Chapter Thirty-Eight

Robbie

“Abi, can we talk?”

It was midnight and we had a long day, but my precious cousin answered her door wearing a robe and ushering me in. “It’s about damned time.”

“I don’t know what happened,” I admitted miserably as she shepherded me into the kitchen and put on the kettle for tea. The heaviness in my chest wouldn’t go away.

“Well, we can start with you and Theo had a fight, and instead of talking to me about it, you tried to pretend everything was all right.”

My mind whirred in shock. “Did Kat say something?” I asked dumbly.

“No, silly,” Abi said compassionately, setting down two prepared cups with my favorite chocolate chai tea bag, creamer, and sugar. “Honey, you do know you’ve got one of the most expressive faces ever, right? You moped around the party as if someone just told you that you could never have chocolate again. You also talk about Theo. A lot,” she emphasized. “You didn’t say one word about him all day after taking him soup last night. So, yeah, it doesn’t take a shrink like Mom to figure out something is up.”

“I don’t know what happened. He’s been so distant, and yesterday when I got to the hotel he was completely distracted with the Interface. When he came out he said that he was heading back to San Francisco and I should stay here.”

“Did he tell you why?” she asked, getting up to fill our cups with hot water.

I shook my head. “I asked if we were breaking up and he said yeah. I don’t quite know what he said after that,” I admitted.

“You don’t know…” She sat with a thump and studied me for so long I thought I might have something on my face. “Have you bothered calling him?”

“Only to yell at him for zapping some guy who was trying to attack me.”

Abi gasped, her hand fluttering to her throat unconsciously. “Robbie, you tell me what happened. Everything. Right now.”

I was surprised to find myself smiling softly at her concern and the sternness of her voice. And then I realized it. I wasn’t afraid. Any other time a woman had ever spoken to me with any amount of disappointment, I had shriveled up, but at that moment I laughed out loud. Much to Abi’s chagrin. She pursed her lips and crossed her arms, the effect making her look more like she had when she was eight and not getting her way rather than an adult woman who was about to get married.

After leaning across and kissing her cheek, I settled back and took a sip of the tea. “So, let me start with the bar.”

I recapped everything from the evening and the attack. We went forward and back, arriving at the same conclusion.

Theorizing was, as Abi put it, “shit.” I needed to go talk to Theo.