It might have, but he read a number off the top of his head, just like I’d expected, the son of a bitch. I dialed it, and once it started ringing, I tried handing him the receiver.
He didn’t take it.
He lifted that snobby, perfect nose at me. “You talk to them.”
“I don’t even know who we’re calling,” I whispered, gesturing toward my throat, reminding him that there was a reason we barely talked for three days.
His expression said more than any words ever could: tough shit.
Oh boy, this man tried my patience. I put my hand over the receiver. “You want me to talk to them because you might say something that makes them not want to help us, huh?”
The fucking look on his face was classic.
I snorted—and instantly regretted it when fire leaped up my nostrils and straight into my skull—just as a deep voice answered, “This is Hephaestus speaking. How may I help you?”
I looked at Alexander, who mouthed instructions out.
All right, he could only blame himself.
I cleared my throat and winced. “Hi… Hephaestus. Can I please speak with Agatha?”
“Hold please.”
There was a click, and I watched Alexander’s even features for a moment before someone picked up. “Yes?”
Yes? That was… weird.
“Hi. My name is Gracie. I’m hoping you might be able to help me, or at least point me in the right direction…？”
Silence.
The jackass in front of me made a circle with his hand, gesturing me to keep going.
I held the phone out to him, but he shook his head.
I huffed and brought it back to my face. Fuck it. Hopefully I wouldn’t be sticking my foot in my mouth. “I have… Alexander here with me”—whoa that felt weird saying it out loud like that to someone—“and he asked me to call you. We’re in a bit of a, uh, pickle.”
Crickets chirped in the background.
Not really, but they should have.
Peeking at the man in front of me, I was surprised to see him looking oddly calm. Apparently, his name wasn’t a secret to whoever Agatha was. Then it hit me. Was this someone special? He’d said he wasn’t married, but…
“Alexander?” the woman asked after a moment, his name coming out clean and way too crisp.
She knew exactly who I was talking about.
“Yep. Tall, his favorite color is, uh, blue. He thinks the f-word is an adjective and has an attitude… I’m kidding,” I said when he gave me a dirty look. I wrinkled my nose and whispered to him, “She won’t believe me if I tell her you’re nice,” I teased him, trying to get back at him for all those dirty looks and tones.
Whether he was more surprised over my description or she was, I would never know. What I did know was that there was another long beat of dead silence before she coughed, and it almost sounded like she snickered there for a second. Then she replied, “Can I speak to him?”
The man in question shook his head. I lifted my shoulders and mouthed, Why?
Alexander shook his head some more and replied, I don’t want to.
Oh boy. I threw him under the bus. “He says he doesn’t want to.”
That was definitely a snicker, and I highly doubted it was in surprise. “We’ve been concerned about him for a few days now,” she replied, still sounding cryptic.
A few days? It had been at least a month.
“What’s going on?” the woman on the line asked slowly.
I was watching that imperial-like face and tried not to show surprise on mine when he mouthed another sentence out. “He says he was the victim of a hit and run,” I said, still looking at him closely. Because what the hell kind of code words were those? A hit and run? What’d he get hit by? A fighter jet?
“I see,” she replied. “What’s your location?”
Before I could say that I didn’t know, I read his lips and repeated the address he mouthed.
How did he already know it though? I’d thought there was something fishy about him earlier, but…
“What kind of assistance do you need?”
Apparently, we were playing charades because he used both hands to make a driving gesture. “A car?” I guessed.
He shook his head. A ride?
“A car?” the Agatha woman repeated in confusion.
“Yes. A ride. Some kind of transportation? Back…？” I said, trying to guess why that’s what he would ask for when he could…
Oh.
For… me? Where the hell were we going?
“For me,” I told her. “I’m sick. I’ve been sick.” She had to hear it in my voice. Just because my throat hurt less didn’t mean it sounded that way.
“I see,” she said, sounding even more perplexed. “I think I understand. I’ll make a few calls, check on who can get out there. It might take me a few hours.”
I gave him a thumbs-up and got a nod in reply. “Okay,” I confirmed.
“I’ll call back once I get it sorted. Call me if you need something else,” Agatha said, her voice getting odder by the second.
I said bye, got one in return, and then we hung up.
The deep sigh that left Alex’s chest had me instantly glancing toward him in surprise. “You okay?” I asked. “Relieved?”
“I won’t be relieved until I’m home.”
Home.
It was the fact he wanted to feel relief that got under my skin, but I wasn’t about to ask over it.
“Where is home?” I asked. After all, his home was going to be my home, at least for a little while. All I knew was that it wasn’t close to a beach.
“Does it matter?”
Could he give me one straight answer? “Are there trees? Or is it in a city?”
He tipped his head back, giving me a good view of his muscular throat. “Do you care?”
“I get to choose?”
“No.”
That’s what I thought. Pressing my lips together, I thought about things for a second. “Are you sure you’ll be okay with me staying with you until we figure out plan B?” I asked before I could stop myself.
He tipped his head to the side. “Do I look like the kind of man who would go back on his word?”
I mean…
“I’m sure, Gracie.”
So he said now, but things changed. One minute I’d been pretty comfortable in a home I liked, and now I had jack shit. Now, I was doing exactly what I’d been raised to avoid—depending on someone, telling them the truth, just fucking talking to them in the first place. My brain wanted to protest it, but my stomach wasn’t exactly protesting it, which was confusing. I balled one of my hands into a fist. “If you get tired of having me around, you’ll tell me? With time, so I can make other plans?”
His nostrils flared before his eyelids dropped over those incredible eyes. “Why do you ask so many questions?”
I narrowed my eyes right back at him. “I just want to make sure.”
“We don’t need to talk about it anymore. I told you the plan.”
I eyed him, telling myself that I could do this. That I could rely on him for a little while. I knew who he was. I knew his name. I knew he wasn’t as invulnerable as he’d seemed.
I knew secrets about The Defender, that I doubted 99.9999999 percent of people would ever know.