“Get it? Your bone?”
“I hate you,” I muttered as I turned back to my screen.
“Liar. You know I’m right.”
I turned in my chair to face him again. “No, you’re fucking not. My big plan is to leave the ball in her court so I don’t come off as needy. The last thing a chick who wants no strings needs is a guy up her ass.”
“Maybe she does need a guy up her ass,” he joked with his eyebrows waggling.
“Fucking cretin.”
“I’m just saying, what rule states you can’t even text her after three days?”
“Oh my God,” I groaned with a roll of my eyes. “All of them, dipshit. You had a girlfriend way too long.”
“And you might have cocked it all up by acting like you’re not interested.”
I huffed. “I’ve gotta play this smart, Jude. She’s going to come back around. I know it.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“Then I’ll figure it out.” My hope sank like the Titanic, slowly and with a chill. He wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t right. There was no way of knowing, not until she texted me. I checked my phone, just like I had about four billion times in the last three days.
Nothing.
I ran a hand through my hair.
Jude watched me. “You should take a walk. Get out of the apartment. We’ve been cooped up here for three days, working and binge-watching TV, and I think you need some vitamin D, since you’re not giving any.”
I made a face. “Hilarious, jackhole. And I would have already seen her show if you’d fucking told me about it when you found out.”
“I did tell you, bro.”
“Dude, there’s no way I would forget you telling me that Penny was on TV. Literally no fucking way.”
“Well, there’s no fucking way I wouldn’t have told you because I knew you’d had a boner for her for a decade.”
I chuffed, opening my mouth to argue, but he cut me off.
“I’m serious. Why don’t you get us ice cream? It’s, like, a thousand degrees out, and you’re miserable. No one can be miserable after ice cream. It’s scientifically impossible.”
I sighed and stood, sticking a finger in his face. “Fine. But only if you promise to keep your fucking mouth shut about Penny. It’s hard enough without your nagging.”
“Yeah, I bet it is.”
He tried to flick me in the nuts, but I jumped back and countered with a solid slap upside the back of his head.
“Get me some cherry chunk,” he called after me.
I flipped him off over my shoulder as I walked to the door, opened it, and slammed it behind me.
Frustrated was a good word to use — sexually, emotionally, generally. I’d had a little taste of something that had consumed me like wildfire, and now that I was deprived of it, I felt wild. Feral. Like I’d crawl out of my skin if I couldn’t see her, smell her, touch her.
Even the thought of touching her had my johnson reacting.
Maddening, that was what it was.
I stepped out into the blazing summer afternoon, and my mood spoiled like rotten milk in the heat. I mean, why hadn’t she called? We’d spent an hour in the shower the last time I saw her and another hour in my room, in my bed, touching, talking, kissing. She’d made me feel so good, and I thought the feeling was mutual.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe she was playing me.
Maybe I was just a fuck boy, someone whose body she could use.
The thought made me feel cheap. Cheaper still when I wondered how many guys out there had felt just like I did.
Maybe Jude was right and I needed a new plan. At what point should I stop waiting? At what point should I take action, and what could I do? Because one thing was perfectly clear.
I wanted to be with Penny in any context she would let me have her. But to be with her, I had to play by her rules even if I bent them to get my way. I wanted to win, and I wanted to win her.
There wasn’t much I could do besides texting, not without crossing the line. Showing up at her work would definitely be crossing the line. I could send her flowers at the tattoo parlor, but that would be way too big, too serious. I imagined her getting flowers from me and her eyes bugging out like I was psycho. Or worse — I imagined her laughing.
No. Definitely no flowers.
I huffed, running my fingers through my hair again, annoyed with myself for being so annoying. But I felt like an addict with no dealer, cracked out and irrational and driven to the point of desperation.
At that thought, I took a breath and told myself to ease up. The plan was to wait, so I’d wait.
She’d come around. My hope glimmered, revived by the thought. And when she did, I’d take advantage of every single second I had with her.
* * *
Penny
The bell over the shop’s door rang, and Ramona laughed.
“Penny, delivery.”
I glanced up from my desk in my booth to find a delivery guy looking around the room with a vase of flowers in his hand.
My heart shot into my throat.
Bodie!
Yeah, his name had an exclamation point in my head because I hadn’t stopped thinking about him for three full days and nights, and I was mildly — extremely — annoyed that he hadn’t texted me. Of course, I hadn’t texted him either.
The third date loomed, and I wanted to stave it off for as long as possible. I mean, until I couldn’t even stand it anymore. I was probably almost there because the thought of those flowers being from him made my vagina do stuff. Squeezy, clenchy stuff.
I hopped out of my seat and bounded to the delivery guy. “Are those for me?” I asked, grinning like a goddamn fool.
“If you’re Penny, yes, they are.”
I squealed and bounced on the balls of my feet. Every one of my co-workers watched me like I’d been possessed.
I had been. By Bodie’s dick and math jokes.
The delivery guy had me sign his little doohickey and handed me the flowers, which I promptly skipped over to the desk with, and Ramona and Veronica appeared by my side, eyeballing me.
“This is literally the first time I’ve ever seen you excited about getting flowers,” Ramona said incredulously.
Veronica watched me like my body had been snatched by an alien.
“They have to be from Bodie,” I said, digging through the rose blooms for a card. “He hasn’t even texted.”
“We know. You’ve only mentioned it every hour, on the hour, for three days.” Ramona patted my arm.
I found the card and plucked it out of the bouquet with an, Aha!, opening it with frantic fingers.
My stomach fell into my shoes with my smile.
“To Penny. Miss you. Consider my offer. Love, Brad,” I read aloud.
Veronica groaned. “Ugh, fuck you, Brad!”
I read it again, sure there was some mistake. “Brad? I haven’t even fucking seen that shithead in weeks, not since he asked me to move in with him. The curse of date three.” I picked up the bouquet by the vase and dropped it in the tall trash can behind the desk.
Ramona eyed them, torn. “Do you have any idea how expensive those are?”
I pointed at her. “Don’t you touch those. Those flowers are tainted by freaknut Brad and his inability to take a hint. Those flowers are from the wrong guy.”