Page 13 of Missing White Woman

We walked up to the porch. “Is the project almost done at least?” I said.

“Deadline’s Monday. It’s this new client. Usually it’s not such a quick turnaround and I wouldn’t be working on a weekend—especially with you here. But at least it should be all taken care of tomorrow morning.” He opened his arms. “You forgive me, right?”

I didn’t even hesitate, just went in for the hug, letting his body envelop me.

“I’m so sorry I ruined the trip, Bree. I was gonna take you to the Empire State Building but don’t think we have time if you’re leaving at seven.”

I took a step back. Even with the apology, I didn’t want to leave things like this—didn’t want to leave him. I wanted to stay. I opened my mouth to say something, then immediately closed it.

He noticed. “You’re still mad.”

I thought it over. WWTD? He’d offer to stay.

“What if I don’t?” I said. When he said nothing, I pressed on. “I can stay an extra day. We both know I get up late as hell anyway. I won’t even notice when you go into the office tomorrow morning and turn your project in.”

He rubbed my back. “While you sleep in. I’ll be done by the time you’re up.”

“Exactly. Then when you come home right after it’s done, we can do everything we were supposed to do today.”

I looked up at him in time to see the smile start to form. “So we both play hooky…”

“Correct.”

I got on my tippy-toes to kiss him long and hard. And when I stepped back, he took his phone out of his pocket. “You want to message your boss first or should I?”

I thought it over. “Same time?”

Ty narrated his actions as he emailed his boss, making a point to sneak peeks at me doing the same. This was my Ty. The one I had come to visit. The tension I’d been holding in my shoulders started to loosen. “Eyes on your own paper, Tyler Franklin,” I said.

“You probably never let anyone cheat off you in school,” he said. “All done?”

“Yep. You do an away message?”

“On it now.” He recited as he typed. “‘I’m unexpectedly out of the office with no access to email and will answer your email as soon as I return, hopefully this week.’”

I finished my own note, then hit Send. When I looked up, he was smiling at me.

“Empire State Building tomorrow?” I said.

“Empire State Building tomorrow—unless you’d like to stay in?”

“And do what exactly?”

“I can think of some things.”

He laughed. I joined him. We were so loud it sounded like a truck was rumbling by.

Someone cleared their throat. We looked up. Orange-turned-Yellow finally decided to make eye contact, a handful of hot-pink flyers clutched to his chest as he glared at our happiness. The smile slid off my face as he walked by, staring us down as he did.

A woman was missing. Possibly taken right from this neighborhood. I grabbed Ty’s hand. “Let’s go inside.”

* * *

Ty spent the rest of the afternoon finishing up his project. I spent the entire time downstairs on my phone. I started with Twitter, and my heart caught when I saw Janelle’s name trending along with the word “Honda.” I’d never clicked on anything so quick in my life. Someone had uploaded a pic of a gray Honda Civic, supposedly similar to hers, in somewhere called Hoboken, but a few more clicks let me know it was just a false alarm. She was still missing. There were no other updates.

I moved on to Instagram. There were exactly 6 likes on a pic I had uploaded from Central Park. That was good for me.

I went to Ty’s page. He was more popular. Just like in real life. He’d posted only a few photographs all weekend. Another telltale sign he’d been sneak-working. The latest was just of our feet as we were enjoying Netflix. Part of me was excited to make it onto his Instagram—even if it was just my toes.

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