Page 22 of Hold Him Like Gravity

Nope.

I wasn’t going to go back there.

I needed to focus on the present. On finding that asshole.

“Can you call him?” I asked.

“Why don’t you call him?”

“Bobby, come on. Be a pal. Just this once,” I said, sounding tired. Because I was. I was so fucking tired of thinking about Jake.

“Okay,” he said, taking his noodles over to his desk, righting his chair, sitting down, and reaching for his phone. The movement made some sort of motion-detecting neon lights flash on in a short little pattern.

“That’s kind of cool,” I admitted.

“Right? I got sent them.”

“Sent? By who?”

“The company.”

“Why would a company send them?” I asked, and watched as his neck and cheeks went red. “What?”

“I started streaming,” he said, unable to look up at me as his elbow nudged his mouse, making his screen wake up, showing the home screen of his channel.

He had almost half a million followers.

“Holy shit, Bobby,” I said, eyes going round.

“I’m making money and everything,” he said, smiling.

“That was your dream, right?” I asked.

“I mean, kind of,” he said, playing it down. Meanwhile, I’d listened to him gush on and on about his favorite streamers andhow cool it was that they made a living from doing their favorite thing.

“That’s really cool, Bobby. I mean it. Good for you.”

For all his faults, I didn’t actually wish the guy bad. If anything, I wished he would get out of the apartment more and live a bit more of a normal life. If this was the life he truly wanted, though, who the hell was I to judge?

“Thanks,” he said, smiling to himself as he unlocked his phone and scrolled his contacts.

He lifted his phone to his ear, but it was just a few seconds before his brows scrunched.

“What is it?” I asked.

Bobby hung up, then switched it to speaker, and called again.

“We’re sorry. The number you are trying to reach is disconnected or no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this message in error, please check the number and try again.”

“What the fuck?” I asked aloud. “Jake has had that line… forever.”

Bobby had nothing to add to that, just shook his head.

“Was he acting weird before he left?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Was he hanging out with anyone new? Right before you saw him last.”

---