Page 32 of Cut Off
“Yeah, yeah. Call me back ASAP.”
She hangs up with the abruptness of a person whose time is worth more than mine. The car goes quiet, and the quiet is enormous.
Seattle.
The morning block.
National reach. Real news. The kind of work that wins things. The kind of work that matters.
I should be euphoric. Instead, I feel like someone has parked a small piano on my chest.
I think aboutThe Zoe Show, which currently has eleven episodes, one of which is me reviewing diner pancakesaround Dickens, and the math doesn’t math. Seattle is a sure thing.Zoe Knowsis a gamble.
And then there’s Jonah and Eli.
I take the last two turns on autopilot. By the time I pull into Jonah’s driveway, the sun has cleared the ridge and is doing that gold-on-the-pavement thing that real estate photographers fake with filters. The kitchen light is on. Through the big front window, I can see a tall shape moving around, hair sticking up in directions.
My chest tightens, and it has nothing to do with morning blocks or three million viewers.
I will examine that exactly never. Moving on.
I let myself in by entering a punch code, which still feels so fancy, and I’m met by the smell of rich coffee.
“Morning.” I drop my bag by the door.
Jonah’s at his new espresso machine, holding the milk frother. In sweats and a long-sleeved Trout shirt, he looks like a man who’s been hit by several trucks. “This thing hates me.”
“That’s because you’re holding it wrong. Move.”
He obliges, and I take the wand, drop it into the pitcher, and steam the milk while he watches me with the bleary expression of a man who’s not slept in one hundred years.
“How was last night?” I don’t look at him because if I do, I’ll lose my nerve about Seattle.
“Quiet.” He scrubs a hand down his face. “Too quiet, then weird, then bad, then okay, then weird again.”
“That tracks.”
“We ate pizza and didn’t talk. I put on the first Avengers and that helped for a while. Then he asked me about God, what happens when you die, and whether his mom can find him in this house, and I bombed all three of those.”
I tap off the steam. “Sounds right on par.”
He stops, and his jaw works. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Of course you don’t.” I pour his milk into the espresso, then slide the cup across the counter to him. “Nobody knows what they’re doing on day one.”
He eyes me over the rim of the mug, and the grumpy hockey player’s been replaced by a tired man with a kid. “Thanks for coming.”
“Don’t get sappy, Holt, I’ve been here twelve seconds.”
He almost smiles before he drinks his coffee. “Game is at eight, but I don’t know how late I’ll be getting home afterward. The new defenseman stuff is—” He waves a hand. “Whatever. I’ll be back.”
“We’ll be fine. Go.”
He nods, then pauses, then turns and goes upstairs without another word, and I hear his feet on the hardwood. A minute later he comes back down holding a Lego box approximately the size of a seventy-two-inch TV.
The Death Star. The actual Death Star. The kind of Lego set that has its own zip code.
“Is that—”
