The House Above the Sea

36.

It's slightly more than ten minutes—twelve, to be exact, before anyone realizes Neo is gone.

Joey's pacing across the foyer with his phone in his hands, trying to get a hold of Elsie, when he hears a door upstairs slam. He feels it rather than hears it, really; the door meets the jamb with such force that the whole house trembles with it. In the living room, where she sits playing with a vibrant set of toys, Joey's baby sister starts wailing.

Joey crosses the room, sweeping Olivia up in his arms, just as his uncle Aaron comes thundering down the stairs, Joey's mother at his heels.

"This is ridiculous," Neo's father is saying, his forehead wrinkled with anger. "I just don't know what's gotten into him. Viv, where's—where's Duke?"

"Inspections," says Vivian. "In Honolulu. He rode with a few of his friends this morning."

"Good. Then he won't mind if I borrow his truck—"

Aaron stops, abruptly, as his eyes find Joey standing where the living room meets the foyer. Joey studies the two adults for a moment, his uncle in wrinkled work clothes with bags underneath his eyes, and his mother, wide-eyed and attentive like a mouse prepared to flee.

In his arms, Olivia makes a soft cooing noise and falls asleep on his shoulder. Joey glances down at her, then back to his uncle. "What's going on?" he asks. "Where's Neo?"

"Your bedroom window was open," Aaron tells him, though his voice is measured, cautious, as if he's studying even the smallest of Joey's movements. "You're telling me you really don't know where he might have gone?"

Joey swallows. He's with Kit. It's not a guess. He just knows it.

Joey is silent for long enough that his mother says, softly, "Joey?"

He doesn't reply. He swivels, stalks back into the living room, and gently lays Olivia down atop the sofa cushions, picking her fingers from his shirt collar one by one.

When he watched Neo toss that ring into the circle, confusion hit him like a speeding train. He didn't understand. He didn't understand why, for one, Neo would have stolen that ring and held on to it for this long, and why he would give it up at the drop of a hat. But now Joey looks at his baby sister, golden brown eyelashes fluttering against her cherubic cheeks, and he understands. For family, for love, it's not a question of what you would do, but what you wouldn't do.

"One of our friends is in danger right now," Joey says, walking back into the foyer. Aaron's expression doesn't change. "Seconds before you got here and dragged us off, he passed out, and we don't know what's going on with him. So I know you think your ring and your new lady is more important than that, Uncle Aaron, but there are more important things than trying to figure out how quickly you can discard the broken people in your life."

Joey's eyes zip to his mother's, just for a second, expecting her to admonish him. But her lips are curled ever so slightly in a smile.

Aaron sputters. "He didn't tell me any of that."

"You never gave him the chance to. Not that you would have listened, anyway, would you?"

Now his uncle's eyes narrow: two dark brown slits, rife with a cool contempt. It's a look that would have intimidated Joey once, maybe even not that long ago—but something is different now. It's not a sudden revelation, or some great transformation. He just knows where he needs to be, who he needs to be with, and that it isn't here with anyone in this house.

"Do what you want once we know our friend is okay," Joey says, moving for the door. He pulls it half-open, but stops, hesitating. "But until then, leave Neo alone. Because he doesn't just give up on people when it gets hard. Must have learned it from his mom, I guess."