Kid,” Officer Dunthorpe says, his voice flickering in and out over the bad connection, “are you nuts? I’m not your secretary, or your messenger boy, or whatever it is you seem to think I am.”
Jordan methodically shreds a paper napkin that reads NICK’S BEST BURGER IN NYC. The napkin lies—it’s not the best burger at all. It’s only the cheapest. Outside the diner, snow has begun to fall. “I understand this is an unusual request, officer,” he says.
“You’re damn right it is,” Dunthorpe practically yells into the phone.
Jordan picks up another napkin and rips it nervously in two. “I wouldn’t ask for your help if I didn’t need it. If Hannah didn’t need it. If you called Fillan House, they’d give you the records. All you’d have to do is ask.”
Dunthorpe barks out a laugh. “It doesn’t work that way, kid. There’s no crime I’m investigating here, understand? Until that girl’s back out on the street in my precinct, she’s absolutely none of my business.”
“But I’m afraid she will be back out there,” Jordan says.
“Well, when I see her, I’ll be sure to say hello.”
The phone goes dead.
“I guess that didn’t go the way you hoped it would,” Ellie says. She’s sitting in the booth across from him, sipping a Diet Coke and picking at the french fries he’d ordered.
“No, it didn’t.”
She reaches out and takes his hands in her small warm ones. “It’s Friday,” she says. “You’ve already clocked out. So how about you stop making work calls and pay attention to me?”
He smiles. “Sorry. Okay.” He tells himself that he’s not going to think about Hannah until Monday morning.
He can manage that, can’t he?
So they finish their greasy diner fries and then go see a Marvel movie, and then they walk into a bar where no one asks them for ID. They drink too much cheap beer, and later they find themselves in Jordan’s dorm room, which is empty because his roommate is at his great-grandmother’s funeral in Indiana.
They stumble-fall-laugh their way to the bed and collapse onto it. Ellie lifts her arms, and Jordan tugs her shirt up over her head. She isn’t wearing a bra, and the surprise of this thrills him. But he hesitates.
“What?” Ellie says, touching his cheek. “What is it?”
What is it? He doesn’t know. This is what he wants, isn’t it?
Or does some buried part of him wish he was with someone else?
He shakes the confusion out of his head and buries his face in Ellie’s neck. He kisses her warm, soft, wonderful skin. She laughs—“It tickles,” she says—and then she pulls him closer.