He hesitated, his gaze on Noah’s back. He never turned around, just started another game.
“Yeah,” Dante murmured.
We left him behind and walked over to the cafeteria.
“This sucks,” I told him when the silence was getting to be too much.
“It does.”
“Why aren’t you Dante-ing him?”
He looked at me quizzically. “What’s that?”
“You know, your Dante mind tricks. You need to give him the pregame warm-up speech that’s just for him. Motivate his ass back into this friendship.”
“He’s a twenty-one-year-old man, he can motivate himself,” Dante said, not hiding the bitterness well. “He just needs space to adjust.”
He had a point. I dragged a hand down my face. “When I told him I missed the strong, silent type, I didn’t mean it,” I grumbled.
“Give him time.”
“Fine.” I pulled open the door to the cafeteria. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
We stood in line for dinner. “No,” Dante said with a sigh. “It does not.”
We ate in silence, our once bubble of three very much a bubble of two. I hated it even more, and as I ate my dinner, I realized this was exactly why Dante was opting for cereal in the apartment rather than sitting here, miserable.
Savannah texted Dante after dinner to say she was done with her tutoring session and was going home to her dorm. He lasted maybe three minutes, then he pushed his chair back to go meet her.
“You coming?” he asked me.
“To Savvy’s dorm?” I asked in surprise.
“No.” He gave me a ‘you’re crazy’ look. “But it’s on the way to Hadley’s.”
That made more sense. I got up and followed him out. Hadley’s or the dorm with the reluctant Noah — there was no contest, really.
“You know what really pisses me off?” I asked him halfway to Savvy’s.
“With you?” Dante smirked. “Could be anything.”
“That social media girl, Briar. I’m sure she took that picture, and I haven’t been able to find her since.”
Dante looked thoughtful, and then he grimaced. “You haven’t exactly looked. You’ve been with Hadley or on the field.” We kept walking. “But it’s a valid comment. We’ve been too caught up, we’ve missed obvious things.”
I slowed to a halt. “I think we need to find her, no?”
He looked thoughtful. “Yeah. Where do we start?”
“When it comes to stalking?” I grinned. “With my girlfriend, of course.”
Dante laughed. He texted Savvy to say we were going to Hadley’s; she replied with a “meet you there.” I texted Hadley to let her know we were coming, and she said she’d crated Milly so she could air out the apartment for Savannah.
I climbed the stairs, amazed that it had only been this morning that I’d been running down them to get to practice on time. “It’s been a long fucking day,” I muttered.
“It has, hasn’t it,” Dante agreed.
Hadley yelled that the door was open, and I pushed it hesitantly, just in case I had to catch a three-legged escapee. I needn’t have worried. Milly was in a blue cat carrier, glaring at us all.