“Shit,” I grumbled when I answered.
“Nice,” he muttered on his end.
“No, I mean—shit. Listen, I’m sorry I woke you, just go back to sleep. I hafta talk to you about a lotta things, but it’ll hold until whenever you get up.”
“No, I want to know what you’re doing at…what…five thirty in the morning?” he asked, sounding lazy, languorous, like he’d been up fucking, not like I’d woken him from a sound sleep.
“Had things to do,” I replied, clipping my words. “Go back to bed.” I finished with the order and hung up on him.
He called me right back.
“Seriously, go to sleep,” I grumbled.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” he said fiercely, clearly on his way to getting angry. “I want to know where you are!”
“Why’re you yelling? You’re gonna piss off Jamie.”
“What?”
“Just come by the house tomorrow whenever you wake up, ’cause I need to talk to you.”
He sighed deeply. “Jesus, you’re annoying.”
“I’m sorry, what did you––”
“Where do you think I am right now?”
But I knew where he was, and it wasn’t a surprise. He was beautiful, and so was Jamie. It made all the sense in the world that they would be in bed together. For some reason, I thought it was a shame he never got to meet Croy, because he was missing out on a friend of mine. And why that filtered through my brain didn’t make a lot of sense, but I’d been on an adrenaline high and had crashed hard on the plane, and cried.
I mourned for the boy Nick had been, betrayed by a man who was supposed to love him and protect him. The idea of him looking to his father to save him and instead, the man left him to be beaten, gutted me.
I mourned for the horses who had been fed and nurtured and then had their bones broken by the same people who had shown them affection. The betrayal was monstrous, and imagining their eyes, and recalling the sound of their screams in the video, was heartbreaking.
It became a loop in my head. Nick, the horses, around and around.
I had seen what Nick looked like when he cried, seen how red his eyes became, and of course, my mind conjured him younger and as pale and thin as he’d been when I first arrived, and the hatred and anger swelled in me until I could barely breathe. It was lucky that I’d been alone on the plane, but for the pilot and co-pilot locked in the cockpit, because it would have been hard to explain the tears.
“Loc?” he said, and I could hear the worry infuse his voice. “Where are you?”
“Please, just go back to bed,” I said gruffly, trying to keep all emotion out of my voice and failing miserably. I needed sleep. That would at least help somewhat.
“You tell me where you are, right now,” he demanded irritably. “Your buddy only told me you had to leave and that you asked him to keep an eye on me and your mother.”
It took a second for his words to sink in. “What?”
“Although why your mother needs watching is beyond me. She’s actually a grown-up.”
“Bite your tongue,” I heard her say with a cackle.
Jesus, they were both up? And what the fuck was he doing at my mother’s house?
“Loc,” he pressed me. “Where are you?”
“What?” I repeated, because I couldn’t get my head around what was happening.
“Answer!” he barked. “Because you’re starting to scare me.”
“I…I’m driving back to my mother’s house.”
“Oh,” he said, his anger deflating, sounding confused. “Okay. Good. Now, where did you go?”
“I thought you were going to spend the night with Jamie.”
Moments ticked by. “Say that again.”
“I said,” trying not to growl, “I thought you were stayin’ at Jamie’s.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you guys were eye-fucking all through dinner, and then he came over and picked you up on a goddamn horse!”
He caught his breath, and then there was a lot of muffled noise before there was silence. Looking at my phone, I saw that the call was still connected, so clearly he’d muted me.
I was about to hang up when he was suddenly back.
“Jesus, you’re an ass,” he barked at me.
He wasn’t wrong.
“James Reider is a god behind a camera lens,” he told me. “And yes, it was nice to have his complete and total attention for a second, but come the fuck on!”
“You lost me,” I groused at him.
“It’s not a romance, for God’s sake,” he said curtly. “Is that how things work when people get older?”
“Oh, fuck you and your––”
“Jesus,” he gasped. “You actually thought that’s what was happening.”
“I––”
“Wait, wait, wait, let me think for a—is that what that looked like? Him picking me up on the horse? Like a prelude to fucking?” He was quiet for a moment.
“Are you done?” I snarled, annoyed that I’d said anything to begin with. “You can do whatever the hell you want.”