him like he’d lost his ever-loving mind.
Nearly made him relieved the guy was gone.
With a groan, Jim got to his feet. Lifting his arms up over his head, he pulled his spine back into alignment, and as his vertebrae resettled, he went across to Sissy’s door.
As logical as he wanted to be, his adrenal gland got the better of him. He knocked quietly, his waiting game over.
No answer. He knocked a little louder.
In the end, he cracked the door, but didn’t look in. “Sissy?”
When there was no answer, he wished he had even one caretaking gene in his body. That girl in there deserved her mother’s TLC after all she’d been through—or at least someone’s compassionate hand stroking her hair, rubbing her back, bringing her food, drink … whatever she wanted.
To have died and gone to Hell … only to be brought back in a kind of limbo?
“Sissy…?”
He put his shoulder through the opening, pushing it wider. Then he leaned inside.
There wasn’t much light to see anything, but he heard the covers shuffling as if she were moving around. “Sissy?”
He took a step into the room, and opened the door all the way, weak illumination falling on her curled-up form.
She was definitely breathing. Whether she was asleep or just pretending to be? He didn’t know. What he was clear on was that she didn’t acknowledge him.
After a moment, Jim closed the door. Sat back down. And kept waiting.
“Actually … I’m meeting him now.”
As Cait hit her turn signal, she tried to figure out exactly where the cut-through to the Palace Theatre’s parking garage was.
“Okay,” Teresa said over the phone, “I’m not going to lie. I am so jealous I can barely speak.”
“Well, it’s not like we’re dating. Don’t get ahead of things.”
“You are going on ‘a’ date. One more after this? You are ‘dating.’”
“Finally!” Cait slammed on the brakes and yanked her car into the two-inch-wide slot to hit the ticket kiosk. “Why don’t they mark these things better?”
“You’re deflecting.”
She put down her window and took what the little machine spit out. “No, I’m trying to park.”
“So you have to tell me how this happened.”
Cait frowned as she hit the gas and began her ascent, looking left and right for an opening in the lineup of cars. “I departed from my house, got on the Northway, and took the exit for—”
“No, let’s try, ‘I was sitting by the phone and it rang and—’”
“He asked me to come to this show.” She shrugged even though her friend couldn’t see her. “It was that simple.”
Well, kind of. She was not mentioning that he’d called her while he was still in bed, and that there was a strong possibility that he’d been naked. No confirmation, and maybe it was just her imagination—but that tone in his voice?
It had said naked.
“He’s singing backup,” she tacked on in the unlikely event Teresa could read her mind over the phone. “For Millicent Jayson.”
“Well, I’ve heard of her. But what a waste for him.”
“Agreed.”
“So how’s it going to work? Do you have a backstage pass? Or is he meeting you?”
“I’m supposed to go wait by will-call. Honestly, I don’t know.”
“What are you wearing? Tell me you have some cle**age showing.”
“Aha!” Cait pulled into a spot between a Kia and a Mini—two cars with small profiles that probably wouldn’t door her—plus as a bonus, it was only two floors up and right under a security light. “And as for cle**age? Come on, you know I don’t have a lot to show.”
“Quality over quantity, baby.”
“Uh-huh. Right. ’Cuz that’s how Pamela Anderson made her money.” Cait snagged her phone, locked up, and walked fast for the open-air stairwell. There was an elevator, but in her new workout-world mentality, stairs were king. “Okay, I’m going to go—and yes, before you ask, I’ll call you as soon as it’s over.”
“I hope I don’t hear from you until tomorrow morning.”
Cait was quiet for a moment, nothing but the clip-clomp of her loafers ringing out around the cold, concrete garage. “You’re a really good friend, you know that.”
“Yeah, yeah, what can I say. I’m also a sucker for romance—and if it can’t be me, there’s no one I’d rather it be than you. It’s beyond time for you to get out there again, Cait.”
The latter was said as gently as Teresa could put anything—and it had to be about Thom and his soon-to-be-here baby.
Damn it, that whole thing still stung, Cait thought. Even though it had been years, and was now totally and completely not her business.