Page 146 of Six Years
“I’m sorry, Mr. Davis, but I can’t do that. If I transferred every call to Mr. Hayes, he’d be booked for more hours of the day than possible.”
Guessed that much. I’ve been living with my father for long enough to understand at least a little bit of their whole business. Or how they deal with it, rather. “I am his son’s boyfriend, and this is really urgent. Look, I know you still won’t transfer the call because I could be anyone, I could be lying. But Ireallyneed you to trust me on this one. This is about life and death”—a little dramatic but tell me I’m wrong—“Luan could be lying in a dark, abandoned alley, dying. My phone is wrecked because of an accident I was in, apparently, I don’t remember much because I was in a coma for like weeks, and… could you just get me through to Mike,please?”
I watch as Colin leans into Aaron, faintly hearing him ask, “He can talk that much in one go?”
“Maybe they exchanged him for a new one while he was in a coma ,” Aaron whispers back, to which Sofia is kind enough to slap him for me.
On the other end of the line, I hear the woman sigh heavily. “I really hope you’re not lying to me because I will lose my job if you’re tricking me.”
“Promise, I’m not.”
A second later, the line goes seemingly dead, and when I check whether she hung up or not, someone speaks. “Hayes.”
“Mike? This is...” Shit, why am I dizzy? I clear my throat and blink a few times, hoping that’ll fix it. It doesn’t. “This is… uh…”
“Grey? You woke up!”
“I, er, yes. Uhm...”
“Grey, are you okay?” Mom takes my face in her hands, forcing me to look at her.
I attempt to nod but stop myself before the room could spin any more than it already does. “Yeah, good. Little, uh, dizzy.”
Sun takes her phone away from me, and maybe if my brain was working at a normal speed, I would fight it, but I just let her take it.
Brooke comes walking up to my bed. She takes my hand in hers, and with tears in her eyes, she says, “I’ll find Luan for you, Uncle Grey. Don’t worry about it, okay?”
Did I ever mention that I love this kid?
Once again, I try to nod but the movement makes me even feel like I’m about to empty out whatever substances are inside of my stomach right now.
“You sleep, Uncle Grey.” Eden comes up next to his sister, giving me a stern look. His eyes are narrowed at me as though if I don’t fall asleep this instant, he’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life.
I think I’m moments away from drifting off to sleep—not because Eden demands I do, but because I can’t quite seem to keep myself awake any longer—when I faintly hear my sister mutter something. Despite my interest in finding out what she’s pressed about, I don’t have the strength to reopen my eyes and ask, so all I can do is listen while I try to keep myself awake for a little while longer.
“What do you mean they thought he was still here?” Miles, I believe, asks.
“Nobody’s seen him…”
Chapter 4
“is your love from before still strong?”—Broken by Isak Danielson
January 2027
After another torturouslylong week in the hospital, I finally got to go home. Only that instead of staying back at my hotel to rest some more before I can get on a plane to actually go home, I snuck out.
Yes, Isnuckout at the age of twenty-six. My mother tries her very best to make sure I don’t overwork myself, and while that’s nice, the second I was allowed to leave the hospital, all I wanted to do was get my ass over to Malibu to look for my boyfriend since nobody has seen him in twoweeks.
Doro said he wasn’t home, but something tells me she’s lying, so naturally I have to go there to check.
My friends are convinced Luan ghosted me and this whole thing is his way of breaking up with me, but I don’t believe that. If Luan wanted to break up, which is already very unlikely, he would’ve waited until I woke up. Although I don’t doubt he would’ve done this very thing before we met, before he wanted to get better. Luan has changed. He is a better version of himself, and he wouldn’t just ghost me anymore because he’s “done”with me.
I knock at the door of their house over and over again, but nobody ever opens it. I think I’ve been standing here for five minutes already, just hammering against the wood and ringing the doorbell. Just when I’m about to give up, someonefinallyopens the door.
“What do you want?” Doro snaps as her eyes lay on mine. She looks in distress, worried, and exhausted.
I contemplate on arguing with her. What am I doing here? Looking for my boyfriend, perhaps? But I decide to ignore it all and storm past her instead, making my way straight toward Luan’s bedroom.
