Page 24 of Wham Line (The Last Picks #10)

The thought brought a pang and a wave of guilt; in the chaos of the poisoning at Mizzenmast and then taking Bobby to the hospital, I hadn’t checked to see what had happened with Indira.

I hoped that silence meant nothing bad; Fox would have called if things had taken a turn.

Keme would have texted. Millie would have simply raised her voice, and I would have heard her all the way in Portland.

But that didn’t alleviate the sick feeling as the reality of Indira’s situation crashed in on me again, so I took out my phone and sent a quick message to the group asking for an update.

I also filled them in on what had happened with Bobby, where we were, and that everything was more or less okay.

No reply. Which wasn’t a great sign.

I gave the contents of the fridge one final evaluative look and gave up.

Yes, there were lots of staples. Yes, it all looked healthy and nutritious and, uh, wholesome?

The problem, though, was that it didn’t look like any of it could be made either: a) in the microwave, or b) by boiling some noodles in a pot and adding butter, milk, and orange cheese powder.

And that was pretty much the extent of my off-the-cuff cooking.

Shutting the fridge door, I turned. Bobby’s dad stood in the archway to the living room. He wore khakis and a polo, and the kitchen light smeared across his glasses. My heart smashed into my ribcage, and I barely bit back some words that you are not supposed to say in front of your boyfriend’s dad.

“Hi, Mr. Mai,” I said. And then—because I will always be Dashiell Dawson Dane—I added, “Um, sorry.”

“Do you need something?”

“Who, me?” That seemed like the worst question of the year, so I tried to smile, but it felt like I had fishhooks in my cheeks.

Bobby’s dad just looked at me. And I kept smiling—or whatever you could call what was happening to my face.

And he was still looking at me, and I knew I had to do something.

People always did something. They said something.

Or they—what? I had this image of me saying, A cold drink and a hot man, like I was some sort of aging Hollywood starlet, and then having one of those laughing fits that ended with them hauling you off to a padded room.

And somehow, Bobby’s dad was still looking at me.

“No,” I said. “I was looking for something to eat.”

He nodded. “I’ll make you something.”

“No! Uh, no. No, thank you, I mean. That’s super kind of you.

I’m not hungry, actually. I’m never hungry.

Not much of an eater of, um, food.” A part of me that wasn’t currently in panic mode sat back to watch my accelerating death spiral.

“It’s for Bobby, actually. But you know what?

He’s sleeping, so I’ll just wait until he wakes up. ”

“If you’re hungry, you should eat something.”

I nodded my head like that was the wisest thing I’d ever heard. “Right, yeah, no, I’m totally good. But thank you.”

Bobby’s dad nodded.

I nodded too.

It was a lot of nodding.

My plan was to crawl under the kitchen table and wait for Bobby’s dad to leave, since I had successfully discovered a new personal nightmare (being trapped with Bobby’s dad while he made me something to eat) and achieved a new world record in awkward social interaction.

Instead, though, somebody inside my head—somebody who wanted to be a good boyfriend, somebody who could already hear myself telling Bobby about this conversation and how awkward I’d been, someone who could see Bobby’s big, goofy grin and know that he loved me and was grateful I’d made the effort—decided to keep talking.

“Mr. Mai, I’m so sorry for your loss. I know I said that the other day, but I wanted to say it again.

I didn’t get a chance to meet your wife in person, but we interacted a little on social media, and she was so generous with her time and her help.

” (Mostly by sending me every typo and grammatical error she found in my work.) “Bobby is the best person I know, and that’s because of how you and your wife raised him.

That’s a real testament to the kind of person she was. ”

“Thank you.”

The refrigerator hummed. A drop of sweat ran down from under one of my arms. In the picture on the wall, little Bobby stood there all by himself, out in front of the rest of his family. His mom’s hand on Eric’s shoulder. His dad with his hands behind his back.

More quickly than I knew how to handle, the urge rose up in me to tell him everything.

How hard Bobby was taking this. And how I didn’t know how to help him.

How he wouldn’t say anything to me, wouldn’t respond, wouldn’t tell me how he was feeling or what he needed or what I could do.

Mr. Mai’s silence dragged on me like gravity.

I wanted to tell him that Bobby had almost died a few hours ago, and for some reason I couldn’t understand, Bobby hadn’t told his family.

An echo inside of me, the child that had never grown up, wanted to tell him that Bobby needed his dad.

For a heartbeat, the fantasy shone clearly in my head: that the right words would come, and Bobby’s dad would understand, and he’d walk downstairs to Bobby’s bedroom, and everything would be all right.

And then, thank God, the moment passed.

