I put the prosecco in the fridge and tried his phone. Four rings, voicemail. I hung up and tried again. Same thing.
I kept standing there, not quite sure what to do with my hands. Then I got my phone back out and scrolled through my contacts until I found it. Hector's Garage. Jack had put the number in there himself, months ago, standing right where I was standing now.In case I'm ever late and you can't reach me,he'd said. I'd rolled my eyes, but he'd looked pleased with himself anyway. I'd never used it.
I stared at it for a second before I hit dial.
Hector picked up on the third ring. He sounded gruff, distracted, and there was some game on loud in the background.
"Hi, sorry to bother you. Is Jack there by any chance?"
"Nah, he took off early. Around five." He paused for a moment. "Said he had something to take care of. Everything alright?"
"Yes, fine. Sorry to have bothered you. Thank you."
I hung up and considered Hector’s words. Around five. He'd left early, told Hector he had somewhere to be, and hadn't called me once in the four hours since.
Jack rode a motorcycle. It was the thing I hated most about him and he knew it, and every time he was late I went to the same dark place—some patch of ice, some idiot who hadn't checked his mirror…
But this didn't feel like that. This felt like something else.
I paced until I finally accepted it: I couldn't stay in the apartment.
I told myself I was being ridiculous as I pulled my jacket back on. Jack was fine. He'd lost track of time, or run into someone, or his phone had died and he'd forgotten to charge it at the garage. There was an explanation. There wasalwaysan explanation.
I tried him one more time on the way out. Again, voicemail.
I walked to the supermarket first, because it was close and because I needed to believe there was a normal reason for all ofthis. His bike wasn't in the lot. I stood in the cold feeling faintly stupid, then turned and kept walking.
I checked the stretch of road by the garage, half-expecting to see him pulled over somewhere, crouched over the engine with his phone dead and his hands dirty. Nothing. I looped past the laundromat, the pizza place on the corner, the little park he sometimes cut through when he walked home.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
I turned and started heading home. That was for the best. I'd go home, I'd wait, I'd stop acting like a lunatic. And then I turned onto Calloway Street and saw it.
His bike was parked outside a bar calledThe Blue Anchor, a dim little place I'd never been inside of, neon sign half-burnt out in the window. I stopped walking, my heart picking up in a way I didn't want to examine too closely.
Jack wasn't much of a drinker. The occasional beer at home, sure, or a round with the guys from the garage maybe once a month. He didn't disappear to bars. It wasn't who he was. Which meant whatever was happening in there… it wasn't nothing.
I pushed open the door and went in.
Stale beer and old smoke clung to the air, thick enough to taste. The place had been dark for so long it had stopped caring. A few guys at the bar looked up. Nobody said anything, but I felt it—wrong door, wrong girl.
The bartender, a barrel chested guy with a trimmed beard, was hauling a keg up from behind the bar. I went straight to him.
"Excuse me. Did a guy come in on a motorcycle? Dark hair, about this tall?"
He straightened up. Something moved across his face, just for a second, before he nodded. "Yeah, sure did. Just stepped out, actually."
I thanked him and pushed back through the door, back out into the cold.
I looked up and down the street. Jack’s bike was still there, but other than that… nothing. There was a parking lot across the road, a streetlight with a flicker in it, but there was nobody around. I turned toward the alley running along the side of the building. It was narrow and dark, the kind of dark that swallows detail.
A scuff of boots against brick made me stop. I took a step forward.
The alley came into focus slowly. Shadows mostly, a dumpster against the wall, and then… there it was.
Two bodies, pressed together, his hands on her waist, her fingers twisted in his hair.
The worn leather of his jacket was unmistakable, even in the shadows. The slant of his shoulders—the same shoulders I’d leaned on this morning—was a silhouette I’d know anywhere.