He shook Tilli’s hand at the top of the train entrance and tried not to take her look of utter relief personally when it became clear that he wasn’t going underground with her. He knew he had a mean mug, but timid Tilli made him feel like he was the Grinch who stole Friday night.

He strode away and immediately pulled out his phone. His brother answered on the fifth ring. “Hello?” Maddox said fuzzily.

John frowned. It was a Friday, so it was equally plausible that Maddox would either be shit-faced or already sleeping it off in some woman’s bed. “It’s John.”

“Hey. Hold on.”

John heard some hushed mumbling and then the sound of a door closing. “What’s up?”

He wondered where his brother was. John knew better than to ask at this point. There was only a ten percent chance he’d get the truth anyhow. Maddox and John were only eleven months apart in age, but there’d been times in the last decade since they’d gotten to know one another that John had felt more like Maddox’s father than he did his slightly older brother.

John and Maddox were night and day. Both in demeanor and physicality. Maddox took after their father, light complexion and dark eyes. John’s swarthier skin and shockingly blue eyes didn’t fit into Maddox’s family one bit. Maddox was lanky and loose, always laying his head on someone’s shoulder or falling asleep on the train. John was stocky and wide-shouldered and self-contained. He kept to himself, while his brother kept to everyone but himself.

“Have you talked to my mother lately?” John asked.

“Not since her New Year’s party. Shoot. I should probably give her a call, huh?”

“Do me a favor and check your texts and emails right now. See if she’s reached out in the last week or so.”

There was a weighted silence on the other end of the line. “I’ve checked my email in the last week, John. I would know if she’s reached out to me.”

Now John was the one who was silent. Did he appease his brother’s pride and agree with him? Or did he trust his own experiences with Maddox and assume that his brother could easily have let a correspondence or five slip through the cracks? “Will you just check for me?”

His request was met with stony silence, and honestly, John couldn’t blame him. He considered himself to be a good influence on his little brother. Hell, he was the only reliable family member the guy had, but that didn’t preclude him from also being a dick.

“Oh,” Maddox said sarcastically. “Would you look at that? Absolutely no emails or texts from your mother. Just like I told you.”