been remembering him: a faint shadow of stubble on his jaw, broader in the shoulders. Smarter, too, like he’s finally grown out of those grungy T-shirts and beat-up sneakers I used to tease him about.
God, I’ve missed him.
“Are you going to help, or are you going to stand around bitching?” I manage to sound casual, pulling a slim flashlight from my bag and closing the door behind me. He must have followed us from the Loft in that beat-up Camaro.
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
I ignore the soft resignation in his tone. Switching on the flashlight, I sweep it across the room. “It should be in his office, in the back maybe.”
“The Lorenzo?”
Of course he’d know what I’m here for. I don’t answer, crossing behind the reception desk and heading deeper into the building. The beam of light swings out in front of me, cutting through the dark and landing on neat rows of stuffed animals lining the hallway.
“Creepy.” Dante sounds amused, pausing to pick up a three-foot elephant. He wiggles it at me. “Your dad knows that half his customers are guys with weird fetishes, right?”
I keep walking, checking every room as we pass.
“Furries, I think they call them,” he muses, tossing the toy up in the air. “Or is that the people who like to dress up in bear suits? Maybe it’s plushies. Either way, his product isn’t getting tucked in at night with the kids, if you know what I mean.”
I don’t even break a smile at his joking — that would be too easy. He might think that we’re OK now — that he can just come back and throw some of that charm around, and I’ll forgive him, but he’s wrong. It doesn’t work that way.
I reach the end of the hallway and a door marked with a fancy metal animal plaque. The blinds are down, but I know this is the place; I just know it. I grab for the door, but it’s locked. I try each key in turn, but nothing works. I slam against it in frustration.
“Hey, calm down.” Dante reaches to stop me, but I step back, already looking around for other options. We’re deep enough in the building that I risk turning on the light, flooding us with harsh fluorescent from the strip above.
“Do you think there’s an air vent going in?”
“Not unless you’re starring in an action movie,” he jokes in reply. “And I don’t know if those ruffles will fit. . . .”
“Fine then.” I hoist a fire extinguisher down from the far wall and take a few practice swings toward the glass partition. Dante lets out a strangled yell and snatches it from my hands.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Getting in.” He stares at me as if I’m insane. “You could do something, you know,” I add, bitter. “Instead of following me around and lurking in the shadows. Can’t you bust the door down?”
“Bust it?” Dante takes a sharp breath, like he’s trying to keep control. “What do you say we just get out of here,” he says instead. “I’ve got Xbox back at the house; we can go kill a few thousand zombies and drive my mom crazy, the way we used to.”
I feel an ache at the reminder, but it’s not enough to shake me. “I have to do this.”
“No, you don’t.”
I glare back. “Since when do you care what the hell I do?”
I’m expecting a fight, but Dante simply looks at me, his jaw set.
“You’re right,” he says eventually. “I can’t do this anymore.” He stares for a moment and then turns to leave. Because he’s so damn good at it.
“Fine.”
He stops.
“Fine?” Dante gives a twisted kind of laugh. “Jolene, we’re a lot of things, but we’re not fine.”
“And whose fault is that?” I whirl on him, anger hot in my chest. “Who just up and left without a single word? Don’t you dare make like this is my fault!” I’m shaking, a year’s worth of insecurity and anger pumping through me. All those months seeing his silent icon up on my chat window, before I broke and deleted him for good. All those months expecting him to call, and the bitter disappointment every time it wasn’t him on the other end of the line.
And all because of a stupid kiss I didn’t see coming.
“Did you care so much I turned you down?” I yell. “Did our friendship mean that little to you?”
There’s silence in the hallway, lights glaring overhead.
“You think it was about that?” Dante