So Rare (Boys of South Chapel #3)

2. Greedy

Chapter 2

Greedy

NOW

“What is this?” I shift the older model phone from hand to hand, only allowing my fingertips to touch the cool metal. Though I recognize it, it’s hard not to handle it like it’s a grenade at risk of detonating.

Levi nudges me and scoffs. “Dude, that’s Hunter’s phone from high school.”

The logical part of my brain knows that.

But why is it here, in her bedside table at the cabin?

Spence glares at the pink device as if it’s to blame for the lack of answers we so desperately need.

“She didn’t take her phone. Nor did she take that.” He points to the relic in my hand as if it’s personally offending him. “Which she carries with her like a security blanket.”

Shuffling slowly, he rounds the bed. Then he picks up two prescription bottles, rattling them, followed by a flat pill pack.

“Nor did she take any of her medication.”

The meds and the phone were stashed in the nightstand by the bed in a little travel case. They would have been easy enough to grab, even if she was making a quick getaway.

It’s just as hard to believe that she’d leave without her phone.

Spence stalks toward the bathroom, and as he crosses the threshold, he lets out an agitated growl. “She didn’t even take her toothbrush.”

My own insecurities poke at me, telling me that she left. That she’s running away, like she always does. That just as we finally made a little fucking progress, she took off. Again.

But the clues Spence is revealing don’t align with that theory.

“Hey.” Levi touches my forearm, pulling me from my reverie. “I don’t know where she went, G, but I don’t think she’s running.”

The reassurance is one I desperately need, yet I’m terrified to hope for it.

I hold up the pink phone. “Did you know about this?”

Levi shakes his head as Kabir comes back into the bedroom.

I whirl around to the other man with the device still held aloft. “How did you know she had another phone?”

I’m being an asshole, and he doesn’t deserve my ire, but fuck . I don’t know what to make of any of this, and it pisses me off that time and time again, his knowledge of Hunter and the intimacy they share seems to surpass mine.

Instead of taking the bait and snapping back at me, Spence circles my wrist, keeping his grasp light, and takes the phone from my hand.

His touch lingers, the warmth of his hand soothing me. The contact calms me, encourages me to take in a deep breath. I focus on the shine of his gold signet ring for a moment, centering myself, before I meet his eye.

“She’s kept this with her for years,” he tells me softly, his expression one of sincerity. “I don’t think it even has service anymore.”

For a moment, he assesses me silently, as if considering his next words carefully, his piercing blue gaze keeping me in place.

“She saved it because of you. She saved your voicemails and messages. She carried it with her, always, but only allowed herself to power on the device and listen to the messages when she was at her lowest.”

My heart bottoms out and sinks to the deepest depths of my gut.

Hunter saved my messages.

She kept this phone for years, holding tight to the connection we’d created.

Shivers of shame runs through me as I think about just how many desperate, pleading voicemails I left for her after she disappeared without a word. Some of them were longer, some were short, some were sweet. In one, I read each note I’d written on the paper airplanes I’d thrown at her window in a juvenile attempt to convince her to stay.

We could have figured it out, the two of us.

I convinced myself of that years ago, and up until very recently, it’s what I sincerely believed. Knowing what I know now, though, causes doubt to trickle in, loosening my grip on the bullheaded ideas I so adamantly clung to for so long.

Hunter was going through so much more than I ever realized.

She was grieving, physically hurting, pushing down so much, doing what she could to protect herself and me from her mom.

I used to think that the best thing she could have done was stay.

Now that I know the details of what she’s gone through, I’m not so sure I could have been what she needed back then. It wouldn’t have been fair to keep her here to face Magnolia, risk her wrath.

“Fuck.” The answer that’s been dangling right in front of us all along finally slots into place. “Hunter’s gone, and we don’t think she intended to leave, right?”

Kabir lets out a huff, probably because that’s what he’s been saying this whole time, but I’m only now getting it.

Levi, ever the steady one, only nods.

“She’s not running. I bet she didn’t even leave of her own free will. Magnolia has to have something to do with this.”