Page 20 of Fun at Parties
“I think I know what happened,” I say breathlessly.
“His bags aren’t here.” Nate’s face is grim. “He’sgonegone.”
Any hope I had that today might be the day this trip starts going my way crumbles like the skin of a burnt marshmallow. “It’s not because of what you said.” I fill him in on the video.
“He doesn’t have his phone, though,” Nate reminds me. “How could he have seen it?”
“Did he bring a tablet? A laptop?”
His eyes spark. “No. But I did.”
His laptop is on the kitchen counter. When he wakes it, the browser is open to the video, exactly as I feared. Logan was already feeling burned out on the attention he’s been getting. A little lost. He argued with his best friend, who said something hurtful, and then he caved and checked his socials and found more people judging him harshly.
“Should we call his parents?” I ask.
Nate’s hands are fisted. “You think it’s that serious?”
I shrug helplessly. “You know him better than I do.”
Nate turns back to the computer. Two tiny wrinkles appear between his eyebrows as he clicks through the comments. Then an exasperated sigh puffs out of his mouth, his eyes fluttering shut.
“You don’t think it’s that bad?”
He shakes his head. “I know where he is.” He gestures at the screen. “He did wake up early this morning. For maybe the only thing capable of getting him out of bed before sunrise.”
I look at the laptop. There was, evidently, a second open tab in the browser window. A United Airlines flight confirmation page.
One passenger. No checked luggage. RNO to LAS.
Logan took off for Vegas twenty minutes ago.
I relax, but Nate reacts like a windup toy that’s been cranked too tightly. He bolts for his room, and I follow. His duffel bag is on his bed before I realize what’s happening. “You’re going after him?”
He tosses his phone charger onto the comforter. “Do you mind looking at flights for me? I want to get on the next one.”
“Isn’t it a good thing he went to Vegas? He’s safe, we know where he is, and it’s a place he knows well. He’s probably meeting friends. You think you need to chase him there instead of letting him cool off so you can talk it out at home in a couple weeks?”
He heads for the en suite bathroom and mumbles something noncommittal.
“I’m confused,” I say.
He unzips a small bag and fills it with the toiletries lined up at the sink. “Would you rather I stay so the two of us can continuenothanging out in Tahoe together?”
My face heats. “Or you could go back to L.A. and fly home for the party like you originally planned.”
“Please just look at flights for me.”
“Please just tell me what’s going on!”
He closes his eyes, his face reflected in the mirror, and sets a container of dental floss back on the soapstone countertop. “I need his help with something. The wholereason I wanted to meet him here was to convince him to take a big leap. To go into business with me. I figured this was my best chance at keeping his attention long enough to convince him.”
“A camp? You want your own?” Nate’s managed a summer camp that also does year-round swim lessons in L.A. since he moved here. Before that, he worked at Logan’s family’s business in Seapoint, First Cove Day and Swim Camp, which has dominated the local camp scene for decades. Logan worked there too, through college, before he moved to Austin.
Nate nods, eyes downcast. “There’s an existing one for sale. I think it could be good for both of us.”
“Better for him to invest in that than in another doomed custom dog collar business.”
Nate’s mouth ticks down at the corner. A smile.
