At that moment, Jo had no idea how close the man she thought of as her true father really was. If she had, she might have said she was going for a walk and slipped out to meet him, but Jack was afraid of precisely such a premature move and so had enjoined Gary to not tell "Jon" their location.
"Who you texting?" Mikey asked without much interest. He had swiped the remote her and was no in charge of the TV.
"Hmm? Oh, uh, Tychelle," Jo lied, caught off guard for a second, pulling the name of one of her few true friends at random. Tychelle was a black girl that lived a few blocks down. They had met in ballet class when they were both nine. "She want me to come get my nails done with her, but Mom already took me last week."
Jo held up one hand to show off the fancy manicure. Her nails were a brilliant cobalt blue worked with tiny Asian symbols. She was a little embarrassed to admit it, but she was enough of a girl now to think they looked really cool.
"Nice," Mikey said in a noncommittal way. Jo scoled when he didn't even look. Not that she could blame him. She didn't used to give a shit about things like painting fingernails either. Tossing the remote down, he looked toward the kitchen and got up, "Have the TV if you want. I'm gonna make me a sandwich."
"Cool," Jo murmured, ready to switch it back to MTV. It wasn't until Mikey had been gone a minute that she realized he had forgotten his phone on the arm of the couch. She was pretty sure she knew his passcode. He wasn't always as careful with stuff like that as he was with the stone. This might be her chance to find out what was going on with him and Karyn.
Did she dare?
