Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between(37)

His face softens. “It’s okay. We’re still new at this.”

“Yeah,” she says, holding up the blue-lit screen of her phone as proof. The electronic numbers across the front read 12:24 AM. “It’s only been a couple hours.”

“Then we’ve still got time to practice,” he says, rubbing his hands together. “What should we do now? I guess it’s too late to cover the stuff we missed, but we could still try to hit whatever’s next on the list.…” He trails off when he sees that she’s not listening. She’s too busy staring at the long chain of missed calls and texts on her phone. “Clare?”

She looks up at him, her eyes wide. “Uh, the next stop isn’t on the list, actually,” she says. “Unless you have some sort of record I don’t know about.”

He stares at her, confused. “Record?”

“Come on,” she says, already turning in the direction of the car. “We’ve got to go to the police station.”

“What?” Aidan asks, jogging after her. “Why?”

“Because,” she tells him. “Scotty’s in jail.”

The Police Station

12:44 AM

When she comes flying through the front doors of the police station, the first thing Clare sees is Stella. She’s sitting hunched in one of three blue plastic chairs opposite the main desk, staring vacantly at the dirty floor and gnawing at one of her fingernails. And though it’s after midnight and Clare has somehow found herself in the town’s police station for the very first time in her life, it’s this detail that shocks her the most.

Stella doesn’t bite her nails. She isn’t a person with nervous habits, because nothing makes her nervous. She’s fearless and unwavering and bold. And her nails, like the rest of her, always look perfect, with dark polish to match the rest of her outfits. So seeing her like this now is a little bit alarming.

“Hey,” Clare says gently, sliding into the chair beside her. “You okay? What’s happening? Where is he?”

Stella seems surprised to see her, as if she’s already forgotten that she asked them to come. She blinks at Clare, then lowers her hand and rubs at the jagged nail.

“I don’t know,” she says with a shrug. “They’d already taken him back when I got here, so I haven’t seen him. Someone told me he’d be out pretty soon. So that must be a good sign, right?”

Aidan is standing on the far side of the room, trying to look through the window and past the empty desk to the back of the station for any sign of Scotty. Giving up, he finally turns and walks back to them. “What’d he do?”

“I don’t know,” Stella says, her eyes darting from Aidan to Clare. “We were kind of arguing, I guess, and he stormed out of Andy’s—”

Aidan grunts, as if he should have expected as much, then resumes his pacing.

“And then, well, he must’ve gotten lost or something.…”

Clare raises her eyebrows. “Lost?”

“He fell asleep,” Stella says, biting her lip.

“Where?” Aidan and Clare say at the exact same time.

“In a neighbor’s flowerbeds. So they called the police.”

“Seriously?” Aidan asks, coming to a stop, and Clare can see that he’s trying not to laugh, though he’s doing a terrible job of it. She presses her lips together, feeling the same way. She’s not sure exactly what she’d imagined Scotty had been hauled in for, but this certainly wasn’t it.

“I know,” Stella says, shaking her head. “He’s such an idiot.” But the way she says it—so fondly, her eyes shining—makes Clare look at her harder, and when she does, Stella ducks her head to hide the fact that she’s blushing.

Stella doesn’t usually blush, either.

Before Clare can say anything, Aidan frowns. “So are they charging him with anything?”

“I don’t know,” Stella says. “They wouldn’t tell me.”

He gives her an odd look. “Wait… if you weren’t with him, how did you know to come here?”

“He got one phone call…” she says, before trailing off.

“And he didn’t call me?” Aidan says, looking confused, but before Stella can respond, the door beside the desk is flung open, and for the second time tonight, Clare is surprised to see the round, merry face of Officer Lerner.

“Hi,” she says, shooting up from the chair, relieved that it’s not some random cop they’ll be dealing with, but someone they actually know.

Officer Lerner’s brow creases at the sight of her, but then she can see it register—who she is, why she’s here—and he smiles, tapping his hand twice against a clipboard.

“So we meet again,” he says. “I take it you’re a friend of young Mr. Wright?” He glances down at his paperwork, and then—just as abruptly—his eyes fly back up to Clare’s face. “Hey, are you…” he asks, his face darkening as he notices Aidan, too. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she assures him. “Really. There was just… it’s a really long story.”

He takes a step closer, his head tilted to one side. “Boy, that’s gonna be quite the shiner tomorrow,” he says. “Are you sure—”