“Yeah. It’s me.”
He was awake now. “Cavan. Where the hell are you calling from?”
In the bathroom, the shower turned off. “I’m in Arizona,” I lied. “I’m not sure exactly where. It’s a truck stop on the highway.”
That was me, good old Cavan. I’ll call you in the middle of the night after a decade, then lie about where I am so you won’t look for me. I’m a real fucking prince.
And still, Max gave a fuck. “Are you all right?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’m fine. Things are just weird right now. I read some crazy thing about an inheritance.”
“Yeah,” Max said, calm as could fucking be. “It’s true. You should call Devon about it.”
“I’m not calling Devon,” I said, the words immediate out of my mouth the way they always were when his name came up. “Not now.”
“Why not? He wants to hear from you.”
I didn’t want to find out if that was true. “I’m not. I’m calling you, Max. You’re saying the money is for real?”
“Yes, it’s for real,” Max said. He sounded like himself now, though his voice was a little rougher, and it made me feel so fucking sad for ten lost years. “But you have to claim it.”
The article about the inheritance hadn’t said anything about claiming the money. “You mean come to California.”
“Yeah, I mean come to California. You should come here anyway, man. Your brother wants to see you.”
“I really doubt that,” I said. But I needed the money. “Shit. This might be complicated. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Why is it complicated?” Max asked me, and I knew what was behind those words. Where are you? What is your life like? Tell me.
“There’s a woman,” I said before I could stop myself from telling the truth. “She’s in trouble. I’m trying to help.”
“You have a girlfriend? A wife?”
“No. She isn’t my girlfriend. She’s… I don’t know what she is. Like I say, it’s complicated. We can’t come to California yet. I have to get her out of trouble first.”
“Cavan, I don’t get it. You aren’t making any sense.”
Dani was moving around in the bathroom, and I had to get off the phone. “It won’t take long,” I told Max. “It’s just a quick stop. And then maybe we’ll come. Or maybe I’ll come alone. I don’t really know. Just tell Devon that, okay? Tell him I’ll come when I can.” If I live.
“Cavan—”
“Tell him,” I said, and hung up as the bathroom door swung open.
Dani stood there, her short hair—I was still getting used to it—hanging damply to her shoulders. She was wearing a pair of panties and nothing else. She had a towel pressed to her front, holding it over her breasts, like that was some kind of cover. Those long, slender legs, those slim hips, her dark eyes watching me. I just stared at her like an idiot. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
“Hey,” she said. “Were you talking to someone?”
I found my voice. “An old friend,” I said, trying to think of what Max was, exactly. “A friend of my brother’s.”
“What did he say?”
Still I couldn’t take my eyes off her. “That my brother wants to talk to me.”
“Oh.” She smiled a little. “That’s good, right?”
“Probably not, no. I didn’t leave on good terms.”
She nodded, understanding, and then she shifted her weight in the bathroom doorway, as if she was nervous. “I wanted, um, for you to look at my tattoo. The bandage came off and I don’t have another one.”