Page 123 of The Secret

I scrolled through a few missed calls from Freddie; dozens of messages, mostly from Rafe and Penn, plus a couple from my mum. None from Kit.

Not a single one.

I guess space meant we didn’t talk.

Well, that was just fucking fine.

The hefty amount of emails didn’t report on anything alarming, giving me no good reason why I shouldn’t go back to bed until I could wake up and everything had returned to the way it was. Or until someone had invented a functioning time machine. Either way, that’s how long I wanted to go back to bed for.

The clock on the kitchen wall told me it had been twenty-three hours since I stormed back to my office to find Rafe waiting. Rafe with his stupidit’ll be okayandshe’ll be at home when you get thereadvice. She hadn’t been. And twenty-three hours in, it still wasn’t okay, the buzzing of anxiety in my ears a clear reminder.

The faint click of the front door opening preceded Barclay bounding into the kitchen, running over to me for a woof and a bounce, followed by an enormous Freddie, and Cooper, both of them stopped in the doorway to stare. I didn’t miss the hint of a smirk whetting Coop’s lips. I was waiting for my mother to round to corner with Bell, but no one came.

I offered a biscuit to Barclay, which he eagerly gobbled up. “Where’s Bell?”

Freddie ignored my question as she tried to wrap her arms around me. However, given I was on a stool and she was nearly nine months pregnant, it wasn’t so much a hug as a pat. Her nose wrinkled up as she moved away. “Wow, this is worse than I thought it would be.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I grumbled at her.

She waddled to the fridge, grabbed a bottle of water and some painkillers from the cupboard, placing them both in front of me. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you this hungover.”

I stared down at the rudimentary first-aid kit. “How did you know I was going to be hungover?”

I hadn’t spoken to anyone except the boys since Coffeeshopgate, which is what Penn obviously named it, and now I couldn’t un-name it.

“Beside the smell? I guessed.”

I sniffed inside my shirt; I couldn’t smell anything except the scent of clean laundry.

She smirked through her lie.

“Franks, can you just spit it out?” I snapped, “I don’t have the energy to play games today, and tell me where my daughter is.”

I’d been expecting Bell, desperate to see the smile on her little face; hold her in my arms as she drank her milk; make her laugh as I read her a story. The tightness in my chest wasn’t only from Kit. This was the first morning since she’d arrived that she hadn’t been the first -or more recently second- person I’d laid eyes on each morning, and my already aching chest was aching more deeply because of it.

She nodded to the Advil she’d placed on the counter. “Take those, and then I will.”

Cooper was still leaning against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes lambent with amusement. I shot him a scowl, which only amused him further.

“Why are you two here again?” I tried to knock back the painkillers, but as I was still having trouble swallowing it took more than one attempt.

“We brought Barclay back.”

“Where is Bell?” I enunciated each word clearly, not caring that I was taking my mood out on her.

“Still with mum and dad.”

I scowled. “Why exactly?”

“We thought you could use some time, and possibly a little reminder of what your life used to be like.”

I’d already had a reminder of that, for thirty seconds, which is why I was in my current hungover predicament. I didn’t want another, nor did I understand why Freddie seemed to think I did, eyeing me smugly as only those who haven’t been hungover in a while, do.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She pulled out a stool. I glanced over to Cooper who still hadn’t said anything while Freddie was taking her sweet time to sit down. “I saw Kit yesterday.”

My eyes flicked to hers so hard and fast, a severe piercing shot through my brain and I genuinely questioned whether I was having an aneurysm. “What? When? How?”

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