Night Owls

Night Owls by Jenn Bennett Page B

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Authors: Jenn Bennett
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you?”
    “Heath—”
    He pointed an accusing finger. “That text you sent of the blurry driver’s license—that’s him? You’re seeing the Golden Apple street artist guy?”
    “That’s insane,” I said weakly. “It was the egging thing.”
    “You are the worst liar in the world.”
    “Oh, crap,” I whispered, covering my face with my hands. “You have to promise me not to tell Mom. Swear on your life, Heath.”
    “I swear. Jeez, Bex. When you do something, you really go for it. One minute you’re holed up in your room being all existential and throwing out your paints, all ‘I’m
done with color,’ and the next you’re running wild with notorious street artists.”
    I glared at him over my bent knees. “Do you want to hear, or are you just going to guess the entire story?”
    “Fine, go on and tell me your revolutionary story, Patty Hearst.” He glanced up at a pipe squeaking in the ceiling. “But talk fast. The shower’s off, so we’ve only
got fifteen minutes of blow-drying and makeup.”
    He could hear everything down here.
    In a rush of jumbled words, I told him the whole story. Well, half of it. I left out the parts about me swooning and lusting over Jack, and I didn’t admit anything else about the Golden
Apple stuff, because I felt guilty enough as it was that I’d failed as secret keeper. But I did tell Heath about Sierra bursting into the tea lounge and about Panhandler Will saying Jack had
a lady friend at the hospital. And about the last time I saw Jack, when he was with his father.
    “So now I have no idea what’s going on,” I finished.
    “He told you his dad’s some rich corporate guy who doesn’t give a damn about his family, but why was he at the hospital with your boy?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Maybe something happened to the mother.”
    Crap. Jack did say that his mother was “pretty high up there” in his dad’s priorities—it was only Jack who wasn’t. “What if his mom has cancer or
something?”
    “The university’s cancer treatment center is across town at Mount Zion,” Heath reminded me. “But it could be something else. Maybe she was seeing a doctor at Parnassus
for regular appointments, and that’s why Hobo Bill saw your boy all the time.”
    “Panhandler Will,” I corrected sourly. Heath had talked to Will just as much as I had over the years; you’d think he’d know his name by now. Regardless, Heath might be
onto something about Jack. It was the only thing that made sense. “If Jack’s relationship with his dad isn’t great, his mother’s probably the only person in the family he
can depend on. It would definitely explain why he was so frazzled when I saw him.”
    “Well, you’ve got
that
in common, at least. Shitty fathers, strong maternal figures hanging out at the hospital. There’s hours of conversation right there.
You’re like two peas.”
    “Look,” I said, sitting next to him on the edge of his bed, “these are the last texts Jack sent me. Don’t scroll up past here.”
    “Why? Are you sending each other dirty photos?”
    “We’re not all you, Heath.” And no, that self-portrait on
Body-O-Rama
didn’t count.
    He read the texts and handed my phone back. “Sounds bad.”
    “I know, so what do I do? ‘Believe me, it’s better this way.’ What does that mean?”
    “Sounds like he doesn’t want to drag you into his messy family life. That’s how I’d feel if it was Noah, especially if it was my fault that a cop showed up at his
door.”
    Heath hadn’t been going out to clubs this week. He hadn’t been going out, period. “Are you and Noah—”
    “We aren’t talking about me and Noah. But if we were, I’d be telling you he’s coming for family dinner tomorrow night.”
    I smiled. “We finally get to meet Saint Noah? That’s a bigger sign of the apocalypse than the fall of the brimstone wall.”
    “It’s no big deal,” his mouth said while the anxious foot rocking over his crossed legs

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