Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 109903 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109903 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
"What is that dinosaur?" Nicky asked, dismayed. "No one put money on a flip phone, Andrew. You ruined a really good pot."
Neil idly wondered if there was anything his teammates wouldn't bet on.
"So sad," Andrew said, not a whit sympathetic.
"You couldn't have even found him a qwerty?"
"What for?" Andrew finished what he was doing, snapped the phone shut, and tossed it at Neil. Catching it was instinctive, but Neil froze at the next words out of Andrew's mouth. "Who is Neil going to text?"
"Um, me, for starters," Nicky said, like that should be obvious.
"What." Neil couldn't even make it a question.
He uncurled his fingers and stared at the gray phone resting in his palm. He didn't think a small thing like this should hurt so much, but the grief that punched through him left him in pieces. The roaring in his ears sounded like the ocean. For a moment he was back there on the beach watching fire eat through the car. He remembered how it smelled, the salt of the water and the sick stench of burning flesh. He could still feel the sand on his fingers, warm up top where the sun shone and cold deep down where he'd left his mother's bones.
He'd saved their phones for last. Every time they moved they got new cell phones, prepaid burners they could ditch at the first hint of trouble. He wanted to keep hers. He wanted something real to hold onto in her absence. Even then he'd known better. He threw them into the waves before leaving the beach. He'd never gotten a new one for himself. He'd never seen a point; Neil had no one in the world he could call.
"Neil."
The urgent tone of Nicky's voice finally cut through the buzzing in Neil's ears. Neil dragged his stare up to Nicky's face and realized too late Nicky had been speaking to him. Nicky's expression was tight with concern.
Neil swallowed hard and tried to remember how to breathe. He closed his fingers around the phone so he wouldn't have to look at it and held it out toward Nicky. "No."
Nicky held up his hands. He looked less like he was warding off the phone and more like he was trying to calm a cornered animal. "Neil," he said, speaking very slowly and carefully, "we kind of need you to hold onto that. We need a way to get in touch with you this year."
"You have this way of making people want to kill you," Andrew said.
Nicky looked pained by that tactless explanation but he didn't take his eyes off Neil. "What if Coach needs to talk to you about something or Riko's freaky fans start causing trouble? Last year got really crazy toward the end, and this year isn't off to a good start. That's our just-in-case. You'll make us all feel better if we know we can find you."
"I can't." It was too ragged and too honest, but Neil couldn't help it. If he didn't get rid of that phone he was going to be sick. "Nicky, I—"
"Okay, okay," Nicky said, taking Neil's hand in both of his. "We'll figure it out."
Neil thought he'd feel better when Nicky had the phone, but the overwhelming sense of loss still knotted up his lungs. He tugged his hand free and took the bags of clothes Nicky had hooked over his arm. He didn't have to ask for the keys. Andrew pilfered them from Nicky's pocket and held them up in offering.
Neil grabbed them, but Andrew held on for a moment. Andrew leaned forward on his perch and smiled at Neil. "Hey, Neil. Honesty looks awful on you."
Neil wrenched the keys out of his grasp and walked away to the sound of Andrew's laughter. He didn't go back inside afterward, but they came out to find him not much later. No one mentioned the cell phone and, although Nicky kept shooting him worried looks in the rearview mirror, no one spoke to Neil on the ride back to campus.
-
The silence couldn't last, though Neil wished it would. He came out of the bathroom in half of his gear for his night practice with Kevin and found Kevin had already left the locker room. The scattered clothes on the bench hinted he'd been kicked out before he was ready.
Andrew was straddling the bench as he waited for Neil, and in front of him was Neil's new phone. Neil glanced down at it instinctively and quickly jerked his stare up to Andrew's face. Andrew wasn't smiling anymore. He'd skipped his nine o'clock dose so he could start winding down for bed even though he was usually out with Kevin and Neil until midnight.
"A man can only have so many issues," Andrew said.
"I don't need a phone."
"Who needs one more than you do this year?"
Andrew took his own phone out of his pocket and set it down beside Neil's. His was black but otherwise seemed to be the same model. He flicked both open and pressed a couple buttons. A few seconds later Andrew's phone started to ring. Neil expected a generic ringtone, but a man started singing. It didn't sound like something Andrew would assign to his phone until Neil listened to the lyrics. It was a song about runaways.
Neil crossed the room and sat facing Andrew on the bench. He scooped Andrew's phone up and crushed the reject button with his thumb. "You're not funny."
"Neither are you. You put a noose around your neck and handed the loose end to Riko," Andrew said. "I distinctly remember saying I would watch your back. Give me one good reason why you'd make that difficult for me."
"I survived for eight years because no one could find me," Neil said.
"That's not why."
"Are we doing the honesty thing again?"
"Do we need to?" Andrew asked, taking his phone from Neil. "You start."
Neil turned his new phone in circles on the bench, unwilling and unable to pick it up. "You know, most parents give their children phones so they can keep track of them throughout the day. I had one because of the people my father worked with. My parents wanted to know they could reach me if the worst should happen. 'Just in case'," Neil said, echoing Nicky's words.