Page 88 of Stop and Seek
Theo hadn’t texted him again.
Noah had. He’d had sent over two more texts—three would’ve been overkill—but…
Nothing.
Max’s voice floated down the hall, and Noah exhaled. It took her long enough to finish a family call.
“I heard you the first time,” she said, her shoes echoing against the hard floors. “We’ll both be back by next Friday—Saturday morning at the latest.”
He handed her the coffee. She barely looked up, just mouthed a quick “thank you.”
“Yeah. I’m well aware of that,” she snapped into the phone. “I already told you what I was doing. Do you want to say hi to Noah, daddy? I have him right here.”
Please don’t.
Max rolled her eyes, drained the rest of the cup, and sparked up a cigarette like the room wasn’t full of expensive equipment.
“I will see you when I see you. Tell Kate I love her. Kisses.” She hung up and tossed her phone onto the table with a loudthunk.“I will fucking throttle him if he calls me sweetheart again. It makes me throw up.”
“Tell him that.”
“Pass.” She exhaled a cloud of smoke. “All I’ve done this trip is smoke and eat. I need to like, detox and Botox when we get home.”
Noah’s jaw tensed.
He didn’t want to think about home. About leaving.
Especially not when Theo was like this.
Especially not when he didn’t get a chance to fix it.
Totouch himagain.
To ask if something happened.
Noah couldn’tleave.
Not with that strange, cold look still on Theo’s face.
But he didn’t have a choice.
Not unless he wanted Max to start asking questions. And Max was sharp enough to cut him open if she wanted to.
So he stayed quiet. Sat still.
And counted the seconds until this whole game would be over.
When Kyran slunk into the room, it was like the whole thing in the car never happened. He bounced in all bright-eyed and hyper, already grinning.
“Theviews,” Kyran hissed as he propped a chair under the handle. “The views, man.”
Stop and Seek had kicked off a minute or two ago—the squeak of sneakers echoing in the halls, scattered voices bouncing through the school like a damn playground. Kyran making it from the gym all the way here without anyone noticing was honestly kind of a miracle. But Noah didn’t care.
He was glued to the monitors.
He’d just seen Theo slip down a hallway, vanish around a corner. Noah looked away forone secondand—poof.Gone.
“What record are you trying to break?” he asked, mostly out of habit. His eyes stayed locked on the feed, fingers itching to touch the controls even though he knew he the angles wouldn't budge.
