The next day passed in a hungover crawl. Cal’s world shrank to three points: the bed, the toilet, and the kitchen sink for water. Shutters closed out the sun, turning the Wine House apartment into a bunker.
Despite his promise to Frank, Cal had no intention of contacting Eeva. Her last text from the night before—Are you okay?—sat unanswered on his phone. He avoided it except to translate labels on painkillers, desperate for relief from his pounding head and the bruises blooming along his ribs. Nothing felt broken, but his bad knee was swollen enough that he dug the compression brace out of his suitcase.
Last night had proved he still had some bite left. This morning proved he was still an old dog.
Frank was a ghost. The only sign he’d survived the night was his muffled voice through the bedroom wall, rising and falling in a familiar pattern. Lilith was on the other end—Cal would’ve known that cadence anywhere. She was the only person he’d ever met who could spar with Frank and win.
Lying on his back and staring at the ceiling, Cal thought of Molly, and how much she’d admired Lilith. Her ambition. Her discipline. Her life lived at full speed. Molly had made her world out of small, careful moments, and Cal had loved her for it. He wondered now if she’d wanted more than he’d given.
The light between the shutters shifted from afternoon to evening before Cal finally picked up his phone and typed a message to Eeva.
We need to talk.
He met Frank in the kitchen when hunger finally won. Frank stood at the counter with a glass of red already poured.
“You talked to Lilith?” Cal asked.
“You heard?”
“Through the wall.” Cal swallowed stale bread and washed it down with water. “How’d it go?”
Frank drained his glass. “I told her everything.”
“Everything?”
Frank smiled. “Mostly everything.” Then, before Cal could press, he added, “I want to get that black case to Jonathan before she gets here.”
Cal froze. “She’s coming?”
Frank nodded, and from the look on his face, Lilith wasn't coming for a friendly reunion.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Frank said.
Cal tried to hide his smile. “I think I’m about to be looking at one."
Twenty-four hours later, a pair of knuckles rapped on their apartment door.
"She's here?" Frank said and looked up from a bowl of pasta he was eating over the kitchen sink. "She didn't text that she was here."
Cal had eaten earlier and jumped up from the couch. This was going to be good. "She texted me when she landed and I gave her our address."
"You didn't tell me?"
"She told me not to," Cal said and shrugged. His hand paused on the doorknob.
"Et tu, Brute? Are you two going to gang up on me the whole time?"
"I'm sorry!" Cal said and he meant it. "I didn't want to get on her bad side."
A stern feminine voice came from the other side of the door. "I can hear you two talking, you know? Are you going to let me in? Or did I waste my time and the taxpayer's money on a redeye across the Atlantic?"
Cal opened the door.
"That's better. Cal!" she almost squealed, "So great to see you!"
Lilith entered and immediately embraced Cal in the kind of hug shared only by people who measure their friendship in decades. She was tiny in his arms, but Cal still had the uneasy feeling that she could kill a man with a ballpoint pen.
Cap still on.
"You look great, Lil, and it's damned good to see you, too."
The friends pulled apart and Lilith immediately looked down at his empty wrist. "Where's your watch?"
"Long story," he said and suddenly knew exactly which bits Frank had left out of his confession to Lilith. "—for later, I think. Anyways, please come in."
Lilith hovered at the doorway, her gray-canvas luggage in the hall behind her. Frank hovered over Cal's shoulder.
"Frank," she said.
"Hey, Lil."
Lilith tilted her head. "You shaved."
"Not really," Frank said and Cal failed to stifle a nervous laugh.
Then silence.
"Are you two going to play annoyed exes the entire time we're here?" Cal asked when he could take no more. He gave them each his stern-teacher look. "I know you both keep in touch, so let's move past the awkward phase, shall we?"
Frank shrugged and said to Lilith, "You look good."
"Cal already said that."
"No, he said you look great."
Neither of them blinked.
"Okay!" Cal intervened. "Lil, please come in and let's get this party started." He walked into the kitchen, hoping she'd follow. "Drink? Food? Frank made a helluva pasta."
"I do miss your cooking, Frank." She gave him a smile and patted his chest as she walked past him into the kitchen. Cal spied Frank controlling a flinch, as if Lilith had hit him with a fist.
Frank pulled Lilith's carry-on into the apartment and closed the door, and Cal was absolutely amused to see his friend silent and blushing. They settled around their little table, with fresh drinks and fresh pasta passed around, so that Lil wouldn't eat alone. She twirled her first bite of pasta around her fork and dug in, and then there it was: the warm smile that balanced her severe demeanor.
"What can I say, Frank? You still got it." She dabbed her lips with a napkin with grace.
Cal's eyes flicked to Frank, expecting to catch a fleeting smile, but the smile lingered. Holy shit, Frank was actually smiling and not his usual, showman's grin. It was softer. Vulnerable. Interesting.
Another bottle opened. Lilith asked all about the good parts of Nice, seemingly content to leave the hard questions for later. She asked Cal about MJ and his grandson, Ryder, and when he planned to go visit them next. Cal admitted that he needed to clear up some legal issues before he did that, but Lilith didn't press.
Somehow, she probably already knew.
Frank was on his best behavior and even seemed to relax. He brushed off Lilith's verbal barbs and poked her with a few of his own, to which she responded with playful poutiness or a zinger that brought even Frank to laughter. Cal's eyes bounced between them.
Lilith pushed back her empty pasta bowl and slid her empty wine glass out of easy reach. She was done for the evening.
"Alright, boys, why don't we pick this up in the morning? You have a lot of explaining to do and I flew across an ocean to hear and see the details firsthand." The boys agreed. Lilith continued, "And, bad news, every hotel in the city is booked—"
"—That'd be the Carnival—" Cal said.
"—so, which of you am I sleeping with tonight?"
Frank spit his wine in a burst of purple mist.
Cal stammered.
"You both fucking wish!" Lilith laughed at their shock. "I've got the couch and don't either of you even think about trying to convince me to switch. I'm not laying in your nasty man-sheets, and I know you don't keep fresh spares."
She rose like a tornado and wheeled her carry-on into the bathroom to ready herself for sleep. Frank looked at Cal across the table with a look like he'd been slapped in the face.
"She's a monster," he said, stunned. Wine droplets spattered his front and the table before him.
Cal rose to start clearing the dishes.
"I missed her fucking with you," he said and left with an armful of plates. At the kitchen sink he barely heard Frank alone at the table behind him.
"Me too."