Page 108 of Always Salty

I can’t explain my music type. It’s just every song but the ones I don’t like.

—Dima to Keely

DIMA

I woke up to an empty bed.

I groaned and rolled over, burying my face into the pillow that her head had been resting on for the majority of the night.

The scent of passionfruit and apples filled my nostrils, and I inhaled and exhaled a few times before pushing myself out of bed.

I shook my head when there were several meows of anger.

Three of the four fell off my body when I got up from the bed, the fourth one only looking up from her slumber from my pillow.

I gave them a disgusted look and said, “Y’all aren’t sleeping in here ever again.”

The cats curled their little tiny bodies into the bed and went back to sleep.

I got ready for the day, dressing in jeans, a black t-shirt, and my boots.

I headed into the kitchen for coffee and found Keely’s note just as my phone rang.

D

Went to CE.

LY.

<3 K

I answered it without looking at the caller ID.

“Hello?”

“Dima,” one of Keely’s brothers said. “It’s Copper.”

“Hey, what’s up?” I asked.

“I’ve been waiting at my place for over an hour for Keely to get here, and she’s nowhere in sight. Is she still asleep or something?” he asked.

I froze.

“She’s been gone for a while,” I said.

I pulled up the security app on my phone and looked at the time stamp for when the alarm was turned off.

“Over an hour ago,” I said. “She should’ve easily been there by now.”

I looked at her location next and saw that she was somewhere near downtown.

“It looks like she’s downtown, near her old work,” I said. “Like four or five blocks away.”

“She’s not answering her phone,” he said, sounding worried now. “Why would she go there?”

Why indeed.

“Let me call you back,” I said.

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