Gabe didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge that he’d heard her in any way, but she kept talking. “You hear that? You have to stay with me because we all love you. I love you, and I’m not ready to lose someone else I love. I’m still grieving for my parents, and I might have to grieve for my brother. Please, please don’t make me grieve for you, too. Please, I—”
A phone vibrated somewhere in the room and Audrey shot to her feet. She hadn’t thought to look for one, figuring everybody had taken their phones along, but hallelujah, someone had forgotten theirs.
She found the source of the bzz bzz bzz under the pizza box and a stack of papers and flipped it open. It was Marcus’s phone—she could tell from the internal wallpaper of a surfer catching an enormous wave. She reminded herself to plant a big, fat, wet kiss on him when she saw him again.
Marcus had a text from someone named Giancarelli, but she ignored it and called up Quinn’s number. Dumped straight into voicemail. Next, she tried Jesse and got the same. So she called Harvard’s number, thinking he was the most likely to be somewhere he could answer. Beethoven’s Fifth swelled from the bedroom off the living room. She shut Marcus’s phone and pushed open the bedroom door.
Harvard.
Skinny, tousled, and sleepy-eyed, he sat on the edge of the bed in only a pair of white briefs, fumbling around for his phone. When it stopped ringing before he got to it, he groaned, gave up the search and flopped back to the mattress.
She’d never been so happy to see anyone in her life. “Harvard!”
He bolted upright. His dark hair hugged his head on one side while the other stuck up in a near mohawk. “What?” He squinted at her, then scrambled for his glasses and put them on crookedly. “Audrey? Christ, is that you?”
“Gabe’s hurt,” she said. There would be time for lengthy explanations later. “Do you have any way of getting hold of Quinn?”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, of course. Uh…let me…it’s here somewhere.” He groped around in the bed for a radio and hit the talk button in Morse code. Three short bursts, three long, three short.
A moment later, Quinn responded in a whisper. “This is Achilles. Go ahead. Was that a S.O.S. call?”
“Affirmative.” He looked at Audrey, realized his glasses were askew, and straightened them. “Stonewall is home.”
Pause. “Say again.”
“Stonewall is home and needs medical attention ASAP.”
Another pause. “Aye aye.” Quinn’s voice was tight with emotion. “ETA fifteen minutes. Out.”
Relief washed over Audrey in a great wave that took the last of her energy reserve with it. Safe. Finally. Gabe would get the help he needed and she could relax, breakdown, throw a tantrum—everything she hadn’t had the luxury of doing in the past thirty-six hellish hours. She slumped against the door’s frame, suddenly so very weak.
Harvard, sweet man, was right there, propping himself under her arm. He hid surprising strength in that rangy body, taking her weight easily, but he still wore only his briefs and looked like a whitewashed broomstick in underwear.
Audrey had to laugh at that mental image, though it came out sounding more like a sob. “You always did strike me as a tighty-whitey guy.”
“Yup, that’s me.” He either didn’t care that he was nearly naked in front of her or hid his embarrassment well. Back in the living room, he guided her to a chair. “Boring as vanilla pudding.”
“I like vanilla pudding.”
“Sit down,” he coaxed. He spared Gabe’s motionless form the briefest of glances before focusing all of his attention on her. “Are you hurt?”
“No. No, I—I—I’m bruised and blistered, but—just help him. He’s been shot. Please. I don’t want to lose him.”
Harvard’s eyes widened behind the lens of his glasses and she realized how telling that statement was. Well, they’d all find out sooner or later.
She met his gaze with a challenge in her own. “Yes, I’m in love with him.” At Harvard’s disbelieving laugh, she nibbled on her lower lip. “Is that a problem?”
“Nope.” He grinned, but sobered up fast. “Not for me, at least.”
Meaning some of the others might take issue with their relationship. Namely, Quinn. “Do you think it’ll cause problems?”
“Can’t say. If it does, they’re both professionals. They won’t let it get in the way of finding your brother.”
“God. Bryson.” She rubbed her forehead. “Is it horrible of me that I haven’t thought about him in hours?”