Mr. Imperfect

chapter 31



Kris gave her brother a high five as he put his phone down. “Perfect, bro.”

Mike’s side of the high five was half-hearted, at best. “Are you sure? It felt a little rude.”

His sister waved that off. “That’s the beauty of it. If she doesn’t like you, then she’s back to what she was doing without a thought. If she does like you, she’s pissed and throwing her phone at a wall right now.”

Somehow Mike couldn’t imagine Rori doing that. “How can you be so sure?”

Kris draped a longsuffering arm around her brother. “Because I danced this dance with Luke my whole life.”

Mike couldn’t help but pull a face of disgust.

“Cringe all you like, but the fact is that I’ve been in love with Luke for a long time. And every time he ever called the house, no matter how many times I answered the phone, he never wanted to talk to me. Always you. So, yeah, I know exactly how it feels to be excited to talk to someone, only to have them blow you off. It’s beyond infuriating, and you never get used to it. Not really.”

Mike could see how that would be the case. “So she’s either mad at me, or already forgotten that I even called?”

“Basically,” Kris agreed.

He considered that, his hopes dipping down a bit. “Well, she didn’t seem mad.”

“Overly perky?”

He shook his head. “Not that either.”

“Hmm. Well, we’ll be able to tell more on the next call. If she prolongs it or tries to cut the call off before you can, we’ll know that she was bugged this time around.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

Kris shrugged. “We’ll go from there.”

Mike stared at his phone for a moment then looked back to his sister. “For the record, it’s totally weird having you help me out with this.”

Kris grinned. “I know.”

“Can you not tell Luke?”

“Oh, he’s cool with it. He’s even starting to bend the story so that it reads that he brought Rori back just so you would meet her.”

This time it was Mike who smiled. “That’s a convenient rewrite.”

“Tell me about it,” she grumbled.

“But still, stay mum about this with him? I don’t want him to feel like he needs to—” he made air quotes with his fingers, “—help.”

“Totally. Just you and me. I won’t say a word until the day you two go public.”

Mike offered her a fist bump. “You’re a pal, sis.”

She smirked and pressed her knuckles to his. “Worth my weight in gold, and don’t you forget it.”