Take Your Time (Boston Love #4)(3)

In fact, I can’t call anyone.

Because, thanks to my shameless overdependence on my iPhone — which, unfortunately, I left laying on the floor of my former employer’s bedroom in my hurry to get the hell out of there in one piece — I can’t recall a single, flipping phone number. Not even for my immediate family members.

How pathetic is that?

Not that it matters much — they’d be pretty useless to me, at the moment. My parents are abroad again, closing another business deal. I swear, these days, they’re off this continent more frequently than they’re actually on it. Unreachable except by email.

My big brother Duncan has been incommunicado for the past few months, in the throes of a quarter-life crisis after his latest startup venture failed miserably out in California. This might be worrisome if it was the first company he’d sunk, instead of the sixth. Frankly, I’m not sure why investors keep giving him money. I am sure of one thing, though: even if I knew his number by heart, there’s a slimmer chance of a cat calmly taking a bath than him actually coming to my rescue. Especially considering he’s the whole damn reason I’m in this mess to begin with.

Of course, it would be different if my sister were here… So many things would be different. I push away that train of thought before it can derail me completely and focus on reality.

Me.

Delilah Sinclair.

Alone.

Desperate.

And soon to be forced into a severely unattractive striped jumpsuit of some kind, if I don’t find a way out of this mess.

What’s black, white, and red all over?

No, not a newspaper. A redhead in prison stripes.

My heart drops into my shoes.

If inanimate objects were capable of mockery, this obsolete payphone would totally be mocking me right now. Alas, as this isn’t the enchanted castle from Beauty and the Beast, the phone is just a phone. It offers no wisdom or advice about what to do in this situation. I stare at it blankly, racking my brain for a number. Any number. Sadly, the only one that comes to mind is from one of those annoying radio jingles for carpet cleaning services.

Oh my god, I think, horror dawning. My options are either “rot in jail forever with a street-walking cellmate named Destiny” or “agree to steam-clean my entire apartment in exchange for bail money from a man named Stanley.”

I’m genuinely not sure which alternative would be worse.

(I really hate to clean.)

My grip tightens on the receiver to keep it from slipping from my increasingly clammy palm. I’m not generally one to freak out, but I’ve also never been in a situation quite like this before. Even when I dragged Phoebe to Burning Man with me last summer and we got lost in the desert wearing nothing but gold lamé bikinis and body paint, I managed to keep my cool. (Then again, I also knew that, if necessary, Nathaniel Knox — Phoebe’s private-investigator-slash-all-round-badass fiancé — was one satellite phonecall away, fully capable of air-lifting us out by helicopter in under an hour, if necessary.)

There’s no extraction plan for this, though.

Thanks to my general flightiness and tendency to “go dark” — Phoebe’s words, not mine — for weeks at a time, it’ll take ages for my friends to even realize I’m gone, let alone track me down in this godforsaken place. It’s safe to say, the Mattapan county lockup doesn’t typically make the list of my most frequented Saturday night stomping grounds.

My hands have really begun to sweat, now, and I can feel beads of perspiration gathering on my brow. Panic is setting in. I won’t last long behind bars. Three days without Starbucks, WiFi, a blow dryer, and a constant stream of relatable internet memes, and I’ll probably spontaneously combust.

I’m about to set the handle back in its cradle and beg Officer McChiseledJawline for access to a phone book or, at the very least, my email account, when I spot it. A streak of smudged sharpie on my palm.

My heart begins to pound faster as I turn it over and scan the numbers scrawled in messy, masculine script across my skin. Barely legible, after the thorough scrubbing I gave my hands this morning, but mercifully still there.

I’m saved!

…or screwed. Depending entirely on your perspective.

In the craziness of the past twenty-four hours, I’d completely forgotten about the number on my hand. Though, if I’m being honest, it’s been impossible to stop thinking about the man who put it there. My mind has wandered to him more often than I’d like to admit today, since the moment I woke up with no recollection of the moment he wrote his digits on my palm, like a bad lower-back tattoo you get while wasted on your college spring break trip and regret for the rest of your days.

Insufferable man.

I was pissed off this morning, as I scrubbed at the indelible ink in my bathroom, wishing I had something stronger than lavender-scented soap that might remove it in the five minutes I had to spare before dragging my hungover ass off to work. Now, as my eyes scan the faded numbers, I’m so happy I could do cartwheels.

(I could but I won’t — I have a feeling Officer McHolyShitHaveYouSeenThoseBiceps wouldn’t appreciate any further antics out of me.)

I don’t let myself think about the consequences of making this phone call. There’s little point. I have no other options, no one else to turn to except…

Him.

I shiver involuntarily. Steeling myself, my fingers still shake as I punch in the digits, one after another, trying to think of something cute or clever to say as the call connects.