Page 97 of Penny For Your Thoughts
Diem had gone quiet on his end of the line. It foretold his failure to locate the Bentley as well.
I didn’t give up, scanning cars and reading license plates until I reached the exit for the Gardiner Express and admitted defeat. I pulled over and checked to see if my phone was still connected. The open line remained, but when I took it off speaker and pressed it to my ear, all I heard was Echo whimpering.
“D?”
Nothing.
“Diem, are youstill—”
“Fuuuuck!”
I startled at the roar that came through the line. My blood turned to ice.
Diem swore. A lot. It was ingrained in his DNA. Part of his programming. I pretended those volatile words, spoken plentifully throughout the day, were a safety feature, a release valve on a pressure chamber, allowing enough anger to escape during stressful times so Diem wouldn’t blow a gasket.
Swearing was normal. Expected.
So when the F-bomb exploded through the line, it should have felt like any other frustrating moment, but it didn’t. The single word was so raw and visceral, so ugly, it radiated like a shockwave, pebbling the skin up and down my arms and raising the hairs along my nape.
It cracked the earth’s crust.
Collapsed mountains hundreds of thousands of years old.
The space station shivered.
Then, all was silent.
Echo’s frantic whine was the only sound beyond traffic.
I clutched the phone. “Diem?” Quieter, I said, “Diem, talk to me.”
“I gotta go.” His voice came out shredded.
“Don’t you dare hang up on me.” I yelled only to snag his attention. “If you love me even a fraction of what you claim, then you listen to me, Diem Krause.”
I paused, and the line remained connected. He was slipping off that dangerous edge inside his mind, but I wouldn’t let go. I would hold onto him now and for forever.
“We’ll find him. We have a license plate and the make and model of the vehicle. Drive to the office.”
“I promised him.”
“I know.”
“I fucking promised.”
“I know, D.”
And although Diem might never admit it—I wasn’t sure he’d even come to the realization yet—pulling Darcy out of the gutter and getting him back on his feet had become his mission. Something about the kid aroused Diem’s protective urges. It had triggered during their first encounter at the supplement store over a year ago, an exchange Diem couldn’t quite explain, and it had bloomed and grown in the past twenty-four hours after Diem had seen Darcy’s living arrangement.
Thatwas why I was jealous. So few people earned a place of importance in Diem’s life. Those of us who did, fought for it. It had taken almost a year to convince Diem to date me, yet Darcy, for whatever reason, had crash-landed into the middle of his life without warning. Without trying. Instead of rejecting the kid as annoying—which he was—Diem had embraced his kindred spirit and became a protective older brother overnight.
“Office, D.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
21
