Page 74 of Badd Baby

I sent it to voicemail and responded with a text message: Had to catch my flight. Thank you for a great weekend, and for everything you did for my friends. Sorry it had to be this way. Goodbye, Duncan.

I watched the blue bar creep across the screen, pause a quarter inch from the right side of the screen, and then the bar jumped to the end with the “bloop" of the message being delivered. A second later, it changed from 'delivered' to 'read.'

Three jumping dots…gone. Jumping dots…gone.

Nothing for over a minute.

And then he liked the message.

I waited another minute, but it was clear that's all there would be.

I didn't blame him; how could I? I knew he had feelings. I just…I can't go there. Not with him, not with anyone. But especially not with him—there is not a single part of me that wants to move to fucking Alaska. It was nice enough to visit, but live there? No.

Was there more to my resistance to the notion of being with Duncan? Probably. It likely had something to do with Hayes and the other assholes I’ve dated. They've all been uniformly terrible.

I don't trust myself.

I don't trust men.

Sure, Duncan seems great, on paper. He's hot as fuck in the face, has a great head of hair, incredible eyes; his body is to fucking die for, powerful, lean and hard, shredded, muscular.

That dick.

His mouth.

THAT DICK.

God, the sex was next level.

My vagina ached just thinking about it.

Something niggled in the back of my brain, a worm of doubt, a seed of worry.

What if—

Nope.

My phone rang again, and I cursed it out loud. "Stop fucking calling me, Duncan, Jesus. You're not changing my mind." And then I looked at the screen, realized it was Lindsey, and answered it. "Hi."

"Where are you, bitch? Duncan said you're not in your room, your stuff is all gone, and you sent him some blow-off text?"

I sighed. "I'm in my car in long-term parking at Sea-Tac. And it was not a blow-off text."

"What did it say?" she asked.

"Linz—"

"Read it to me, if it's not a blow off."

I read it to her. "See? Not a blow off.”

She just snorted. "It's a blow off.”

"How? What was I supposed to say, Linz?"

"You were supposed to stick around and talk to him face to face like a fucking adult!" She snapped. "You owe him that much, at minimum, for everything he did for Raquel and Hamish…which you and I both knew he did for you. The man agrees to be your fake date to a wedding for people he doesn't know. He uses his own personal contacts and resources to help your friends save their wedding. He gives you multiple orgasms, which you yourself say are the best you've ever had. He gives you the dicking down of a lifetime. And what do you do? You ghost him the morning after and give him a shitty, immature blow-off text. Seriously, Rune, 'thanks and sorry' doesn’t fucking cut it."

My eyes burned. "Whose side are you on?" I hissed. "I thought you were my best friend. You're supposed to have my back. You of all people should understand how I'm feeling, why I'm…." I shook my head. "You know what? Never fucking mind. If you think Duncan Badd is so great and wonderful, you fuck him. You have my permission. Go for it. Move to fucking Alaska for him."