Page 11 of The Déjà Glitch

Gemma felt like a stranger was offering her a ride off the street.Don’t get in the carhad been beaten into her head like every young woman’s. This wasn’t a car, but indulging him felt as precarious as buckling up with a potential madman behind the wheel.

He sensed her reluctance and sighed. He checked his watch and gave her a weary look. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do anything like this so early on, but your brother is going to call you in about thirty seconds and tell you he missed that 11:45 flight, but he’s trying for another.”

Gemma gaped at him, her mind a scramble of impossibility. Silence stretched between them while her heart pounded in her ears. She was tempted to walk out the door and forget everything about their strange encounter, but the certainty in his voice glued her to the floor.

Thirty seconds expanded into an eternity. She did and didn’t want Patrick to call. All at once, it could explain everything and nothing.

Jack watched her, holding his breath.

How could he have any idea?she wondered as her phone buzzed to life in her hand.

Patrick Peters.

She stared at it in shock before numbly lifting it. “Hello?” Her voice was a hoarse whisper.

“Hey, Gem.” He was out of breath. “I missed that 11:45, but I’m trying for another.”

Her first thought was that her brother, her beloved little brother who did appreciate a good joke, was in on the elaborate hoax. Maybe he was already in L.A., sitting in the same coffee shop and watching her fall victim to whatever scheme had been hatched at her expense all for a laugh.

But she could not think of why anyone would want to play a trick on her.

All she knew was that the man in front of her had predicted exactly what was happening, right down to the very words Patrick said.

“Gem? You there?”

Her mouth hung open like a flytrap. “Yeah,” she said with a stunned shake of her head. “I’m here.”

“Good. Thought I lost you. Well, the good news is I’m officially on standby now. There’s another plane in an hour,and if one of these unfortunate souls doesn’t show up on time, I’ll have a seat.” The signature pep of caffeine inflected his speech. Gemma was certain he’d downed a coffee since their last call.

She was still floundering.

“Unless there’s no hurry and I can kick it in New York for a few days...” Patrick said in her silence, the hope in his voice unmistakable.

“No, no, please come home,” she pleaded, and she felt like she had said the words before.

He sighed. “All right. Thoughts and prayers for standby. I’ll let you know if I have any luck.”

Jack was staring at Gemma with a knowing, if not slightly patronizing look on his face.

“Wait, Patrick—” she blurted before he vanished into the airport chaos. “Where was that 11:45 headed?”

“L.A., duh,” he said with the air of his younger self.

Gemma had a sudden vision of a gangly teenager wearing an obscure band’s tee shirt and dirty Chucks. There was a high probability Patrick was wearing the same thing, his signature uniform, at that very moment.

She couldn’t help the smug smile that spread across her lips. She aimed it at Jack and hoped he could hear her brother all but shouting over the background noise on his end and proving him wrong. “Right. Of course it was.”

“Layover in Dallas, though,” Patrick said. “Gotta go!”

Jack tilted his head with his own smug smile and motioned to the empty table in the window. “Shall we?”

Gemma lowered her phone and closed her mouth, which had fallen open again. She stepped over the puddle the barista had smeared into gritty brown sludge in an attemptto clean it up and swiped a few napkins from the cart by the door. Less reluctant than she had been thirty seconds before, she followed Jack to the table.

He sat across from her. Their knees bumped beneath the small wooden surface. The feeling shot a jolt of recognition to a fold buried deep inside her brain.

She shook it away, looked down at the damage to her shirt, and dabbed her still-dripping chest with the napkins. At least the ice cube in her bra had melted.

“Sorry about that,” Jack said. “I know that was your favorite shirt.”