I wanted to make him finish his sentence. I wanted to hear his answer as I slid inside of him, his words coming out between his whimpers and moans.
But I didn’t have time for that right now.
I needed to find my sister.
I pushed thoughts of Morgan out of my mind as I headed for his apartment door with Morgan’s footsteps falling not far behind my own.
“Thank you guys for coming,” Dirk said as he greeted us both at his apartment door.
Dirk looked like a complete mess. His eyes seemed to be red and puffy from tears, and his hair looked like he’d been running nervous hands through it, time and time again.
I wanted to tell him that everything was going to be fine, but I didn’t want to lie to him, either. I had no idea what was going through my sister’s head, at least not for sure. Although, I had a feeling about why she’d freaked out about the carnations.
“I just tried calling her phone again,” he continued. “But she’s not picking up.”
“Do you know if she has one of those ‘Find My Phone’ apps installed?” Morgan asked.
“Maybe…” Dirk hummed. “But I’d have to log into her account, wouldn’t I? And it’s not like she ever gave me her password.”
“Did she ever give you any of her passwords?”
“Just the one for Netflix—”
“I can work with that,” Morgan replied. “If you don’t mind sharing the password and letting me borrow your laptop? I can probably put some pieces together.”
“Since when are you a master hacker?” I asked as I smiled down at Morgan.
“Charles taught me a thing or two about ‘unlawfully gaining access to important spaces’,” Morgan said as his fingers moved in air quotes. “He said it was important for a journalist to be able to do what needs to be done. Oh, and he said that most people use some variation of the same password for everything, so figuring out Kimmie’s password shouldn’t be that hard.”
I bristled at Morgan’s casual mention of his ex, but I didn’t let it show on my face. “All right. Sounds good. You two work on that angle. I’m going to hit the streets.”
“Hit the streets?” Dirk shook his head in confusion. “But you don’t even know where she might be—”
“I know my sister,” I answered. “And all those years I won at hide and seek have to count for something.”
I offered Dirk a hopeful smile before I turned away from his door.
Shit.
I had no idea where my sister was hiding out.
I knew that Kimmie was smart, which meant that she’d never go anywhere too obvious. So, of course, she wouldn’t have gone anywhere Dirk would be familiar with. And it wasn’t like she would’ve run off to the library, either, even though she loved that place to bits and pieces, because it was way too close to closing time.
Where would Kimmie have gone that Dirk didn’t know about?
Where would Kimmie have gone that Dirk wouldn’t know about? A place he had no idea even existed because it wasn’t somewhere that he would’ve ever gone in the first place.
It had to be somewhere kind of hip. No offense to Dirk, but it seemed like he was repelled by popular spots, almost as if he thrived in places with smaller crowds. It also had to be somewhere that Kimmie wouldn’t have been interested in, either, which meant that it had to have been something that Kimmie absolutely hated—
Got it.
I smiled to myself as the perfect place popped into my head.
I broke out into a sprint as I made my way down the sidewalk.
“Hiya! Welcome to Herbs and Hookah!” A waitress with platinum blonde hair greeted me as I walked in. “Just a table for one tonight?”
I’d done a search for local hookah bars in a five-mile radius of Kimmie’s address, knowing that she typically wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this. Hookah bars were one of my sister’s least favorite concepts in the world because she wasn’t a smoker, which meant that she never enjoyed the atmosphere. She also seemed to hate the way they were always dimly lit, and the music was just a little too loud for her liking.
I looked around the hookah bar, trying to get a glimpse of all the patrons through the dense cloud of smoke in the air.
I couldn’t make out anyone’s face.
I brought my attention back to the waitress. She was staring at me, her gaze fixed right on mine. Her lips were slightly parted as if she was thinking about saying something, but her mouth soon closed again, like she’d thought better of it.
She must’ve thought I was cute. Her stare was a look I’d gotten used to from women, one where their intentions for me seemed like they were written all over their face. In this instance, I was grateful for the look, since it meant that if I turned on the charm, I might be able to get whatever I wanted.
And what I wanted right now was to get a look at who was sitting at the bar, without going through too much trouble or waiting around for too long.
“Actually, do you think I could sit by the bar?” I asked, flashing the waitress a huge smile. “I’m supposed to be meeting someone.”
“Ah. You’ve got a date coming, huh?” The waitress beamed back at me. “Of course, you do. You go around looking like that all day. I bet the women just throw themselves at your feet.”
“Look who’s talking. I’m sure you have the same problem with every guy in the world.”
“Careful, now.” The waitress laughed. “You wouldn’t want your lady friend to see you flirting with me. Unless she’s not the jealous type?”
“I don’t think she’d mind, at all,” I replied, purposely keeping the description of my lady friend vague. “So? How about it? A seat at the bar?”
“You know, I’m supposed to make you wait at least ten minutes before giving up a primo bar spot…” She sighed. “But for you? I’ll let you sit wherever you want. Just promise me that you’ll come find me if your date goes belly up?”
“Sure thing.” I nodded and gave her another smile.
The waitress motioned for me to follow her up to the bar. I followed right behind her as I peered down at a random patron’s face from time to time, wondering if Kimmie was sitting with a group of strangers, or even enjoying an atypical smoke break by herself.
Once we got to the bar, the waitress quickly turned away from me, almost as if she was concerned that my lady friend was going to pop up any minute. Thankfully as soon as I looked over, I spotted Kimmie sitting at the end of the bar, with an empty shot glass right in front of her.
I moved down to where Kimmie sat, casually taking a seat right next to her. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Kimmie sighed. “Did Dirk send you over here to come get me?”
“No, because Dirk has no idea where you are,” I replied. “But I have a feeling you wanted it that way, yeah?”
“I just needed some time to think about things.”
“You told him that you didn’t want to marry him anymore.”
“Shit. Is that what I said?” Kimmie groaned. “I wasn’t even thinking. I just saw the carnations and it’s like, something went off in my head.”