Clarity swamped me with cold sweat at how close I’d come to opening my big mouth.

Instead, I said, “How are you doing?”

That streak of light on Mr. Mai’s glasses made it impossible to read his eyes, and his voice was the same as always when he said, “Fine.”

Gee. Now where had I heard that before?

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

He shook his head.

“I’m going to check on Bobby,” I said. “He’s not feeling well.”

Mr. Mai nodded. We passed each other, me heading for the living room, Mr. Mai moving deeper into the kitchen. I caught a sidelong look at him. His face impassive. The sockets of his eyes dark.

Fine .

Apparently, that was the Mai family motto.

They could have it on a crest that showed a man driving a tractor while simultaneously shooting a gun into the air and wrestling a bear.

Or whatever emblems people traditionally used on a coat of arm to express the general sentiment, You are such a freaking man .

I was halfway across the living room when the front door opened. (I mention this so that you’ll understand: I had nowhere to hide.) Eric pressed into the house. He didn’t see me because he was looking over his shoulder, and his voice was low and hard.

“—for work. She’s a nurse at the hospital. That’s part of the job.”

Behind him came a pretty, dark-haired woman—mid-thirties, Vietnamese, and wearing earrings and a necklace that had to have cost at least ten thousand dollars.

Her voice had that same we’re-fighting-but-not-too-loud edge.

“You can’t answer my texts all day. You’re not home.

Nobody knows where you are. But you’ve got no problem answering her. ”

“It’s work. And do you have any idea what kind of a violation that is, looking at my phone—”

Eric spotted me and cut off.

The woman stopped. She opened and closed her hands; she had expensive-looking nails.

More of that famous Mai family silence sucked the air out of the room.

“This is Dash,” Eric said stiffly. “Dash, my wife, Alice.”

In the middle of my out-of-body experience, I managed to say, “Nice to meet you.”

Alice, to her credit, managed a smile.

“Where’s Bobby?” Eric asked.

“He’s resting. He’s not feeling well.”

An expression flashed across Eric’s face. It was only there for a moment, but I saw it. Annoyance. Or maybe a better word was exasperation. Like this—not feeling well—was something he’d had to put up with before.

Which was strange, because Bobby was one of the healthiest people I knew.

He ran miles and miles. He lifted weights.

He had zero-point-zero percent body fat.

One time, he even said he’d have a peach for dessert instead of Indira’s peanut butter icebox cake.

(To balance out the universe that night, I ate two slices.) And it wasn’t like Eric knew about Bobby being poisoned, or like Bobby had a history of being poisoned (although if he did, I wanted to know about it). It was almost like—

Like Eric was annoyed that Bobby was in his room?

A long second ticked past. And then another.

“I’m going to check on him,” I said.

They moved aside so that I could get to the stairs.

“It was nice to meet you,” Alice said as I went down.

“Nice to meet you too.”

Eric didn’t say anything, but banked anger radiated off of him.

As I made my way back to Bobby’s room, the sound of voices resumed—the clipped, suppressed hostility too low for me to make out the individual words.

I tried focusing on the little decorative pieces I passed—a terracotta bottle with two-tone paint; a wood carving of a tree hanging on the wall, an ornamental bird cage.

God, I hoped it was ornamental. Otherwise, we were dealing with a prison-break type situation.

No dust anywhere. And the lemon scent of furniture polish.

It wasn’t any of my business, I told myself. I didn’t know them. I didn’t know their situation. And times like these wore on everybody, left raw nerves exposed, brought buried stuff to the surface. Stuff that maybe wasn’t even stuff, not really. Imagined hurts. Old insecurities. Fears.

Caught up in my own thoughts, I didn’t register what I was hearing until I was almost at the door to Bobby’s childhood bedroom.

And then I stopped. Bobby was saying something, the words indistinct.

He’s on the phone, I thought. Someone called.

Fox. Or Indira. Or Keme. But no, Keme would have texted unless it was an emergency, so maybe Millie—

A choked sob from the bedroom froze me.

That had been Bobby.

Bobby had made that noise.

I reached for the door handle, panic rising inside me—cold, dark waters up to my chin.

And then he said, “I’ve got to go, West.” A gap came after the name of his ex-boyfriend. And then, “Thanks. I really needed to talk to someone.”

My hand hovered above the doorknob.

From the room, nothing.

I stepped back. I wiped my hand on my joggers.

He was upset. He’d been crying. He’d want time to pull himself together.

The thoughts were like something wrapped in layers and layers of bubble wrap.

I’ll order pho, I thought as I turned toward the family room. I found my phone. My fingers felt slick against the case. The doctor said fluids. And Bobby loves pho.