Page 107 of Close Your Eyes and Count to 10

“What took you so long?” he asked, moving back inside.

“What took me so long?” she said, following him.

She heard Coral yelling,“Violet! Violet! What’s happening?”

“What the actual fuck, Blake?”

“You think I didn’t know you put LifeTracker on my phone?” he called back, his voice echoing in the unfurnished space.

She stopped at the door.

She remembered: there had been a big sectional over there, a television mounted on the wall. Outside, visible though the sliding-glass doors, there had been a swing set, and down the path into the woods there was a tree house.

Coral came up behind her, smelling of bubble gum and lilac.

“Whatishappening?”

“I have no idea,” she said as she followed her brother inside.

As she turned the corner into the kitchen, she saw him.

Grayer, thinner than she remembered, than he appeared to her in her dreams. He had dark circles under his eyes, a salt-and-pepper beard. She stood staring, stunned. She opened her mouth,but no words came. Distantly, she was aware of a hurricane brewing—a terrible swirl of rage, grief, sadness, relief, surprise, joy.

She staggered back into Coral, who held her shoulders tight.

Coral issued a gasp. “Holy missing persons,” she whispered.

“Hey, kiddo,” he said, rising.

Violet lifted a hand, indicating that he should stay back, and he stopped where he stood.

“Hi, Dad.”

42

MAVERICK

The bottom of the elevator shaft was already filling. Maverick splashed down and found himself ankle-deep in murky water, debris floating, an unpleasant smell drifting up. He stopped and listened to the darkness, felt his aloneness.

Leaving the rope dangling, he waded out of the shaft. In the ruined elevator lobby, he was about to go live again, then stopped himself. He was rarely without one of the guys, his audience, Angeline. There was always someone watching, someone to laugh at his jokes or to encourage him before a crazy stunt and to help him up when he wiped out.

Wasn’t that everyone now, though? Wasn’teveryoneliving their lives on display? It wasn’t just WeWatchers and influencers. Everyone was curating and filtering the moments of their lives, posting them for approval, checking back to see what people thought.

“When you have a kid, that’s when shit gets real,” Alex told him. “All of this? You just suddenly see it for what it is. A game. A dream.”

Alex had said it in anger. They’d been fighting outside the hotel.

“You’re not even here anymore,” Maverick had accused him. “Your heart is not in this anymore.”

“You’re right,” Alex had answered grimly, surprising Maverick, cutting him deep. “My heart is with my family. My wife. My child.”

“We’refamily, aren’t we?” He pointed an angry finger back and forth between them. “Brothers.”

“That’s what I thought, too, Mav,” he said.

“That’s what youthought?”

“Until I realized that you were stealing money from the company.”

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