Page 4 of Voice to Raise
“Of course he doesn’t.” I waited impatiently as she typed out a message with her thumbs flying across her screen. I, on the other hand, pecked out messages with my right index finger. Predictive text was my best friend. Autocorrect was my archenemy.
“Okay, sent. We’ll just—”
Her phone buzzed.
“He’s responded. He wants to call.”
“Give him my number.”
“Okay, but he’s going to expect me.” Even as she said the words, she typed.
About twelve seconds later, my phone rang. “Spencer Wainright.”
“Uh, I thought I was gonna talk to Bonnie. My name’s Creed.”
“I’m Bonnie’s—”
She arched her eyebrow—daring me to announce myself as her boss.
I cleared my throat. “I’m a friend of Bonnie’s. We work at This Land Is Ours. Have you heard of us?”
“Sure. Malik talks about you guys all the time. TLIO this and TLIO that. I thought maybe he met a guy who hooked up with him and dragged him, but he said he just felt compelled to get involved.”
Met a guy who hooked up with him…Did that mean Malik was gay? Now was precisely not the time to think about that, but I tucked that nugget into the back of my mind. “Uh, we understand he was arrested after the, uh, incident on the Lion’s Gate Bridge.”
“No shit. He was filming himself when he chained himself. I hadn’t heard anything about being arrested.”
“Well, I believed it was prudent to inform someone. Apparently, he was the only person taken into custody.”
Bonnie nodded vigorously.
“Yeah, that’s Malik. Kind of amazing it hasn’t happened before now. I suppose I should go down and see if I can bail him out.”
“If he’s charged, he’ll have to go to court first. If he’s charged, you might need to secure a lawyer for him.”
He chuckled. “No worries—my mother will take care of all of that.”
“Excuse me?”
“She’s a lawyer. Legal aid. I don’t know whether she can represent him, but she’ll know what to do. So, like, thanks for letting me know.” He paused. “He didn’t cause any trouble or anything, did he?”
“He got arrested.”
“Wearing one of our T-shirts.” Bonnie added that, clearly doing her best to eavesdrop.
I arched an eyebrow.
She shrugged.
“Oh, man. That sucks for you. Wait. Is that good? Because, like, publicity—”
“Thereissuch a thing as bad publicity.”
“Shit. Like, sorry. Okay, off to call Mum. Later.” He cut the line.
I stared at the phone.Later? When does he think we’re going to talk? Come to that, what would we even talk about?
Malik Fucking Forestal.
