Given I took it from the police chief’s house, sticking around sounds like the worst idea. I drive a couple blocks before I park. The phone’s dead, so I plug it into my charger, a spiderweb of cracks on the screen.

As the longest wait of my life commences, mine goes off again. As unhelpful as Chase’s thoughts proved earlier, I pull it from my pocket. I need to do something.

“Hey,” I answer, eyes on Remi’s screen, waiting for it to come to life.

“Fuck, you make me feel like an ex with the way you ignore me,” he gripes. Then, without a chance for me to respond, “Where are you, brother? You ducked out last night and have been MIA since. We’re going to fucking climb.”

“No, we’re not.” I say, earning a groan.

“Come. On. I want to scale a wall, see the world from above. Or at least the rest of the rock climbing gym,” he says fast. “We need to get you out of this funk, so get your ass downtown. We’ll drink away your sorrows after—find a roof, cry it out, rise from the ashes.”

“Dude, I’m in Ohio.”

He’s silent for several seconds. “I thought you were kidding. You actually went after this chick?”

“She wouldn’t just⁠—”

“She fucking did, Foster. Jesus, what is it going to take for you to realize you got played? You need to watch her fuck another guy? Or will you still claim some bullshit excuse?”

“Could you not be a dick for once?” I bite back.

“Right. I’m the problem.” A car door slams. “I’m not the one constantly choosing some imaginary relationship over his family. And before you defend her yet again, it was imaginary. Whatever you have in your head is wrong, and it’s time you finally admit it. This bored cocktease used you for entertainment purposes and fucked off before your clingy ass found her.”

My jaw clenches. The urge to lose it on him is as real as the last time he pulled this shit. But the words stay locked behind my teeth.

“What, can’t argue because you know it’s true?” he says after a beat. “Maybe you deserve this.”

“Maybe I deserve a best friend who isn’t so goddamn jealous anytime I want to have a life outside of him.” I grip the steering wheel hard enough my knuckles turn white. “I get it, Chase. You don’t have shit going for you, and you want me at the bottom with you. So, yeah, you are the fucking problem.”

He’s taking the brunt of the mess of thoughts and emotions inside me right now, but I’m so fucking tired of him deciding when he’s going to support me and when he wants to turn on me. The last few months, it feels like I breathe wrong, and he’s pissed.