"You should call Jade," Bucky says as he pulls onto the highway.
"And tell her what?" I fire back before catching myself. I let out a breath. "Sorry. That wasn't directed toward you."
"Just give her a little update and then let her talk. She does love to do that."
After a few seconds, I take my phone out and make sure it's connected to my car before calling Jade.
It rings twice before Jade picks up and says, in her very preppy voice, "Hey Trid! What's up?"
"Hi Jade," I respond, a small smile on my face.
"So. Tell me about all the things that have happened," she prompts.
I glance at Bucky who motions his hand for me to talk, the center of his attention on the road.
I face the front windshield and inhale before I swiftly tell Jade about how the cafe is doing, how I'm doing, and how my visit to my dad went, skipping over a large handful of things.
"How's Lizzy? I miss her so much."
"She's doing great. So is Logan."
"Oh! Logan must be so big now."
"He is. And he's super sweet."
"Aw," Jade fawns. "How's James?" she asks, catching me a bit off guard.
I glance at Bucky again but he chooses to ignore me this time as he switches lanes. "He's doing well. Same as always."
"I'm so glad to hear that."
"So how are you doing?" I ask, not wanting to continue talking about myself.
With no further need for prompt, Jade launches into talking about every little thing she's done since we last talked. I listen, paying attention and responding with the correct "Mm" or "Oh" or "Oh my goodness".
"Oh! Did you get Ben's wedding invitation?" Jade asks enthusiastically.
A half smile pulls at my lips. "Yeah, I got it about two weeks ago," I respond.
Jade goes on for a little longer before a male voice, who I’m assuming is Shawn, says something. “Ok,” Jade responds. “I gotta go,” she tells me quickly.
“Okay. It was good to catch up with you,” I say.
“You too. We should meet up soon.”
“Yeah. That would be fun.”
Shawn says another thing, sounding impatient. “Kay, bye-bye,” Jade rushes out.
“Bye.” The call ends and I sit in silence for a few minutes, my eyes closed. I pull my phone out again and call Clare.
It rings a few times before she picks up. “Hey. I was just thinking about calling you,” she says.
“How’s everything going?” I ask, gnawing worriedly at my bottom lip.
Clare sighs on the other end of the phone. “The cafe’s doing fine but, you remember that person I told you about? I saw them again last night, they were looking at the door up to where you live and also at the windows.”
“Did they seem interested in the cafe at all?” I ask, my brows pulling together in confusion.
“Not especially,” Clare responds, some background noise leaking through.
“Do you remember what they were wearing?” Bucky asks, startling me.
Clare seems to hesitate, also taken off guard by Bucky talking. “Uhm… They had a baseball cap on and their hood pulled up…” she trails off for a moment, probably trying to remember more. “They also had a long-ish coat over their hoodie.”
“Did they look like they were sneaking around or did they look more comfortable?” Bucky questions, his attention still focused on the road.
“Hm… I guess they didn’t really seem on guard. They did look around once but then didn’t seem too worried about who was nearby.”
“When was this?”
“Close to nine, I think.”
I watch Bucky, his already serious face pulling into a frown. “Did you see them use a car?”
“Yes. It looked like a super expensive compact SUV. It was black.”
Bucky’s eyes narrow a fraction further. “Is there anything else you remember seeing?”
Clare’s silent on the other end for a few seconds before she speaks up again. “There was another person in the car and the person looking at the cafe had something in their hand. I don’t know what it was though.”
“Hm, okay.”
“Sorry. I wish I could tell you more than that,” Clare says, sounding tense.
“Don’t be. That information is helpful,” Bucky responds, his voice barely softening around the kind words.
He rarely talks nicely to anyone other than me… He needs to work on that.
“We’ll be back in about four hours,” I say, speaking up.
“Okay. The cafe is doing perfectly fine by the way. I know you feel like you need to be doing all this and that helping out but… You don’t have to all the time. You can take a break,” Clare says hesitantly.
I snort humorlessly. “Thanks, Clare.”
“No problem,” she responds, a smile in her voice. “Have a safe rest of your drive.”
“See you soon.” I hang up and glance at Bucky. “What are you thinking?” I ask him, knowing he has some idea.
“A lot of things, but I need to confirm something first,” he tells me.
My eyes narrow a bit but I don’t push the subject further. “Can I put music on?” I ask after about fifteen minutes of complete silence.
“You have bad taste in music,” Bucky says bluntly.
“That technically wasn’t a no,” I point out coyly.
Bucky rolls his eyes. “Whatever,” he mutters, moving the car over a lane.
I turn the radio on, not wanting to fiddle around with picking a Spotify playlist but quickly turn the radio back off after hearing the music playing. “Fine. Be difficult,” I mutter under my breath. I reconnect my phone to the car and take five minutes looking through my Spotify playlists before finally settling on one.
Bucky gets a surprised look on his face as he looks at the song playing. “Star Dust?” he asks, glancing at me.
By Artie Shaw. A small smile appears on my face. “It’s a good song,” I comment.
“You listen to 40s music?” he questions, giving me a slightly wary look.
I shrug, looking out my window. “Sometimes.” We sit in the car, the silence now filled with quiet music, easing some of the tension that had been building up in my shoulders.