Page 36 of Come Find Me
I turn the phone on, holding my breath. Three new messages. I groan, holding the phone to my ear. The first is from my father, asking me where exactly I am, because they need to talk to me. The second is my father again, this time agitated, telling me to call him as soon as I get this.As soon as,he repeats. And the third message is static—nothing there. Time for my parents to get a new line. I can only imagine the state of my father during that call, though. How things might have escalated when I didn’t respond.
Sorry,I mouth to Kennedy, hitting the call-back button for my dad’s cell.
“Nolan?” he asks right away, as if my number hadn’t just shown up on his display.
“Sorry, Dad, I didn’t realize my phone had lost charge.”
Kennedy makes a face at my lie. Like I didn’t just see her do the same to her uncle, coming up with an excuse about who I was and where we were going.
My dad talks so fast I can’t keep up. “What? Dad, calm down. What?”
“Thepicture,” my dad says, and I can hear his breath, the restraint in his words. “You need to come home and look at the picture, Nolan.”
Kennedy raises her eyes to mine. His voice is so loud that she must’ve heard.
“You need to go?” she says, the pizza slice inches from her mouth, propped up in both hands.
“Sorry, I do,” I say. I grab a box from the counter behind us so she can take it to go. “There’s something happening at my house. My brother’s case.”
She holds up one finger, takes a bite, closing her eyes. As if the fate of the universe can hold on for just one moment. One simple moment where the only thing either of us is thinking about is the state of the world’s best pizza.
She starts to laugh then. “Nolan,” she says as I’m gathering my things. “I don’t know how to say this, but I think it is.”
“What?” I’m already mapping the course home. She pushes the half-eaten slice my way.
“The world’s best pizza. I’m not lying—it’s really good.” She’s really laughing, and it makes me pause. It’s the first time I’ve heard her laugh.
I take a bite to humor her, feel the warmth, the flavor, the grease in my mouth. “Oh shit,” I say around the bite, and she laughs. I can feel my eyes bugging out of my head. I change my mind, finishing the slice.
“We should come back here one day,” she says, “just, one day.”
“Yeah,” I say as she grabs the to-go box. “Let me know, though, if it’s as good reheated.”
She shakes her head. “Come on, you already know the answer to that.”
Joe is sitting at the kitchen table when Nolan drops me off, much like when I got home from school. I wonder if he’s moved at all since then, except I see a beer there instead of a soda, so…
“I come bearing dinner,” I say, the rest of the pizza still lukewarm in the box.
“I thought you were studying at the library?” he says, half question, half accusation.
“We took a dinner break,” I say, sliding the box onto the table. I open the top, contort my hands into the best impersonation of a magician revealing her tricks. “Ta-da,” I say.
Joe picks up a slice halfheartedly, not realizing he’s in the presence of the self-proclaimed World’s Best Pizza. He takes a bite, puts it down. Takes one more, then chases it with a beer. I frown. I make a note to tell Nolan:Not as good. The subject is unaffected.
I get myself a paper plate from the pantry, to join him.
“Who was that, Kennedy?” he asks as I sit down across from him.
“Nolan, I told you.”
“I’m just wondering if…you know.”
I raise an eyebrow. Idoknow. He wants to know if this Nolan is my boyfriend. As in, have I broken hisno boysrule officially. “He’s just a friend of mine, Joe. I am allowed to have friends, right?”
He nods, and I take a slice from the box. I scrunch my nose, chewing carefully. It’s missing something, outside the restaurant. It’s not just the heat. It’s something else, and I can’t put my finger on it.
Joe puts the bottle down, spinning it on the table, not meeting my eye. “The call that came in earlier,” he says, “it was the Realtor.”
