Page 67 of The Revenge Agenda

I snigger and glance up at the sunlight streaming through the windows. Rush follows, squinting toward the brightness.

“Huh.” He meanders over to the workstations and sifts through swaths of fabric, ribbon, and plastic containers of what sounds like pins.

“What are you doing?”

“My phone was here somewhere.”

“Want me to call it?”

“Why would you do that? I don’t have it on me.”

I laugh and hit Call on his number anyway.

The ringtone blasts through the room, making him jump and grab his pocket. “Found it.”

“What a relief.”

He pulls it out and checks the time. “It’s two fifteen.”

“It is.”

“I thought it was still nighttime.”

“Must have been a bright moon.”

He mutters something before turning back to his work. An entire countertop is littered with paper, and when I creep forward, I make out different suit designs. Some have been scribbled out, others have been overexaggerated, and others are stick figures, but as Rush scratches his pencil roughly over the paper, I take a moment to watch him.

He’s moving fast, carelessly, lips forming silent words, and face fixed in concentration.

“Everything okay?”

“Working,” he says.

“But not at work?”

No response. Instead, he growls, scrunches up the paper, and grabs another one from a stack. His T-shirt has coffee splotches down the front of it, his curls are fluffed up and frizzy, and he’s got one leg of his sweats rolled up and fluffy socks on his feet. And he’s apparently forgotten I’m even in the room.

“Are you mad at me?”

He shakes his head, lifting it to blink at me a few times. “What?”

“Did I do something wrong?”

His forehead flexes, face doing this cute twitch thing. “I’m not following.”

“You’re ignoring me.”

“Not ignoring.” He trails off, turning back to his design. “Working. Lots of work. Must do.”

Considering I literally have never seen him focus so hard on anything in his life, I’m not really sure what’s going on here. I’ve seen Rush at work. This is not Rush at work.

“Should I go?”

Still no answer. Beginning to feel very unwanted here.

“Right. Well. Just wanted to make sure you’re okay.” Though I’m not sure I can call this okay.

I back toward the door, and he doesn’t even notice me pull it open and leave.

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