Page 108 of All the Beautiful Things
I kissed her slowly, teased her with nips at the corners of her mouth, sliding my tongue across the seam of her lips. I pulled back, let her come toward me before I returned with more teasing, more pecks that alluded to how much more I wanted until she whimpered her impatience and her want against my mouth.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, an incessant buzzing that told me it wasn’t a text message.
“Shit,” I groaned and her lips curled into a smile against mine.
“You need to get that.”
“I don’t want to talk to anyone else today.”
She huffed, and before I could reach for my phone, her hand went to the back pocket of my jeans and she dug out my phone for me.
“It’s Shawn.” She swallowed thickly. The pink hue on her cheeks from wanting me paled until she was almost as white as a ghost. “Have you talked to him lately?”
“Not since the wedding, but I’m not surprised he’s calling today.”
“Answer it.”
She stepped back and I hit the connect button before it could go to voicemail. “Hey there, Merry Christmas cousin.”
“Merry Christmas to you, but that’s not why I’m calling.”
His tone was urgent, surprising me. Whatever expression I made had her turning even paler.
“What is it?”
“First, I found that judge’s address. I’ll text it to you when we’re done.”
“Okay.” In front of me, Lilly’s hands went to her mouth. Her fingers were tangled together, pressed to her lips and a full shiver rolled through her, making her hands tremble.
I almost put the phone on speakerphone so she could hear everything but the tone of Shawn’s voice stopped me.
“What else?”
“He’s recently been admitted to the hospital. Suffered a cardiac arrest less than twenty-four hours ago.”
“How’d you hear that?”
“Pure luck. With closing down cases here and getting everything squared away for my big move, I haven’t had much time to do the searching I told you I would. His address was buried under an LLC he created about five years ago when they moved, which was why you wouldn’t have been able to find him doing a simple property county search. Anyway, finally found it this morning. Went in after I did Christmas at my parents—they say hello by the way—and I did a run on him, credit cards, bank records, that kind of thing. Anyway, I got pinged when his social was entered into the hospital’s computer system.”
“Is he going to be okay?”
“Don’t know. But I wanted to call and let you know in case you want Lilly to know. I’ll text you the hospital’s number and his room number, too.”
“Shit.” I held out my free arm and pulled Lilly to me. She collapsed against my chest, draping her arms around my waist. “Thanks. Thanks for letting me know.”
“No problem. Other than this, things good there? How’s David?”
“Tired. Trying to stay strong but he’s tired.”
“Yeah. That sucks. Tell him I’m thinking of him, would you? I’m sure he’s tired. You have a lot of people come by today?”
“About a dozen. Charlotte and this guy, Julio. Get this, she’s engaged.”
“Good for her. She always was a cool girl. I’m sure I’ll see her Facebook post any minute then.”
He’d spent a summer with us when Charlotte lived with us. I was pretty sure Shawn was the object of Charlotte’s first crush, but at the age of thirteen, she was way too young for Shawn at seventeen to do anything about it except find it awkward.
“Yeah. Listen. Lilly’s with me and knows it’s you, so I’m gonna go. We’ll talk soon.”
