Nothing More (28 page)

I look at the time on the stove. It's nearly one in the morning.

“I don't know,” I lie.

She's having a hard enough time lately, I don't want to burden her with my problems, especially when I don't even understand them.

Tessa looks at me and I can see the speculation in her eyes. She glances around the room and spots the cake on the counter.

“Where's Nora?” she asks.

My throat is dry as I explain. “She came by for a little bit, then she got called back to work.”

“Back to work? By who? I just left there and Robert and I were the last people there.”

I should be surprised by this, but I'm not.

I wave an unconcerned hand. “I must have heard her wrong. How was work?”

I change the subject, and Tessa lets me.

T
HE MORNING CAME
faster than I expected.

When I wake up, I lie in bed for a while, just staring at my ceiling fan. I wonder who lived here before me, and why they decided to paint the fan mismatching colors. Every blade is a different color. Blue, then green, then purple, then yellow, and lastly, red. I wonder if it was a child's room. If not, the inhabitants must have had quite the quirky side.

I don't know what time it is when I finally push myself to get out of bed. All I know is that I'm exhausted, like I've been through a war in the night. When I grab my phone to check the time, it's dead. I plug it into the charger and make my way to the living room.

The living room is dark and the television is on. Tessa's sleeping on the couch and an episode of
Cupcake Wars
is playing on the screen, the volume low. I grab the remote from where it lies on her stomach and turn off the TV. She's still wearing her work uniform. She must have been drained by the time she got home. I could tell by the way her eyes were closing while she ate the plate of food she brought from work last night. We sat at the table for less than thirty minutes and she gave me a play-by-play of her night.

A group of professors from NYU came in, twenty minutes before closing, and sat in her section. It had to have bothered her a little, even though she didn't say, that they were from NYU, since the university hasn't accepted her yet. I'm sure they will, just not for this semester. She doesn't want Ken to use his position at WCU to try to help her, but I believe he's going to if they don't take her for the winter semester. It would be pretty cool to have her on campus with me, even though we have different majors. During our sophomore year, a few of our classes will overlap since I'm going for early childhood education and she's going for English.

I walk into the kitchen to check the time. It's only eight. It's sort of weird that the stove is our only clock in the entire apartment. We rely on our phones to tell us the time; I wonder how the clock business is handling that.

It would be so strange to live in a time when you have to walk into a building or the town square to check the clock. And what if it was wrong—you wouldn't even know. If Hardin lived back then, I could see him having the wrong time on all his clocks just to mess with people.

I really need to tell Tessa that Hardin's coming next weekend. I'll tell her when she wakes up.

I will.

Really this time.

The kitchen is quiet; only the soft buzzing from the fridge is audible. The undecorated cake is still sitting on the counter, covered in Saran Wrap.

I wonder if Nora's going to come back, or if whatever took her away last night will keep her today.

I look in the fridge for something to eat before I start getting ready for work.

Fuck!

Work.

I was supposed to be there at six today to cover Posey's shift.

I rush to my room to grab my phone to call my boss. My foot catches on something hard and I stumble over it, and try to balance on one foot. Of course that doesn't work, and my toes smash into the leg of my desk.

Dammit
, it hurts.

I grab my foot and finally reach my phone. Of course it's still dead.

Double dammit.

I'll have to use Tessa's phone to call work.

I toss my phone at the bed and bounce on one foot out to the living room, my toe still throbbing. When I reach Tessa's sleeping body on the couch, I scan her and the furniture. Her cell has to be around here somewhere.

Why didn't I listen to my mom about getting a landline?

You never know what could happen, Landon.

The cell service could stop working.

You may lose that cell phone and have to use the landline to call and find it.

The aliens could invade Brooklyn and steal all technology to further their plan of taking over Earth for their evil doings.

Okay, so I made the last one up when I teased her about her concern.

However, this is one of the many times in my life when I've come to realize that my mother usually knows what the heck she's talking about. Most twenty-year-olds would never admit it, but I'm smart enough to know that I'm lucky to have a parent like her.

I spot Tessa's phone wedged between the back of the couch and her hip. I slowly reach for it and hold my breath, trying not to wake her. Just as my fingertips reach the phone and I grab hold of it, Tessa's body jerks and her eyes dart open.

I pull back and give her time to understand that it's only me, and she's asleep on the couch in her own living room.

“Are you okay?” Tessa groans. Her voice sounds like she's still asleep.

“Yeah, sorry. My phone is dead and I'm late for work.”

She nods and reaches her phone out to me.

I take it and go to dial the number, but I'm asked for the passcode.

Tessa starts naming numbers and I type them in quickly.

“Zero, two, zero, one,” she says, and closes her eyes. She rolls on her side and lifts her knees up toward her chest.

“Thanks.”

I grab the blanket from the back of the couch and drape it over her. She thanks me with a smile and I unlock her phone. Her phone feels weird in my hand; it's so small compared to mine.

She teases me for the size of mine, calling it an iPad, and I tease her for always breaking or losing hers. I bring up the one she dropped in the toilet, the one that “went missing” in an Uber, the one that she threw at a spider on the rooftop of our building. The only one left, the one I don't mention, was her first phone.

That's the one whose screen she busted purposely and stomped it under her feet at least twenty times. I came home from work to find her smashing it. She swore she was never going to use an iPhone again, and I had my suspicions that it had nothing to do with the technology. Rather it's the same reason she only drinks cold coffee now. The same reason she can barely listen to her favorite band anymore.

