She turned back to the computer, pulling up her social media and, yeah, her notifications were filled with Lunettes asking what had happened with Portia, whose exploits they’d been following on the GirlsWithGlasses travel page. Some had shared links to an article in The Looking Glass Daily, with a picture of Portia getting carried out of the event by her boss, passed out. The article provided a helpful rundown of Portia’s past deeds, painted in the worst light possible, and speculation on what had occurred at the event.
“Oh shit. No.”
She grabbed for her phone, but there were no missed calls or messages. Portia hadn’t reached out and her parents were sleeping, given the late hour. She called Portia’s number, but the call went straight to voice mail, too.
She opened their text conversation.
Reggie: Are you okay?
Reggie: CALL ME
Reggie: Tell me you’re okay
Portia wasn’t online and the messages went unread.
She went through social media, methodically searching her sister’s accounts and then anything related to her. She hadn’t been seen since the night before. Reggie pulled up email on her web browser and sent an email, and then called the number of the armory, which she’d saved in her phone. It was early in Scotland, and it went to voice mail, too.
“Hi. This is Portia’s sister. Is she okay? Can someone please tell her to call me, or if she’s not okay . . .” She sucked in a breath and left her number. Maybe she could put up a missing person’s post on social media, or ask her Scottish Lunettes to storm the armory and—
“Hey.”
She looked up at Gus, who she’d almost forgotten was there in the depths of her panic. She said the first thing that came to mind. “She’s a pear.”
Her voice snagged on whatever was blocking up her throat—fear, worry, anger.
“And you’re my pineapple,” he said gently, caressing her cheek. “I doubt Swordbae ditched her, so I’m going to assume he’s taking care of her. I’ll take care of you until we know for sure.”
I’ll take care of you.
Those were the exact last words Reggie had thought she’d ever want to hear from someone she was dating, but coming from Gus, it wrapped her in warmth instead of pricking her anger. She knew he didn’t offer because he thought she couldn’t do it for herself.
“You probably won’t be able to sleep, right?” he asked, and she nodded.
“Okay, I have just the thing for that.” She unlocked the wheels of her chair and Gus pushed her down the hallway to the vertical lift, something he didn’t usually do because Reggie handled it herself. She wrapped her arms around herself and let her head drop back onto his stomach on the short ride down in the elevator, and he caressed her cheek.
“What were you doing in the apartment?” she asked as he pushed her through the living room.
“Oh, I’ll show you later. Tomorrow maybe.” She thought he would wheel her into the bedroom, but he bypassed it and headed to the TV room instead.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He let go of the handles at the slight harshness in her voice. “I thought we could rewatch Reject Squad Ultra.”
He had a slight smile on his face, but she could see from the creases around his eyes that he was worried, too—about her. She’d thought that he might take her to bed and kiss her worries away, which would have also been amazing, but this? It turned out Gus knew exactly what she needed.
She wheeled herself the rest of the way to the couch, set the brakes, and then clambered onto it as Gus fiddled with the projector. He crawled onto the couch around her and pulled her close to him, and she relaxed into him.
At some point during the marathon, Reggie fell into a troubled sleep, awaking only when Gus stretched beside her, with her still bundled in his arms.
“What time is it?” she asked, squinting.
“Early. I checked online and apparently Portia left the armory with her friend . . . the princess-to-be?”
“Oh thank god.” Reggie reached for her phone, and her heart leapt when she saw she had text messages and missed calls, but dropped when she brought the phone closer to her face and read that they were all from her parents.
Fuck. They’d heard the news and she’d have to deal with them.
“I have to call my parents,” she said. “Sorry if this gets weird.”
“I want some coffee anyway,” he said. He handed her glasses over before leaving the room.
Her mother picked up on the first ring. “What is she doing? What. Is. She. Doing? She finds a duke—a duke!—and manages to squander this opportunity too?”
“Good morning,” Reggie said cheerfully. “Do you even know if your daughter is alive and unharmed, or are you more worried that she might be single again?”
“Honey, you don’t understand, because you have plans. You don’t need a man to take care of you.”
“Portia doesn’t either.” Reggie was so tired of this shit. “Do you even pay attention to anything besides what you think is best for us? Portia is trying so hard, and all you guys do is smack her down for it. It’s like you want her to fail.”
“Now, I know you’ve always been protective of her—”
“Yeah, because you and dad never were.” She didn’t feel hot, or tearful. This was a cold anger that had compacted over time—the figurative tip of the iceberg. “And stop saying I don’t need a man. Has it ever occurred to you that I want a partner? Or that someone might want me?”
Her mother always had a snappy defense, but there was silence now.
“You know what? Maybe if you and dad didn’t act this way, she would have called us instead one of her friends. I’m tired of it.” She exhaled a sharp breath. “If you don’t have anything supportive to say about my sister, don’t share it with me. And if you can’t imagine me as someone who has interests other than being the successful twin, go take that #1 MOM mug Portia made you and break it. You don’t deserve it.”
She ended the call and sat staring at it in her hand for a long time, the sound of Gus putting coffee mugs on the kitchen counter echoing down the hall. She’d snapped at her parents plenty of times, because if she’d learned how to push from anyone it was from them, but this was the first time she’d dropped the snark and actually demanded that they reflect on their behavior—they because her mom was most definitely relaying Reggie’s words to her father already.
Shit. She wondered if there was some weird stuff going on in space because this weekend was shaping up to be terrible. Her sister was missing and she’d gone off on her mom.
She navigated to InstaPhoto mindlessly, and the first thing in her feed was a pic of Portia wearing a shirt that said “I solemnly swear I’m up to no good” and the caption “Gone fishing.”
Portia had managed that cute pic, slightly more infuriating because she’d probably never even watched Harry Potter, and hadn’t seen fit to let Reggie know that she was alive and okay?
“You asshole,” she muttered at her phone and dropped it back onto the couch.
“Are you talking about your parents or your sister?” Gus asked as he walked in. He flopped back onto the couch beside her, a mug in one hand and her thermos in the other.