“Hey!” I whispered, once the girls had passed us.
“You said pretend.” His breath tickled my neck.
“Not that much.”
“I don’t actually have to pretend much. You are genuinely comforting.”
I broke away to scan the hallway. Clear now—both directions.
“It would be better if you just left right now,” I said.
“Are you taking Hank’s side?”
“You’re going to be all over the internet if you stay. You don’t even have a hat.”
I wasn’t wrong, but Jack shook his head. “I’m not leaving till we find out about my mom.”
Fair enough.
I led him to the stairwell. “Can you wait here? I’ll figure out where she is and then assess the route to get you there.”
“You’re really not kidding.”
“Just stay here. Don’t make trouble.”
But as I started to step back out of the stairwell door, I saw that same roving band of teenage girls. They’d circled around and were coming back our way. What were they even doing here? As they made eye contact with me, I realized they had their phones out.
I ducked back into the stairwell and grabbed Jack’s hand, pulling him behind me as I started up the stairs.
“What?” Jack said.
“We’ve got teenagers after us,” I said, noting how silly it sounded.
But seriously—there was nothing worse for spreading the word of a celebrity sighting than a pack of teenage girls with phones. “Come on,” I said. “Move.”
At the top floor, I pulled him into the hallway, and we made for the elevators. We were halfway there when I saw a closet labeled SUPPLIES.
I pulled us both in, pushed the door closed, and leaned against it.
Taking my lead, Jack did the same—and wedged his sneaker heel against the door, too.
We stood there like that, side by side, breathing, for a minute before I noticed there were towels and sets of scrubs folded on the shelves. “I know how we’re getting you out of here,” I whispered.
“How?”
“Scrubs.”
Jack looked to where I was pointing, but just as he did, we could hear the girls through the door as they passed by.
“It was so totally him.”
“It was absolutely totally him.”
“But that was not Kennedy Monroe.”
“Yeah. Not even close.”
We held our breath, waiting, any second, for the girls to try the handle.
But they didn’t.
Once all was quiet, I darted over to the scrubs supply. “What size are you?” I whispered, looking him up and down.
“I’m not leaving,” he said. “We don’t even know what’s happening with my mom.”
But just as he said it, his phone dinged.
A message from Hank. Guess he had his number now.
Can’t find you. Mom’s OK. They think she’s dehydrated. Possible vertigo. Getting fluids now. Much better. Staying the night for observation. Go home.
Jack held it out for me to read.
“Ah.”
He let out a deep sigh and closed his eyes for a minute. “Guess we’re going home after all.”
“You know,” I said, expecting the usual brick wall. “It really might help me to know what’s going on with you two.”
But this time Jack met my eyes. “Hank hates me because I’m not Drew. Because Drew died and I lived.”
“That’s it?” I asked.
“That’s enough of it.”
I felt like an anthropologist. Was this how sharing worked? Had I earned some sharing from him by offering sharing of my own? Anyway, I nodded, like Go on.
To my surprise, he did. “I was the dumb one in the family, by the way. Drew and Hank were the smart ones, so they’d hang out and be smart together. I was the one with ADD and dyslexia and dysgraphia, too. The whole package.”
“None of that makes you dumb.”
“To me, it did. And my teachers, too. So I did the class clown thing. Hank and Drew were total Eagle Scouts with straight As. And I … was not.”
“That’s the deal with you and Hank?”
Jack sighed. “I was always kind of on the outs. Hank stayed here and became the ranch manager. Drew went to vet school here and went into practice with my dad. I was the only one who left. I was closest to Drew, for sure, because I always made him laugh. And he could always see that I was good at different things. He was kind of my buffer zone for the family. But after he died … there was no one to be that anymore.”