Page 35 of Before Now

Fucking siren, I swear. I haven’t even seen her face or much of her at all. Her raspy voice, though, and the things she says with it. How she frames the world anytime she sends a video speaks to a part of me that wants to find the nuances and extraordinary in the mundane.

I’m an agreeable hostage at this point.

Of course the jackass on the other side of the table swipes my phone before I can.

“Remi, like tour Remi?” Chase lets out anawwwwithout an answer. “Want me to handle this? Tell her how swell you are? Ten-inch cock on a tortured guitarist who saves puppies when he’s not writing lyrics that will make her wet?”

I sigh and shake my head. “I’ll miss you, Chase, but I will throw you off the balcony.”

He passes off my phone when I hold out my hand. “You said that an hour ago, too. You’re nothing but a tease.”

“Fine. I’m a tease, and you’re the worst wingman to ever wingman.” He gasps, offended, so I remind him, “Anytime you offer to talk to a woman for someone, you end up dry fucking her in a corner.”

“That happened twice,” he says. “If anything, I’m doing too good of a job by sussing out the ones with wandering eyes.”

“By wandering your hands all over them?”

Chase lowers his LED sunglasses on his nose to glare. “Ungrateful. See if I ever offer my services again.”

He shoves them back on, and I chuckle, checking Remi’s text.

Show me something beautiful.

Easy, given my view from our flat’s balcony. Prague Castle’s lit up in the distance with the city skyline surrounding it. I blew through what I planned to use for next semester’s living expenses to rent this place. Ramen and walking everywhere will hardly kill me. The memory of doing this with Chase more than makes up for it. And now I can share it with my less and less intrusive thought.

“You never smile at me like that,” Chase says.

I huff a laugh and sigh and run a hand through the back of my hair. When I look over, he nods with his lips pursed.

“Guess we like Tour Remi.” Chase stands from his iron chair and crosses between me and the railing. “I’ll tell her you’re packing eleven inches then. I’m going out. Enjoy the sexting.” He taps the bottom of his beer bottle against the top of mine, and I have to sit forward and suck up the foaming beer.

“The fucking worst,” I call at him.

His laugh cuts off when he closes the double doors from inside. I smile even though he’s a dick. Hell, most of the time I smile because he’s such a dick.

The first few days here, he moped around. I started to worry until he tossed glow sticks at me one night, informed me we were clubbing, and then dove on me to drive his point home. I finally dragged him out of the club at seven a.m. He had a massive grin on his face as we stumbled out into the morning sun.

I set my bottle on the table and skip the texting pretense. Remi accepts the call and shows me a familiar white ceiling. “I get a ceiling, and you get this?” I flip the camera and move so instead of showing the balcony above me, she has a panoramic view of Prague. The castle, and lights, and a few red roofs.

She’s quiet even though my screen goes from white to a red wall and black words. I say them as I read, “You can always run to me, darlin’. Escape for a while and then weather your storm.”

A breath comes through, and an exhale has never sounded so fucking sad. My brow lowers, but the silence feels too necessary to ask a pointless question. So I pan down and show her my world. Tree-lined cobblestone streets and the metal railing in front of me, even my beer on top of the intricately designed wrought iron, and my guitar leaned against the table leg.

“My dad used to tell me that,” Remi says, and I return the lens to the skyline. “He photographed wildlife for magazines and commissions, traveling the world and experiencing moments most of us can’t come close to.” She sighs. “He lived his dream nine months out of the year, and I loved that for him so much. But it meant I lived with my mom most of the time, and she…”

The pause is achingly familiar, so much like mine anytime I hate the truth of the next words.

“She was your storm,” I say.

“Yeah. Was. Is.” Remi shifts, showing her bent knees at the bottom of the frame, and I fill in the blanks. She’s on the floor, hugging her knees and looking at her dad’s words. “I missed him constantly, so he bought me a phone when I was seven. He sent pictures of the animals or the landscape. And fountains. He loved them and always found one to share with me everywhere he went. He’d tell me if I needed him and he was unavailable on a shoot, I could find him there. I could always go to his pictures and pretend I was with him until everything became bearable again.”

Now she has nowhere to run anymore.

“How old were you when he passed away?” I ask.

“Eleven,” she whispers before she finds her voice again. “I looked at our messages every single day, but then my mom took the phone. She told me to grow up and get over it. I mean, it had been three months, so…”

“Fuck. I’m sorry, Remi. You deserved better.” Then I add, “I have a feeling you still deserve better.”

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