“He hasn’t called?” Emma asks me.

Frowning at my phone I mutter, “No,” and push away the untouched ham sandwich she made for me.

“Eat your food, Hannah.” Emma nudges my plate closer. “This isn’t healthy. You’ve barely eaten in four days.”

“You call a girl after you sleep with her. That’s what you do!”

“Maybe he’s scared.”

“He must be,” I murmur, eyebrows piercing together. “We had such a great time!”

“Maybe he just wanted to have sex with you.”

My mouth drops in horror. “No, it wasn’t like that. We had an adventure. That place, it was something out of a storybook! I showed you photos, didn’t I?”

“You did,” she sighs, leaning back in her pajamas and kicking a fuzzy-socked foot onto one of our four dining room chairs.

“And after the second time we had sex we took a flashlight and explored the forest and made out with fucking owls hooting over our heads! You don’t do that and not call someone! You don’t cut firewood for a girl, chop it with some antique ax you find, and then cook her favorite fish dinner with her favorite veggies, and sleep wrapped around her, and then not call her! You don’t take her out to breakfast the next morning, I had bacon and eggs, that’s all I needed, and then make out for so long by the car that people honk at you, and then not call her!”

God, I know I’m rambling what sounds like complete nonsense but the thing about Emma is she gets me. All of that made total sense to her. Except the part about him not calling. That has us both baffled.

“When does he find out his schedule?”

“Sundays.”

Emma’s pretty lips tighten. She doesn’t want to be cruel and point out that it’s Friday so he’s a whole five days too late.

Also, this is not the first time she and I have had this conversation. She has the patience of a best friend, which is why she’s mine. And my cousin. And my roommate. But why doesn’t she know where Joe is?

“How can he have disappeared like this? I feel so strange. It’s unkind, and that’s what makes no sense because he was nothing but kind! Never even got a ‘that was fun’ text message. I figured he was playing it cool, but now I’m so confused I don’t know what to think. He’s ghosting me, isn’t he?”

“Someone’s ghosting you?” my younger brother Gabriel asks, his deep voice scaring the fuck out of us.

Emma and I both shout at him, “Don’t do that!”

I go back to looking at my phone and she mutters, “I’m sorry we gave you a key. You still have to knock first! Don’t just sneak in like some lunatic.”

He chuckles and picks up my forgotten sandwich, shoving it in his big mouth as his long legs take him to our refrigerator. “I get such a charge out of it,” he says with his mouth full.

As he digs around for something to drink, I lock eyes with Emma. “He is though, isn’t he? He’s ghosting me.”

“Well,” she sighs, twisting her chestnut brown hair. “There are too many ways to get ahold of someone. If he lost his phone he could always find you through social networks. And he knows where we live.”

“Maybe he forgot? Maybe he was so excited when he picked me up that he forgot which apartment building we live in.”

“Hannah,” she warns.

“There are four on this street alone! West Midtown is nothing but new apartment buildings that all look the same!”

“I thought you like it here.”

“I do,” I mutter, “That’s not the point. They’re cute but they look alike so maybe he forgot?”

Glancing over I spy Gabriel watching me.

Shit.

Look at him.

My brothers, identical twins, are strikingly handsome. They’re the best mix of my dad and his wife, Jaimie, with grey-green eyes and jet-black hair. But as he leans against the counter and makes my sandwich disappear, all I can think is that I hate his face. So smug.

“I can’t believe someone ghosted my sister,” he chuckles. “What happened?”

Emma and I share a look.

I am dying to tell the story again.

But she does not want to hear it.

This isn’t about her though, is it?

So here goes.