Page 74 of Red Hot Harmony

I looked like hell and I felt even worse. My feet itched in my ash and soot-soaked socks and sneakers and my back hurt. And somewhere beneath all that emotional turmoil, my stomach was also demanding food, but it didn’t seem like the most important issue at the moment.

I needed to find my phone and call Camille first.

She deserved an explanation from me, not just an excuse from my publicist.

As soon as I stepped foot inside my house, Snowflake rushed over to me, all bark and pent-up energy and floppy ears.

“Sorry I had to leave you, buddy.” I picked him up from the floor and brushed my cheek against his nose, then cradled him to my chest and took a walk around the house.

It was the strangest thing—to feel the warmth of this wiggling ball in my hands, who somehow liked me enough to let me take care of him. Because I’d never really taken care of anyone in my life before. Not even myself.

I’d always thought I wasn’t equipped. My mother had told me so one too many times, and eventually, I’d started to believe her, but now I had a dog and I had Malik, who was moving back into his room here. Full-time and no more disappearing for days on end bullshit.

I wasn’t sure what exactly I was searching for, but eventually, I found myself in my back yard, reliving what happened earlier here with Malik, remembering the paramedics, the clouds of smoke up above, the way my despair felt around my throat—like a hot collar.

Malik had looked banged up but alive when I was escorted in to see him at the hospital. We didn’t talk about the chain of events that had led to his relapsing on my property. I wasn’t ready to hear it then. I was just glad he’d pulled through. Instead, I’d simply told him he was moving back in with me. No lame excuses. No unsupervised hikes.

I’d also joked about getting a pair of handcuffs on eBay to make sure he didn’t wander off.

We even shared a laugh about that.

But now that the worst was behind me, this train wreck of a day needed some fixing.

I put Snowflake down and went back to the terrace to turn on the pool lights. The ashen water swelled and glistened and lapped softly to my left as I strode past it, staring at the yellow dot in the sky that was the moon.

The air smelled bad and the wind had picked up, rattling the trees, slapping the hillside, and howling somewhere in the canyons.

Snowflake waddled over to the edge of the pool and barked at the dirty water.

I sunk into a crouch. “What’s going on, buddy?”

He yapped again.

And that was when I saw it, a shiny object on the bottom—my fucking phone.

Well, just my luck.

“You should be working for a K-9 unit,” I said while rubbing Snowflake’s tiny body.

He ducked his head, spun around, then brushed his nose against my palm.

“Stay here,” I told him, peeling off my sneakers and socks and plunging into the pool to get my phone.

Of course, it wasn’t salvageable after several hours underwater, which meant I couldn’t call Camille. To make matters worse, I didn’t have a backup and it was too late to go buy a new one.

I was screwed.

The universe had really fucked me today.

There was only one option left. Apologize in person. And the thought gave me shivers because asking for forgiveness wasn’t something that came easy to me. I wanted to, but I didn’t know how. The words in my head tripped over each other as they rushed to the forefront of my mind.

I climbed out of the water and padded toward the pool house. Snowflake followed. Inside, everything looked the same yet different. The couch was nudged to the side and ash covered the floor. Several footprints from where the paramedics had worked on getting Malik out of here remained.

I circled the room, my clothes soaking wet and dripping water across the floor. Snowflake’s tiny paws made more mess as he quietly trailed after me.

I stopped in front of the couch and pushed against one side with my knee to straighten it. It was heavy and slid slowly from the pressure of my weight, and in the spot where one of the legs had been a few seconds ago, there was a sprinkle of white powder.

My body seized up, each muscle tight with nerves.

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