“Okay,” agrees Harper, instantly.

“Okay,” shrugs Victoria.

I open my eyes, and we all look at Margaret.

“Okay,” she finally says, her eyes on her empty glass and not on us.

“Thanks,” I sigh.* * *I sleep over at Caleb’s that night. We don’t even have sex again, he just comes and gets me from the bar, then lets me drunkenly raid his fridge while I sober up a little and recount the should-dinosaurs-have-feathers argument that I had with my roommates.

For the record, he is very definitely laughing at me, even as he coerces me into drinking water and eating some bread. I tell him several times that dino feathers are no laughing matter, but I can’t keep a straight face either.

I don’t mention the other argument.

I wake up to Caleb’s hand on my shoulder, shaking me softly.

“Thalia,” he says. “Hey. Thalia.”

I feel like someone’s dragging me up from underwater. When I finally open my eyes and look at him, I’m not sure what’s happening.

“Huh?”

“Your phone,” he says.

“What?”

“Your phone is ringing,” he says, groggy but patient, and I lift my head a little higher.

Then, finally, I hear the muffled, tinny sound.

“What time is it?” I ask, then glance at the bedside click myself.

Four-thirty in the morning.

“Shit,” I mutter, then roll out of bed. At least I’m not drunk any more, but I’m not exactly at my best, either. I manage to find my way to my purse, tossed in a corner last night, and then rummage through it until I finally get to my phone.

The moment I find it, the thing stops ringing, and the missed calls pop up.

It’s from Bastien.

Actually, I’ve got four missed calls from Bastien, and that’s when the fear grips my heart. I let myself slide to the floor, the wood cold against my bare thigh, my head pounding, my whole body feeling heavy.

“What is it?” Caleb asks from the bed, just as my phone starts ringing again. This time, I answer immediately.

“What happened?” I ask, not bothering with a greeting.

On the other end, Bastien clears his throat.

“They found Javi,” he says.

I can’t breathe. I need to know, need to ask, but I can’t find the air to do it with.

“Alive,” Bastien says.Chapter Thirty-NineCalebThalia bursts into tears.

I’ve never gotten out of bed so fast. I drag half the sheets and the blankets after me, spilling onto the floor, as I kneel next to her and put one arm around her, my other hand on her leg.

“Where?” she whispers into the phone as she turns to me, eyes wide, tears spilling out.

Then she shakes her head, looks away from me at the wall again, puts her hand over mine on her leg and I have no idea what any of that means.

“In Richmond?” she asks, pauses. “Is that — is he still? Can they keep him, or —"

Another pause, and even though I can only hear her half of the conversation, I’ve got a feeling that I know who this is about.

Thalia closes her eyes and tears drop from beneath her lashes. I plant my lips on her bare shoulder and keep them there.

“Okay,” she says. “Right. But —"

Another long pause, and she looks over at me.

“He’ll be okay, right?” she asks, into the phone. “From this, I mean? The worst is over from this?”

She waits a second for a response.

“Thanks,” she says. “I’ll let you know. Love you. Tell Mom and Dad that too. Thanks, Bossy. Bye.”

She pulls her phone away from her face and hangs up, turns it off, plunging my bedroom back into darkness with nothing but the faint light of a street lamp around the edges of my curtains.

Thalia takes a long, unsteady breath, then lets it out, and I pull her toward me until her head is on my shoulder.

“Javier?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she whispers, her voice rough. She clears her throat, takes another breath, wipes at her face. “He overdosed, but —” she takes another deep, rough breath, “ — he got the Narcan in time and someone called 911, so now he’s in the hospital in Richmond. Bastien and my parents are heading there now.”

“But he’ll be okay?” I ask, letting my fingers drift through her hair.

“He survived the overdose,” she says. “Okay is… a big ask.”

“That’s all I meant,” I tell her, already wishing I’d said something else, like alive.

“I know,” she sighs, and I wrap my arms around her, let her lean against my chest.

“I’m ready to go whenever you are,” I tell her, looking at the street light filtering through the window. It’s close to the winter solstice, so the sun won’t be up for nearly two and a half more hours. We might be there before the sun.

Thalia’s quiet for a long, long moment.

“I can’t ask you for this,” she says.

“You’re not asking.”

“I’ve never given you anything back,” she says, her voice a scratchy whisper in the near-dark. “I came home way too drunk last night and ate all your snacks while I was complaining about dinosaurs, and you put up with me and got me to bed properly, and now it’s not even five in the morning and my stupid family has more awful bullshit and I can’t — you can’t be this nice to me, Caleb. You can’t.”

Tags: Roxie Noir Loveless Brothers Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net