“Hey,” I answer.
“Go get a test,” she clips.
I scoff. “I don’t need a test. This isn’t that. It’s the pollen.”
“It might not be the pollen, dummy!”
I tsk. “Rude.”
“Seriously, Ava. Go get a test. It could be—”
“What good would a test do?” I groan. “Everything I’ve heard makes it sounds like they can’t do anything to treat that virus anyway other than just treating your symptoms. Not to mention that going to get a test puts you at a higher chance of catching that virus because you’ll be around a bunch of people who actually have it.” I sigh loudly. “I just need to take a bunch of antihistamines and go back to bed.”
“Are you running a fever?”
“No,” I lie. I haven’t actually checked, but Zoey doesn’t need to know that. I knowwhat a fever feels like, and this isn’t it.
“Okay, fine. Just go back to bed then.” She absently clicks her tongue a few times. “Have you heard from Lucky at all yet?”
A sharp pang stabs my chest, and it triggers a borderline incoherent tirade. “Of course I haven’t. He hates me. He said explicitly that we’re never going to speak to each other ever again. And he said that right before he said he hopes I catch the virus and die. He doesn’t want me to call him, and I’m not going to. I don’t want to talk to him anyway. He’s an asshole. He’s just plainmean. Nobody has ever been as hateful to me as he was. Not just on Friday, but also for all that time I was there before we...you know...like...whatever.” I groan and push off my couch to plod down the short hallway to my bedroom, where I crawl back into bed. “I don’t care what he’s doing. I don’t want to talk to him. I’m just over it. You pushed me into going there in the first place, and you’re not going to push me into trying to talk to him. Let it go and leave me alone about it.”
“Sheesh. Girl, I wasn’t trying to push you into calling him. I just asked if you’d heard from him.” Zoey pauses, and I pull the blankets way up to my chin while I curl up on my side. “I mostly wanted to know what I should say if he or Meyer asks about you on our next conference call for the next virtual concert.”
“I don’tcare,” I growl. “And they won’t ask anyway. Do your deal with them and leave me out of it. I’m not involved in any of that anymore.”
“All right, all right, fine. Just go back to sleep, I guess. And let me know when Phillipp sends you that stuff so I can build the new survey.”
“I will. Bye, Zoe.”
“Later.”
I end the call and then set the phone face down on the nightstand, intending to nap for the rest of the day.
Sleep overtakes me immediately.
* * *
When I wake up,my bedroom is completely dark, and I feel like I have no idea what day it is. I pick up my phone and see that it’s still Wednesday, but that it’s approaching 8:30 in the evening. That means I “napped” forten hours. I should find that at leastsomewhatalarming, but I’m too groggy to care.
Still lying on my side, half my face is squished into my pillow, and I peer at the screen of my phone through one eye. I mindlessly scroll through Facebook for a second when I stumble upon a post from Lucky’s page. It’s a YouTube link to the weekly virtual piano bar livestream, and a sharp pain slices through my chest.
If I were still there, it would be our date night.
I wonder what Lucky does instead now.
I wonder if—since the lockdown is over and all—he goes out and picks up random women for threesomes in the big room like he used to.
It’s probably bitterness combined with my foggy, sleep-disoriented mind that causes me to click on the YouTube link, and there he is.
Just as handsome and swoony as ever while his hands fly across the piano keys. Tonight, he’s dressed in a dark gray suit with a coal black tie that matches his tousled hair, and all I can think of iswhyhe wears those three-piece suits. My eye rims burn as tears threaten, and I sniffle. I don’t know if it’s the pollen or my own heartache over everything that’s causing it. Whatever it is, it all just sucks, and I shouldn’t torture myself by watching.
I’m about to swipe away the YouTube app, but then I see Pearl’s name popping up intermittently in the chat.
PearlBeckett: Stephen, you should have seen some of the wild shows they put on for us after you left!
StephenMcCann: I can only imagine, LOL.
PearlBeckett: Lucky, you should ask Shawna to come do part of his show while you play, ha! Ha!
