Page 106 of Bad For A Weekend

“Fuck off. I’m two weeks past my deadline. The owners are breathing down my neck.”

“Does it make you work faster when they do that?” I peer over my shoulder.

“Fair point.” He sighs and walks off, leaving me be.

I’m reaching into my toolbox for a pair of needle-nose when my phone blares loudly with an alarm I don’t recognize. Startled, I yank it from my pocket and press any button I can until it shuts up.

“Does that mean you’re done?” the contractor hollers.

“In your dreams.” I press the message box and nearly jump out of my skin when I see Baylor has signaled an emergency with her bracelet. The GPS shows she’s in Claremont, where her college is. Bringing up her contact, I stop and think about it for a second. Is this a ploy to get me to reach out?

As far as I know, she’s not in any imminent danger. If she were, Hudson would still be working for Corey, and he’s not. This must be Baylor wanting to get ahold of me. But I can’t make assumptions, not when it comes to her safety. I close out of her contact information and instead bring up Corey’s.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Corey. This is Owen.”

“Listen, if you’re calling to explain yourself to me, you don’t have to. She told me everything, and you should know that what you did with my little girl is disgusting. You’re an adult. You should’ve known better.”

My gut roils. She told him? Motherfucker. Why did I call him?

“What? No. I mean, that’s not why I called.”

“Oh. I guess I misjudged your ability to cop to your mistakes and try to make them right. Should’ve known.”

Thoughts spin around in my head like a tornado, too much to process all at once. I want to explain myself and apologize, but that’ll have to wait.

“Is Baylor okay?” I blurt out.

“She’s fine. I just left her new place. Why?”

“A while ago, I gave her this emergency alert bracelet in case something happened and I wasn’t there. She sounded the alarm just now, but I didn’t want to call the cops and raise a fuss if...”

“If she was only trying to communicate with you.” He sighs.

“Exactly.”

“I was with her less than five minutes ago. She’s fine.”

“Thank fuck.” I breathe a sigh of relief.

“Huh. That was clever. I never thought about getting her something like that.”

“It was nothing,” I mumble. “And for the record, I am sorry about everything else.”

“Where are you?” he asks out of nowhere.

I look around. “WeHo. I’m installing a security system.”

“Oh. Are you free this afternoon?”

“Um, sure. Why?” My head lulls back on my neck, pretty sure I know where this is going.

“I’m leaving town tomorrow morning, but I want to meet up.”

“I can come by the house after I finish up here.”

“Sounds good.”

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