No. Not going to go there. Milo was no prince and certainly not anyone I needed in my life.
I was not going to be swayed by his worried eyes. Angry Milo and jerk Milo were easy to dismiss, but sad Milo had always managed to get under my skin. This time, though, I wasn’t going to let him. He’d managed to get himself into a heck of a mess, but he’d have to get himself out again without me. I turned my back on him, same as he’d done with me all those years ago. But even as I turned, my stomach cramped, the battle between the urge to shut him out and the urge to swoop in with the rescue way more real than I would have liked.
Chapter Two
Milo
The cold of a New Jersey winter smacked me in the face as soon as I exited the game shop, but the chill in the air was nothing compared to Jasper’s frosty expression when I’d asked him for help.
You think I’ve forgotten? Jasper clearly hadn’t. Every mistake and transgression from high school had been there in his eyes. Every time I could have done things differently. All the moments I’d replayed in my head for years. Jasper wasn’t the only one with a long memory. I remembered, too, remembered his cluttered basement playroom, the hours and hours we’d spent there. We’d been so in sync back then, him ready with the exact piece I’d needed at the perfect moment to complete our latest Lego build. Everything had been so much simpler, no need to ask…
Hell. I paused in front of the stationery store a few doors down to try to regroup. I hated needing help. Hated it. I’d needed far too much assistance in the last year, and every time I resolved to fix my own problems, some new situation would crop up to kick me where it hurt. And okay, some of that was my own doing. I could admit that. I’d been drinking the night before and was distracted in a way I didn’t really want to examine too closely right then.
I’m so glad you came.
You’re so good at this game. Like scary good.
Come on, don’t you like a friendly bet, pretty boy?
I won fair and square. Unless there’s something else you’d like to put on the table?
And there hadn’t been. Even buzzed, I hadn’t missed how George’s voice had gone from warm and welcoming to cold and calculating. And in a single harsh look, I’d gone from distracted to heartsick, intuition kicking in a few hours too late. Not to mention literally sick, too, puking in the bushes, my notoriously weak stomach registering its opinion of what had gone down.
Such an idiot. I had to stop myself from beating my head into the exterior brick of the stationery store. The holidays were over, but the window featured a bunch of whimsical angels. My mom would love all the merchandise on display, and simply thinking about her gave me a sick, hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. She too was going to be horribly disappointed in me. Again.
What is it this time, Milo? I could almost hear her too-weary voice, the one that said she’d been dreading this latest screwup. My fingers skated over the edge of the phone in my pocket. I could call her. Get it over with. Maybe she’d have better advice than Jasper after she finished being sad. Again. A-freaking-gain.
Chances were also high that she’d attempt to dip into money she didn’t have to try to make this right. I withdrew my hand. I was going to have to solve this on my own.
In the window, a notebook cover featured a particularly celestial-looking guardian angel, and the same sick stomach I’d been battling all day roiled again. Where had mine been last night? Mom was always saying that Dad was my guardian angel now, but I’d seldom felt as alone as I did right then. No Dad. No guardian angel. No common sense. Ten thousand dollars. Wasn’t that what Jasper had said? For cardboard. Seriously?
I had only one thing worth that kind of money, and I sure as hell wasn’t parting with it, no matter how much I’d screwed up. And he’d said something about a hunt too. Research. I had a stack of less-than-awesome grades showing how much I sucked at that skill. Jasper would know, though. He’d always been wicked smart, fingers flying over the keyboard, sharp mind organizing search results while my brain was still sputtering. I supposed there were other genius gamers I could try to recruit to help, but if the incident with George had taught me anything, it was that I couldn’t trust my instincts about people.
And Jasper might die mad at me, but he was also honest to a fault. And nice. He’d never take advantage of even his worst enemy. Who was apparently me. Damn it. I wasn’t giving up, though. I’d wait until his shift ended, try again.
It was cold, but I’d been in worse, and at least it wasn’t actively snowing or sleeting. Luckily, I had gloves and a hat in my pockets, so I went around to the alley that ran behind the row of downtown shops. Sure enough, the old beater hunk of metal that Jasper called a car was parked in one of the spots behind the gaming store. Finding a convenient concrete planter to lean against, I settled in to wait, but I hadn’t been there long when my phone buzzed.
Bruno’s face flashed on the lock screen, and I almost dropped the phone. Hell. My pulse raced, my stomach rebelling all over again. I could let the call go to voicemail, but that was the way of a coward. Bruno got so little time to call home that Mom and I always made a point of answering if at all possible. He was out there saving everyone’s asses and keeping us safe. The least I could do was pick up the phone.
“Hey, Bro.” I tried to keep my voice steady, play it cool.
“Hey. I’ve only got a few minutes here, but I wanted to check in on my favorite baby brother.” The phone crackled with every third word, but still the warmth in his voice came through loud and clear. His voice was deeper than mine, more naturally authoritative without trying. “How’s it going?”
“Fine.” Maybe the less I said, the better.
“Only fine?” Bruno’s tone shifted, concern replacing the easy warmth. “You okay?”
“Yeah, of course. Nothing for you to worry about.” I sped up, trying to convince both of us at the same time. “Job’s going well. They said they might have more hours for me.”
“Good. I knew when I told Juan about you needing work that you’d make me proud.”
“Trying.” God. Like I needed a reminder of all Bruno had done for me. He could have washed his hands of me a half dozen favors ago, but he was Bruno, full of patience and intrinsically good, a better person than I’d ever be. Jobs for a college dropout with an iffy record had been in short supply, but Bruno had leaned on his old buddy from high school to get me work in the online shipping warehouse. Decent hourly wage and health insurance, which had been the main incentive for me.
“Excellent. How’s the leg holding up?”
“Fine. I mean, it doesn’t really hurt these days,” I lied. Rehab on my surgically repaired leg was a work in expensive progress, but the last thing I was going to do was complain to a guy who routinely dodged actual bullets.