Page 115

We’re doing the interviews over the weekend.

We can pencil you in for the beginning

of next week, though.

The beginning of next wee—

Oh, so they wanted to flirt? I could flirt! I grabbed the phone immediately, my fingers flying:

Fuck that. Pencil me in before the others!

I chuckled. Then, as an afterthought:

I won’t be sent to the end of some

line of gold-digging skanks.

I set the phone down with a smug, satisfactory grin. For someone who sucked at texting, I was especially proud of the gold-digging skanks line.

I grabbed the remote, and was about to un-pause my unnecessarily dramatic, over-the-top reality show when the phone sounded off again:

Okay, done.

Friday night. Eight o’clock.

I noticed this last message was a little different. It was within the same conversation, only this one came from Burke.

That part sent a couple of butterflies fluttering through my stomach.

Yeah, right.

I clicked a few buttons and looked up the laughing emojee. God, I hated emojees. But I used it anyway:

::laughing::

Yeah, sure! See you there.

It was still fun, still flirty. Right? Only now, for some reason, my heart was beating a lot faster.

Hey — you were the one who teased them, Kayleen.

I guess I had. In retrospect I’d even started it. Now they’d gotten the best of me, teasing me right back. One-upping me on my own dumb flirty bullshit, which only—

We’re serious.

The message stopped me in my tracks. Two little words. Two tiny words with all the impact of a runaway freight train.

I went to type again, then stopped. Hesitated. Sat there for another minute, with the phone in my lap. Then, after another half-minute of silence, another message appeared:

Are you?

Serious? Serious? Of course I wasn’t serious! I was just playing along, doing the text-message thing. Flirting and laughing and having some sexy little fun, only maybe the guys had taken me a little more seriously than I was taking myself.

Or maybe…

Or maybe they were only bluffing. Having some fun with me.

Do you call them out on it?