Even though Jane took a seat, Reggie opted to stay standing for now as one finger tugged on the spiral cord of the phone, winding it around anxiously. At his house, his mom would have chastised him, told him he was going to put kinks in the wire. But thankfully, the phone at the Bennet house was in no threat of being ruined by him; someone had clearly beaten him to it.
He listened with eyebrows furrowed as Mrs. Patterson spoke. Her question caught him off guard and he opened his mouth to respond, to say that he hadn’t heard from Luke yet, but as she continued, the bassist froze, mouth gaped open. His grip tightened on the phone and he slowly sank to the bench beside Jane.
It was something Luke had joked about in passing for months, claiming he’d get further without his mom nagging him all the time. But Reggie never thought there was any true weight to it.
His mouth felt dry, but finally he cleared his throat, realizing Mrs. Patterson was still waiting for a response.
“N–no. No, sorry. I haven’t heard from him… But –wait. Wait, let me go home. Maybe he left a message for me,” he added, desperate for some sort of hope for both of them.
A muffled sound came from the other side of the line, almost like Emily Patterson was failing to withhold a sob. Another voice came on the line, Mitch, more calm and collected immediately. “Hey, Reggie, Mitch here. Thank you. We would appreciate you checking. We haven’t, um, been able to get ahold of the Mercer’s yet.” He cleared his throat, voice growing softer rather than stronger from it. “If you do hear from him, will you tell him to call us, please? We just… we just want to know he’s safe.”
The moment Reggie sat beside Jane, she placed a hand on his, hoping to provide some form of comfort. She shouldn’t be listening in, but it was hard not to when she could hear half the conversation clearly and some of the garbled other half. All in all, nothing sounded good. Which meant Jane wasn’t leaving Reggie’s side until something was resolved. She just hoped it could be, for Reggie’s sake.
