The Opposite of Love

Ch 26

The coffee, cold as it may have been, was kicking in. Walking a little faster than my normal pace, I was back at the park in no time. And I didn't pass a single soul along the way.

Sneaking behind the bush as casually as I could, I uttered a "Hey," before plopping on the ground.

"Ah, good. You're here," Dad said, yawning. "Is that new?" He gestured to my baggy attire.

"Yeah. I got it last week," I lied. Again. This was getting to be much too easy, and happening far too frequently. "But I think I need to exchange it for a smaller size. This is huge for a medium."

"Yes, it is. But at least it will keep you warm and dry. There's supposed to be another storm coming in later today."

"So I've heard," I said. He yawned again. "I'm good here. You can go on home and get some sleep."

"Okay. I'll be back in a few hours."

And with that, he left. Keeping a close eye on the bench, I grabbed a few emergency stakeout snacks from my stash in Dad's car and resettled in the bush, finishing my cold coffee.

I pulled out my phone, which was remarkably still about 40% charged, and texted Charlie.

"You can stop worrying now, mom. I've arrived, and I'm fine"

His reply came quickly: "good. I'm gonna need that mug back btw"

"nah, I kinda like it. I think I'll keep it" I joked.

"no way. it's my favorite mug. You will give it back or face the consequences"

"um, I don't think so. you can pry this mug from my cold dead hands"

"along with the cold dead coffee? how was that anyway?"

"gross. but it did the trick. I'm wide awake now"

"I should have made some earlier. I could've used you to keep me up all night"

Right. My amazing skills at keeping the concussed Charlie from falling asleep. "sorry again about that"

"it's all good. how's the stakeout going?"

How was the stakeout going. Hmm. Well, I was sitting on the damp ground behind a scraggly bush, waiting for a newspaper to get up and walk away on its own because there was nobody around for miles who was going to pick it up. So overall, just dandy.

"fine" I typed instead.

"keeping warm?"

It was starting to sound like he really did care.

"I am. and I suppose you'll want your clothes back too?"

"eventually. has it started raining yet?"

Even though there were clearly no drops falling on me, I looked at the sky anyway before replying, "not yet, but I can hear thunder here and there. it's coming"

Now that I was thinking about it, it would be very bad if the rain washed away all the forensics we could have gotten from the watch. It was looking more and more like nobody was coming to pick it up.

After wrestling with my decisions for a while, I eventually called Dad to make them for me. It had started sprinkling by that point.

"What's wrong? Did someone finally show up?" Dad asked, foregoing all greetings. How come he was so much more alert after being awakened in the middle of the night? It wasn't fair. Stupid genetics forgot to pass that along.