Page 2 of Inside the Maelstrom: Part Two
“I mean it. I’m sad, but I’m also happy.” I screwed up my nose. “I’m complicated.”
But Evan wasn’t listening. Instead, he was looking behind my head. “I’ll be fucking damned.”
I frowned. “The age gap isn’t that big.”
He raised his eyebrows. “What?”
“What?”
He laughed, and spun me on my stool so I was looking at the sticker wall. “Look.”
I searched the mass of stickers, some overlaid with others. There were stickers of cute animals, Hello Kitty, protest and anti-establishment right alongside Moomin.
Then I saw it. A Jules Verne sticker—one of the old classic covers with gothic writing in sepia right toward the top.
“It can’t be, can it?” I asked Evan hopefully, and he grabbed my phone, reaching high to snag a picture of it. He handed my phone back to me, and I stared. In the corner was Nemo’s familiar scrawled handwriting.
Going down like a lead balloon.
I turned back to Evan. “What the hell does that mean?”
He shook his head. “No idea, Chaos. Let’s get out of here and see if we can’t figure it out.”
The hotel where we were staying was tiny and without air conditioning, and I’d thrown off my clothes as soon as I’d gotten through the door. I could feel Evan’s eyes on my ass, and I gave him a seductive look over my shoulder.
He’d been such a fucking gentleman, sweet and comforting, but not taking it any further. Ugh. That’s what no one ever mentions about chivalry—how annoying it is when you just want to fuck away the feelings.
No, apparently Otto had given him a stern and unwarranted talk all about my mental health, taking my meds, and what to look for if I was spiraling—like he was somehow the expert. I mean, he’d been with Hendrick long enough that he was probably an expert on bipolar, but we weren’t all the same type of pegs that fit into the same hole.
Still, Evan was taking respectful to a superhuman level, and soon I was going to have to take matters into my own hands. If the way to get over a guy was to get under one, then the way to get over three must be a week-long sexfest, right?
I pulled out my phone and searched for the phrase “going down like a lead balloon.” I mean, I knew it was a saying, but what did it mean? How would that help me find him? Not for the first time, I was frustrated by Nemo’s need to be cryptic. Like tromping across the world wasn’t proof enough of my dedication, no, I had to solve stupid fucking riddles too.
I huffed and flopped down on the bed, staring at the complete lack of notifications on my phone. “Have you heard from them?”
Evan shook his head. “No one’s answering my calls either.”
I swallowed down the hurt. This was what I’d wanted, after all. “I told you not to call them.”
The first day, when all I’d done was cry on the bed, Evan had been furious. Gentle but furious. I’d made him promise not to call them, and I was pretty sure he’d have agreed to anything in that moment to get me to stop crying.
He shrugged. “I didn’t think they’d last this long.” He lay down on the bed beside me, because there was really nowhere in the room to sit. Despite the heat, and the fact I was only in my underwear, I snuggled up onto his chest. It was broad and strong, and he wrapped one big arm around my back.
“I miss them.”
“Me too.”
“I think it’s time to go home, Evan.”
He stiffened underneath me. “Okay, Chaos. But going home doesn’t have to be the end.” I didn’t know if he meant the end of the search for Nemo, or the end of us, but the answer was the same either way.
“I don’t want it to end.”
He maneuvered me onto his chest, so we were nose to nose. “Then it doesn’t end.” He kissed me softly, and I kissed him back, the touch of our lips desperate and filled with the type of yearning pop stars sing about.
Straddling his hips, I looked down at Evan, his cheeks slightly stubbly, his eyes hooded with arousal as he took in my body. I reached behind my back and unhooked my bra, throwing it over my shoulder.
“Does this still feel sinful?”
