Page 34 of The Déjà Glitch
“ ’Bout time,” Carmen said with chow mein noodles dangling from her mouth. Hugo used chopsticks to pick up a pot sticker. “I ordered extra in case you need to eat.”
Gemma dropped her purse on the bench against the wall and realized she hadn’t thought about lunch. She sank down into one of the empty chairs at the small round table.
“Thanks.”
“What’s up with you?” Hugo asked. His voice rumbled deep in his barrel chest. He took up most of the space in their small production booth when the three of them crammed in together.
“Um...” Gemma wasn’t sure what to say, still reeling. “Busy morning.”
Carmen slammed her chair’s front legs onto the floor and dropped her box of noodles. “Well, snap out of it, sister. Marsha’s kid is still puking his guts out, and we didn’t cancel Nigel Black. I told her you’d cover. That means you’re on in”—she glanced at the wall clock hanging above the booth window—“twenty minutes.”
At that moment, Gemma was thankful her stomach was in fact empty. She had not recovered from her phone call with Patrick, and news that she had to interview one of her idols live on air surely might have otherwise made her hurl.
CHAPTER
7
At the newsthat she would be interviewing Nigel Black in a matter of minutes, Gemma did an about-face and ran back outside.
She was pacing the sidewalk in front of the studio, breathing like she was going into labor, trying not to throw up, and wondering when her life had diverted into madness when she heard a familiar voice.
“Gemma?”
It was Jack. And the rush of relief that surged through her felt like a warm blanket in a snowstorm.
“You,” she said.
He approached slowly with his hands half raised as if he was afraid she would run. “Yes, me.”
Obviously, he had followed her again, and she realized she was thankful. After the past fifteen minutes, she needed a familiar face, and even if Jack was only familiar by some inexplicable cosmic accident, she would take it.
“Are you all right?” He had asked her that question before, and she was pretty sure she had lied to him.
“Not really, no.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Don’t you already know?”
He shrugged and gave her a kind smile. “Let’s pretend I don’t.” He pointed at the bench up against the building’s outer wall, thankfully shaded by an overhang.
Gemma didn’t have much time, if she was going to do the interview at all, but at least an attempt to process everything that had happened was a welcome invitation.
She turned for the bench and he followed to sit beside her.
“I just got off the phone with Patrick. He’s still stuck in New York, but he told me he’s moving to Africa, permanently, because the institute he works for offered him a job that he can’t turn down. He was only coming to L.A. for a few weeks and turns out he was the one who set up a meeting with my father today, because he wants to play some kind of peacemaker before he’s gone for good. If this has already happened, I must have blocked it out.”
Jack let out a long breath. “That’s heavy.
A swell of emotion jammed Gemma’s voice in her throat. Her words came out high and desperate. “I only get to see him six months out of the year already! What’s going to happen if he moves to Africa for good? Then I’llneversee him. And then he’ll meet someone there and fall in love—maybe he already has!—and then I’ll never,neversee him, and it’ll only be me and my mom having sad Christmases in Phoenix for the rest of my life!”
Gemma sniffled, and Jack’s face lifted into a soft, sympathetic smile.
“That spiraled quickly.”
She grumbled and rolled her eyes at him. “Shut up. You don’t know me.”
He pressed his hands into the bench and leaned forward, slightly lifting his body and scooting closer to her. His heady, breezy woods smell came with him. “Actually, I do, remember? And sorry if what I said outside Simon’s lab came on a little strong, but it’s probably best that you know. I know how hard this is for you. I know Patrick is one of your best friends.”