Man Down (Rookie Rebels #3) - Kate Meader Page 0,1

what he was: a single fucking man. Why the hell would a man without a family keep an extra line for his dead wife?

Kurt probably thought he was doing him a favor. Another person encouraging him to move on.

Some stranger had been eavesdropping on his private conversations with Kelly. Every dream, every wish, every grievance—he’d typed it into the small screen and watched it bubble and pop into the ether. What was left of his imagination had fired off enough neurons to conjure an alternative reality: somewhere his wife was reading it, smiling down at him. He wasn’t stupid or deluded or insane enough to expect a response. He knew she was incapable of communicating with him through a phone, but his heart felt her presence. His soul knew she was listening.

Until she wasn’t. Until this other person answered back.

Buzzzz.

He picked up the phone. Only a text from his agent, Tommy Gordon.

Call me when you can. Chicago very interested, but won’t be for long.

Well, he wasn’t interested in them.

Back on the message list, he touched the line with Kelly’s name. So odd to see an incoming text on the other side of the screen, that ghostly gray bubble instead of his life-affirming blue. Her name in his contacts but not from her.

It vibrated again and he dropped it.

A new message appeared. Kelly: You okay?

Not from Kelly but from the thief who had taken her place in the mobile numbers matrix. That first message had made it clear this person knew this. Knew they were intruding on a private moment. Knew they were in the wrong. Kelly’s number had been recycled and that’s all there was to it.

Now here they were asking if he was okay. The fucking nerve.

No, I’m not.

I’m drowning.

Texting my dead wife was keeping my head above water.

You’ve taken something from me.

He didn’t type any of those things. Instead he inhaled a jagged breath, which felt like ice shards drenched in gasoline. So the stranger wasn’t to blame, but that tentative “you okay?” texted volumes. This person knew something about him, whether it was from the messages they’d read or the desperation sweating through the phone or the long silence.

He should block the number. Cut the cord that bound him to the past. But something stopped him from taking that perfectly logical step, maybe the fact that none of this was logical. He’d been texting his dead wife for eighteen months. Logic was in short supply.

Gunnar wasn’t religious. Not before his world was destroyed and certainly not after. No benevolent being would allow this much pain to befall one man.

But he did believe in … signs, for want of a better word. Kelly had agreed to go out on a date with him a month into his sophomore year at Vermont and he’d won his next game. Scored two goals after a losing streak of three.

He knew Kelly was not on the other end of the line, but he wasn’t ready to shutter that window on his old life. He picked up the phone and reread that last message.

Kelly: You okay?

He tapped out, I’ve been better.

Delivered, but he had no idea if it was read. Maybe he’d never hear from—

Kelly: Know that feeling. And then, What do they say? Better days are ahead.

Something reared in his chest. Hella presumptuous.

Gunnar: Shows what you know.

A short delay. Then, Yeah, I suppose that sounds like junk. Only if you’ve been better, you know what it feels like. You know you can get there again.

Okay, someone must be punking him. What ridiculous after-school special BS was this?

He prepared to tell them so, but took a second to think on it. Sure, intellectually he knew that if he was happy once, and that happiness had deserted him, it meant he had the capacity to be happy. Everyone did. Gunnar wasn’t a sad sack by nature. Circumstances had driven him to hell. Maybe new circumstances could punch his return ticket.

But that required embracing the possibility. The potential.

As long as he was living in the woods, refusing to talk to his brother or his agent or Dante Moretti, and having one-sided conversations with his dead wife, possibility felt improbable.

He didn’t want to think about a time beyond the now. Not yet. The pain kept him going.

Gunnar: You don’t know anything about me.

The small screen magnified his belligerence.

Kelly: No but I saw your messages.

Gunnar: How long have you had this number?

Kelly: A month. Maybe six weeks.

He scrolled back to check when this cheeky upstart might have