Page 10 of Catcher's Lock

Someone still wants me.

“I’ll always be here,” I assure him.Because she claimed Milla but offered me a choice. Because my dad is more wrecked than I am, and I can’t abandon him. Because I’m so, so mad at her.

Because Josha is here.

“And hey,” I continue, scrabbling for a lighter tone. “My dad says I can go to school this year, so we’ll get to do that together.”

His smile is lightning quick and luminous in the black, and I scoot a little closer to catch its brilliance before it fades.

“Are you sad?” I eventually ask. “She’s leaving you too.” The woman I know he idolizes. Who snatched him up the first time I brought him to the tent—the minute she saw who he was and what he could do. Who turned him over to my dad with a wink and gave him a place to thrive and belong.

He’s quiet for a long time, and I think about how I didn’t care that maybe she loved him more than me, because even when she smiled and joked about adopting him, he was looking atmelike I was the coolest person he’d ever seen.

“Gem?” His voice breaks the darkness, and he snakes his arm tentatively across my chest. Maybe it should be weird—this bed is seriously way too small—but my muscles relax forthe first time in what feels like weeks.

“Yeah?” I bring my hand up and thread my fingers through his.Maybe she lied. Maybe best friends are enough.

“I’m glad you’re home.”

5

Reunion

Gemiah

Age 24 (Now)

“You got…big.”

When I left, he was still a boy. Taller than me, sure, because that’s always been true, but leaner. Young.Precious. The ghost I’ve been chasing never had those shoulders or those thick thighs straining in his faded jeans.

The man standing in the doorway of my crappy motel room hasbicepsunderneath the rolled sleeves of his flannel and russet stubble coating his sharp jaw.

Josha Garrity has stopped waiting and grown the fuckup.

And…

He hates me. He doesn’t even flinch at the bruises on my face or the scabbed split in my eyebrow.

“You got tattoos.” His gaze skims dismissively over my ink, brushes the dark shadow of my close-cropped hair, before coming to rest on mine. I used to think his eyes were like cocoa,comforting and warm. Or fresh coffee to lift me up when the world was pinning me down. Now they burn bitter and cold. I shove my hands in my pockets and try for a smile.

“Gotta have ink to survive in prison.”

“I thought Hals bailed you out.” Even his voice is different. Rougher. Scraping at my insides where it used to soothe. Goosebumps erupt on my arms because, apparently, I’m a masochist now.

“The first time.”

“Why’d you call, Farrel?”

Ouch.

Not “Gem.” Not “Quill.” My last name. Like a scolding.

Or a stranger.

But…

He came.