Page 53 of Find Me in California

The game finishes shortly before eight, and Matt closes out his tab. He returns to his room and eats half a gummy to take off the edge, sinking further into himself. And when that doesn’t settle his mind, he rolls a joint from Magnolia’s stash, turns off the lights, and settles back on the couch to stare at the gray ceiling. The curtains are drawn, the room cast in shadows, and Matt closes his eyes.

“Thank you very much, Mags,” he whispers to the room, taking a hit, and he sinks into oblivion. Spicy smoke wraps delicate, smooth arms around his mind, and she is there, in the room with him. He feels her over him, on him, dulling his headache and muting his buzz. She unravels the tightness binding his lungs, and he can breathe again. Like fog retreating to the coast, his restlessness eases.

He goes willingly and hungrily with her. Tumbling, falling, drowning until he feels nothing. No ache or throbbing pain. No knife cleaving his skull. No tortured memories from the past. Just her.

He definitely feels her.

Fingers trace his jaw, his neck. His hand follows hers down his torso and under the band of his jeans. He cups himself and groans. His body melts into the cushions.

Music plays in the distance, warm, brassy notes. Melodic voices grow louder. He knows that sound. He needs to answer that sound ...

Matt jerks up on the couch. His gaze flies to the phone he left on the table among discarded food cartons and beer cans.

He scrambles off the couch and answers. “Matt Gatlin.”

“Thank God. I’ve been trying to reach you for hours,” Julia says.

Matt glances at the screen. It’s almost midnight. Christ, he must have passed out.

“H-Hey.” His voice cracks as much from his shock over her concern for him as from exhaustion.

“Are you okay? Where are you? Liza said you never showed up today.”

“I’m—” He rakes back his hair and sinks into the couch. “I fell asleep.”

Pause. “Are you still at the same motel?”

Shame floods him, and he hesitates before answering. “Yeah.”

“Are you still drinking?”

And smoking. But that was earlier.

“Right now, no.” He rubs his eyes, past caring that he’s procrastinating getting to Elizabeth. His gaze narrows on what’s left of the joint he must have snuffed out hours ago. He reaches for a tin and chews an edible. “What of it?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “I’m trying to picture this good-looking, award-winning professional photographer I read up on that everybody sings praises about as this slacker getting drunk by himself in a motel room when he should be in California helping his grandmother, and I’m sorry. The pieces don’t fit.”

If he wasn’t awake before, he is now. He should be offended, but he can’t help the goofy smile. She googled him. “You think I’m good looking?”

“That’s what you got out of everything I said? Are you listening to me? Liza needs you, and instead you’re wherever you are having some sort of breakdown. That or you just don’t care.”

“I care,” he fudges because the truth means admitting he’s having a breakdown and needs help, which he doesn’t. He just needs to get himself under control.

“About her. You don’t care about her. You sure aren’t acting like it. Your grandmother said you’d flake. I didn’t want to believe it.”

Not surprising. Elizabeth never thought highly of him. But despite that, he senses something out of orbit in Julia’s world. She launched into him like a cat with claws drawn. “Everything all right with you?”

“No.” Julia sighs. “It wasn’t a good day. My grandmother ...” Her voice catches.

“It’s okay. You can talk to me,” he offers, eager to redirect the conversation’s focus on her.

“I told myself I wasn’t going to cry over this,” she says as she does cry. “Oh, gosh. This is embarrassing. I’m going to hang up now.”

“No, don’t.”

“Let me spare us both and get off the phone. I’m usually not like this.”

“Like what?”

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