She quickly gave up on her promise after using another phone for a week. She lost all of her music, all of the information she had saved. All of her auto-login websites, her saved credit cards. She cursed Apple all the way to the store, saying that they are taking over the world, and it pissed her off that they have such good products because they leave consumers no other choice but to use them. Quite the paradox.

She also mentioned more than a few times that they should make more affordable products. I agreed.

When I get to the call screen, I realize I don't know the number to Grind by heart. I usually rely on the number already in my phone. I can barely remember the days before smartphones took over the world. I did have an old Nokia when I was twelve that my mom made me bring with me everywhere I went, just in case something happened. I used to kill the battery playing Snake all day.

Man, I feel old.

What the heck would we do without technology? I'm ashamed of my reliance on it, but at the same time I cringe at the thought of having to find a phone book and search for the number to my work.

Man, we humans are spoiled.

Scratch that, we Americans are spoiled. There are many, many places in the world where people have never even seen an iPhone, and here I am pondering my existence without Apple products.

I have it pretty damn easy.

I google the number for Grind, and when I call the line goes straight to busy.

What the hell?

I don't even have Posey's number. Again, technology as hindrance.

I used to have all my friends' phone numbers memorized. It helped that I only had two friends, and they lived in the same house, but still.

“I'm just going to hurry and get dressed and run there,” I explain in a rush.

I set Tessa's phone on the coffee table and walk to my room.

My toes still hurt.

If I leave now, I can get there in less than fifteen minutes. I could be halfway there already if I'd just gotten dressed instead of trying to call them. I glance at the phone on my bed. I also could have used my phone by now if I'd left it on the charger.

You win some, you lose some.

I rush around my room and throw on dark jeans and a plain gray T-shirt. I hurry to the bathroom and brush my teeth. I take a piss and wash my hands. Without even looking in the mirror, I shut the light off and go back into the living room. The feeling is coming back to my toes, and I'm glad, since I'll have to practically run there. I'm sure I look like complete hell, but once I get to work, I'll run my fingers through my hair, or something.

My shoes . . . where are my shoes? I scan my floor and look inside my closet.

Living room. They must be by the door.

Where they belong.
I hear Tessa's voice in my head and laugh to myself.

I'm at the door, pushing my feet into my sneakers, in less than five minutes since I tried to call Grind. I grab my keys and yank the door open to find someone standing in front of me.

Nora.

With a trash bag in one arm and a box at her feet.

Her eyes widen when she sees me and I look down at the box. There's a book, a picture frame, and some random stuff that's unidentifiable and buried.

“Hi.” Nora's lips shape the word and she stares at me with what looks like hesitation.

“Hi,” I respond, trying to piece together what she's doing here.

With her stuff.

“Are you okay?” I ask her, and she nods.

Suddenly her eyes well up with tears and I watch her clench her free hand into a tight fist. She takes a deep breath, and just like that, she straightens her back and holds her tears at bay.

“Can I come in?” Her voice is low, defeated, but she's putting on a good front.

I bend down, grab the box, and hold it in one arm. I reach out my hand for her to give me the trash bag and she does.

Her eyes are hard. She's a fighter. I can see it in her eyes.

Her bag is heavy and I set it down on the living room floor next to my grandma's table. I lay the box down and wave for Nora to come inside. She steps in slowly and Tessa sits up on the couch.

I look at her phone on the table.

Shit.

I look at Nora apologetically. “I have to go to work. I'm
really
late.”

She nods and smiles at me, but it's the smallest smile I've ever seen.

The self-promises I made to protect her last night surge back up in my chest. I never want her to look this way, to feel this way.

Tessa stands up and assesses the situation. I can't stay around for the explanation, even though it's going to drive me crazy to not know what's going on.

What happened?

Why is Nora here with her belongings?

Was it something with Dakota?

My stomach twists at the possibility.

When I leave, will she tell Tessa that we kissed, again?

I wish I could stay, but I can't. Too many people are counting on me, and I've already messed up big-time this morning.

I rush down the hallway and take the stairs. I don't have time to wait for the world's smallest elevator to get to my floor.

W
HEN I PUSH THROUGH THE
doors at Grind, the place is packed.

Oh no.

A long line is snaked around the shop, from the pastry display case to the pickup area. Women and men dressed in casual business clothing are scattered around the room, chattering and sipping on caffeine. As I scan the line, I notice a few irritated faces toward the back. I immediately walk through the crowd and go behind the counter. I don't even bother to grab an apron. Aiden is taking orders, his fingers quickly navigating the familiar register and his usually pale face bright red. His neck, too. Sweat has soaked through the back of his shirt.

Well, shit.
He's not going to be very happy with me.

As I step up behind him, he hands a black-haired woman in a red pantsuit her change. For her part, the woman is clearly irritated, her hands moving around angrily in the space between them, trying to communicate her frustration, I guess.

“Hey, I'm here. Sorry, man. My phone died and my alarm—”

“Save it.” Aiden glares at me. “Just help me get this line down,” he says quietly.

I wish I could call on Hermione to turn him into a ferret.

Still, I nod, sort of understanding his frustration. This line is no joke and sometimes people are just crappy.

Draco—I mean, Aiden—shouts an order at me. “Macchiato. Extra foam!”

I grab a small cup and get to work. As I steam the milk, I look back at Aiden. He's filthy: black coffee grounds stain the front of his shirt, and he has a wet spot on his chest. It would be much more amusing if it wasn't my fault. If I'd arrived on time, we still would have been busy and overwhelmed, but it would have been much easier to handle with two people.

As I pour the frothed milk over the dark espresso, Aiden gives me another order. We continue like this until the line shrinks down to three people. Aiden is calmer now, back to smiling and being friendly with customers. This is good news for me.