“What are y—”

Before I can finish my sentence, he grabs my shoulder and kicks my right leg out from under me. As I lose my balance, he turns my body, spinning me around so that I’m poised to fall directly on the glass coffee table.

But I never hit glass.

It’s the floor—a wooden floor inside some industrial building that’s neither an apartment nor a workspace.

This time, I don’t lie there. I don’t stare up at the sky, wondering why it’s black when just seconds before it was blue and I was inside.

I know what happened.

I know where I am.

And I know, if I just look around…if I focus…

“Dre?”

I turn toward the direction of the voice and see Michael standing in the doorway, keys in hand, his mouth slightly open in surprise.

I’m sure I’m looking at him the same way he’s looking at me, but I force a smile on my face and ask, “You free?”

Twelve

“I’m sorry, how long has it been?”

The words that leave Michael’s mouth don’t make sense. Seven months? How can that be? Did I really get lobbed into the space-time continuum and spit out that far off course?

“Give or take a few days, yeah,” he says, correcting himself as he shoves papers into his messenger bag. I catch a glimpse of them before they disappear—sheet music. “Close to seven months.”

I look around, feeling for the first time since arriving the chill in the air. This building isn’t his home. It’s like one of those loft apartments that some people lust after. But this is too cluttered to be an apartment. Too many tables, filing cabinets…

“Do you work here?”

He nods while he finishes packing. “For now, yeah. A lot has changed since you’ve been gone, Dre.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

He shrugs, and a smile takes over his lips. It’s one of those sad smiles, the ones that are heavy with emotion, an emotion that he doesn’t want to share with me yet. “Depends on how you think about it, I guess. Come on. Are you hungry? I’m guessing that jumping through time leaves you starving.”

I’m not hungry, but if eating means spending time with him…

“Yeah, I could eat.”

A grin of childlike joy spreads over his face. “Then I know the perfect place.”

I follow Michael out of the building and down two flights of stairs. I can hear muffled but loud sounds through the walls. It sounds like people yelling, but it’s too loud for that. Too many noises—explosions, yelling, arguments. It almost seems like…

“Are we above a movie theater?”