Nine-Tenths

Forty-Three

Alright, so you remember that the Inciting Incident is the tripwire that sends the protagonist hurtling towards the first major obstacle in their path? Next comes the "pinch point". At the top of act two, the hero is squeezed, and either they slither out and go home, or stay there while the pressure becomes unbearable, forcing them to make difficult decisions that affect the rest of their lives.

"The Vice," my English professor had called it.

Of course, most protagonists aren't dumbfuck enough to sit themselves in the chompy part of their own volition, let alone start turning the crank.

But hey, whoever said I was smart?

I put on that pin. And okay, I didn't know what it meant at the time, but the thing is... when I found out? I didn't take it off.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

Phone call. Blocked number. I ignore it. I'm at work and I have better things to do than listen to fake-ass shit-stirring 'reporters' asking me invasive questions. It's not until a few hours later, when I'm heading off on my break, that I realize someone left a voicemail.

I schlump to the back deck. There's no shade from the late-August sun. I could stay inside with the air conditioning, but that defeats the purpose of having a break, because I'll just end up puttering. And it's too damn hot to go for a walk. And, and I don't want to go to any of the restaurants around us on St. Paul because every single one of them is somewhere Dav and I once had a meal and I hate that it's all I can think about.

With nothing better to do, I give the voice mail a listen before deleting it.

"Hey, so, listen," the message says. The speaker sounds like a woman, voice resonant. I can tell English isn't her first language, but her accent is nothing I've heard before. "Man, you gotta knock it off."

Anger flares hard and fast under my skin. How dare they try to intimidate me!

There's a silence, and I expect the speaker to hang up. Instead, she sighs. "Dav says I'm supposed to tell you he's sorry and this is bullshit, although we both know he'd never actually use that word, and he's fine, but you gotta knock it off because the wrong people are paying attention and he doesn't want that, okay? He's a noble fuckwit and you're giving him heart attacks on the daily." There's another deep sigh and then, quietly, almost like I wasn't supposed to hear it: "Shit, man. You had to don the token."

The message ends and I sit there, wide-eyed and gawp-mouthed.

Dav's fine. It's all I can think, the two words crashing around the inside of my skull. Dav's fine. Dav's fine. He's fine, and he's worried about me.

Before my brain catches up with my fingers, I've already hit redial. The annoying bleeping reminds me the number is blocked, and I can't call her back. Whoever her is.

I'm suddenly full of buzzing energy. I need to do something. I want to rush off like the heroine in one of my romances, to hail a cab, to tumble out of it at the base of the office tower, race to the elevator, break into the board meeting, confess my love—

I can't.

First, because I don't know where Dav is. Second, because the way this voicemail was phrased, it sounds like maybe he doesn't want to see me. Or maybe he can't see me.

We've broken enough rules as it is, and look where it's gotten us. If he's not allowed to contact me himself, if he had to ask a friend to do it for him in secret, then rushing to his side would not only be cliched, it might be risky.

Third, because I don't know where Dav is.

Spinning the pin over my heart, I wrack my brains for a way to not only let the mysterious caller know that I got the message and am dying to hear from them again, but also to let Dav know that I've heard him. Message delivered. The only dragon I've seen directly lately was my stalker—and he's vamoosed.