Easton: Colin texted me back. He said you’re together and busy, but OK, just can’t talk. He swore on his life you’re not being held at gunpoint. YOU BETTER BE OKAY. CALL ME.

His last message was timestamped around when Constantine drove us from the hospital to my place to pack. Colin must have sent his call to voicemail and texted him back, saving Easton from having a heart attack. Poor guy.

Me: I am soooo sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you. Something came up. A BIG something. Forgive me?

He answered immediately, of course.

Easton: THANK GOD. Now, call me.

Me: Give me a few hours. Please. <prayer emoji>

Easton: <rolling eyes emoji> Seriously? You’re going to make me wait?

Yeah, I was being a jerk, but I wasn’t ready to share the news yet. I was still trying to process said news myself. I sent him three more prayer emojis.

Easton: Fine. I have a thing I’m late for anyway.

Me: Thing, huh?

Easton: Yeah, just a quick thing.

Me: Enjoy your “thing.”

Easton: That sounds absolutely fucking horrible even over text.

Me: Then don’t be so cryptic.

Easton: Says the one who left me hanging and is now bailing on me again. <emoji with the monocle>

Me: Sorry. I know. <facepalm emoji> Okay, go. Talk soon.

I set the phone on the nightstand and remade the bed before quietly opening my door. I looked left and right down the hallway, like a kid about to sneak out. All doors were shut, and I assumed Constantine was sound asleep.

I crept down the hall and MI6’ed my way upstairs, moving as stealthily as possible, as if this rich home wouldn’t have stellar walls to soundproof noise.

Colin’s door was cracked open, which was surprising. I’d expected it to be bolted locked with a chair against it. It wouldn’t be the first time he barricaded me from trying to lecture him. Like two weeks after his fifteenth birthday, after the first, and thankfully only time, he’d been arrested. Assault charge from a fight with a guy four years older than him at the mall where we last lived. That’d also been the first and last time I’d let him go to the mall without me. And here he is sneaking off to raves, so look at all the good my strict rules did.

I let go of my thoughts the moment I opened the door a bit more to see him passed out on top of the covers, his feet, still in his Converse, hanging off the bed. I watched him for a few minutes, soaking in the sight of him asleep under his father’s roof, trying to digest what this all meant.

After carefully closing the door without entirely shutting it, I wandered into the game room to take a peek before returning downstairs.