Page 37 of Bro Code

“Holly’s tough, huh?” Nic was grinning again.

“Oui.”

“You know she used to be in a hair metal cover band?”

Louis paused with his pizza hovering. “Excuse me?”

“They were pretty big, I think. I forget the name. Clique Something? Mötley Clique! That was it – it was like an all-girl thing. She played bass. There’s pictures on the internet. She’s actually pretty fucking badass. Terrifying. But badass.”

They took their time, chatting about the season and who they liked for what. Louis ate as much as he could, and Nic took what was left to go, and they hugged on the sidewalk outside with their breath clouding the dark sky.

“We should do this again,” said Nic. “I feel like I never see you.”

“Which is insane, because we work in the same building,” said Louis.

“Are you coming to California for the West Coast tour?”

“Yeah – you never see me, but I’m pretty much always there, everywhere, forever.”

“Génial.” Nic shook his hand. “Well, bonne nuit. I guess I’ll see you on the plane to Cali.”

“No you won’t: you’ll be asleep and I’ll be so deep in my laptop my eyes’ll be falling out of my head.”

Nic was walking away backward with the pizza box in one hand and his arms spread. “Like I said: welcome to the NHL, baby.”

Louis’ phone buzzed as he was unlocking his car on the street around the corner. A text from Chloé:

Chat? Manman’s test results came back.

Cursing, he checked his watch: he’d completely forgotten to call. He shut the door as he got behind the wheel and put the phone on the dashboard, and sat staring through the windshield.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to call her. It wasn’t that he was avoiding his family. He was just busy. It was past nine. He didn’t have the mental capacity to go through complicated medical stuff with Chloé over the phone right now. It would be better if they talked tomorrow, when he was fresh.

It wasn’t that he was avoiding them.

It wasn’t.

He picked up the phone and sent back, Tomorrow? Sorry, had a long day I can’t wrap my head around medical stuff right now, and sat there feeling guilty while he watched the reply dots bubble.

Fine, she replied. Time?

Ten? I should have a break, I’ll give you a call

More dots. Then a thumbs-up. Louis knew his sister well enough to know that a thumbs-up by itself when he’d obviously blown her off didn’t mean Okay. It meant Okay, asshole. He lowered the phone and sighed.

Then picked it up again and texted Riley.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Riley

His phone buzzed as he was keying into his room at the hotel. He’d dawdled at the restaurant downstairs for an hour after dinner, scrolling social media. Procrastinating, because he didn’t want to sleep in a fucking hotel room again.

It wasn’t like he was a stranger to sleeping in hotel rooms. But the thing that made it bearable was knowing that eventually, you got to go home. He wasn’t going home. He’d be in this hotel until the end of October, and then he’d have to find a place here. He didn’t want to do that, either.

He dug the phone out of his pocket as he elbowed the door shut behind him, then toed off his sneakers and shrugged off his hoodie. He sank onto the bed with his elbows on his knees as he swiped it open and read the text.

It was from Louis. The emoji that was just the pair of eyes.