Page 72 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 11

Monday

I wasn’t sure how many times I’d read through those texts over the weekend. I’d asked the kiss thief to tell me his name a couple more times, but he hadn’t texted me back since Friday. Apparently he only felt chatty at two in the morning.

I peered around the side of my dad’s car, waiting for Sophie’s car to pull up. I needed her help. And I also needed to hide from Jacob and Axel. Because if I saw one of them in the hall, I wasn’t sure what to do. Not until I knew who the kiss thief was.

I finally saw RJ pull into the parking lot. Sophie took forever walking in this direction. But when she reached my dad’s car, I grabbed her hand and pulled her next to me.

“Good, you’re alive,” Sophie said. “I haven’t heard from you all weekend.”

I hadn’t known what to say to her. And I just needed time to digest everything that had happened. Part of me thought I should keep the texts a secret. It felt like they were only meant for my eyes. But I needed her help. Desperately. I shoved my phone into her hands. “He texted me.”

“Who?”

“The kiss thief.”

“Ooooh. So who was it?”

“I have no idea.”

Sophie frowned. “What?”

“Just read it.”

Sophie scanned the messages. “Damn. He’s so possessive.” She cringed. “And you’re so needy. You texted him five times without a response. What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking I needed to know his freaking name!”

Sophie leaned against the car as she read the messages again. “This is so hot.”

“How is it hot? We have no idea who it is.”

“I know. You have a very mysterious stalker. I love that for you.” She handed me my phone back.

“That’s all you have to say? Sophie, I need to know who this is.”

“Of course. And we have a whole plan for that. The kissing booth at the football game this weekend. Operation Kissing Booth.”

“No! No more operations! Sophie, I’m not kissing the whole football team.”

She smiled. “Would you rather have a blowing booth?”

“What?”

She made a rude gesture with her hand as she pressed her tongue against the inside of her cheek.

I hit her arm. “No, I’m not blowing the whole football team!”

A guy walked by where we were hiding and raised his eyebrows.

Keep walking! I glared at him.

“We’re in the middle of a private conversation,” Sophie said and shooed him away.

He shook his head and kept going.

Sophie turned back to me. “Maybe he was your kiss thief. He was certainly tall. And I bet he has a six-pack. You should go chase him down and plop one on him real quick.”

I groaned.

“I’m kidding. But if you really don’t want to go through with Operation Kissing Booth...”

“I do not.”

“Then we need to start narrowing down the list of potential kiss thieves.”

I hated that thief was now plural.

“We just have to get our hands on a list of everyone on the football team. And their heights. And their phone numbers.”

I nodded. “Right. Do you think the yearbook committee has it?”

“Psh. Who cares? We have inside access. We’ll just talk to the waterboy.”

“We can’t ask Mr. Nigel for the roster. He’s terrible at keeping secretses. His words. Not mine.”

Sophie laughed. “Fair. We’ll just ask Uncle Matt then.”

I bit my lip. It wasn’t a terrible idea. Uncle Matt was the coach of the Empire High football team. But... “Won’t he ask why we need it?”

Sophie shrugged. “We’ll lie.” She said it so casually. As if nothing could possibly go wrong.

And I needed a break. I was too exhausted to go over every scenario that could go wrong when my brain was already filled with so many questions.

So I just decided to believe her. I took a deep breath.

“How do I face Axel and Jacob when I have no idea who kissed me? Especially because it doesn’t seem like it was one of them.

I know both their phone numbers. And the kiss thief texted me from an unknown number. ”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. One of them might have a burner phone.”

I’d really only heard about burner phones in movies. “Who on earth has a burner phone?”

Sophie laughed. “Um...I have like five.”

“What? Why?”

“For odds and ends. RJ got me hooked on them. He uses them for almost everything. It’s way more secure.”

First the blueprints and now burner phones? It was like I didn’t know my little cousin at all.

“Do you think that RJ can trace the number?” I asked.

“Not if it’s a burner. But he can certainly try.”

“Great.” At least I had a plan now. Get the roster from Uncle Matt. And if I was lucky, I wouldn’t have to use it. Because maybe RJ could just end the whole mystery really quickly. “In the meantime, what do I do about Axel and Jacob?”

“For now, just pretend nothing happened.”

How on earth was I supposed to do that?

She looped her arm through mine and pulled me out from behind the car. “Head up. This is still our year.”

“It doesn’t feel that way.”

She laughed. “You’re ungrounded on Wednesday, right? Maybe we can just pretend that’s the start of our senior year.”

A do-over certainly sounded like a good idea to me.

***

I thought it would be awkward around Axel and Jacob.

But...it wasn’t. And for some reason that just made me even more suspicious.

Lunch felt completely normal. Too normal.

I knew I was taking turns staring at both of them, trying to figure out if one of them could have kissed me.

But...wouldn’t whoever it was be acting differently? That kiss had been epic.

At least, it had been for me.

Gah stop thinking about the dirty kiss thief.

Jacob smiled at me.

I blushed and looked down at my food.

He lightly touched my shoulder. “When do you want to get that ice cream? I think I was promised a date.”

I ignored the feeling of Axel’s eyes on me as I looked back up at Jacob.

“How about Wednesday?” That was my new fresh start.

And an ice cream date at lunch with him sounded pretty great for a new beginning.

I could tell Jacob all about Operation Too Hot to Handle.

And how I called it off. I didn’t want to pine over Axel for the rest of my life.

And I wanted whoever the kiss thief was to leave me alone.

Although for some reason, I kept checking my phone all day again. ..

“RJ, we need help tracing a number,” Sophie said.

What was she doing?! Talking about this in front of Axel and Jacob was a terrible idea! I turned to look at her.

She winked at me.

That didn’t make me feel any better.

“What number?” asked RJ. He was sporting a black eye from his time in the ring. I had no idea how RJ and Sophie were never grounded. I wished my dad was as cool as Uncle Rob.

“Something private. For Scarlett.”

I stole a glance at Jacob. He was just casually eating his food.

And Axel was ignoring us completely. He’d taken one glance at me in his varsity jacket when I’d gotten to lunch, and he’d been on his phone texting ever since.

He was most likely chatting with some girl.

He was never single for very long. He’d probably hooked up with someone at the party after I’d left.

I was surprised there wasn’t some blonde chick draped all over him at lunch today.

RJ shrugged. “Sure. Just text me the number, baby doll.”

“Operation Trap is over, so stop calling me by that weird code name.”

“I got used to it.”

“Then get unused to it.” I copied the number of the kiss thief and sent it to him. “And actually, I take back what I said. That operation isn’t over. We need to figure out how to fix up the hole in the floor.”

“I told you I had it covered, baby doll.”

“RJ.” I gave him a stern look.

“Something wrong, baby doll?”

“What did we just talk about?”

He laughed. “You literally just said the operation wasn’t over after all. So your code name still applies.”

I was going to kill him.

“Question for you boys,” Sophie said. “Has anyone ever mentioned having a crush on Scarlett in the locker room?”

Sophie was out of control right now.

Liam laughed. Like the idea was preposterous.

But Axel and Jacob didn’t respond. They both just glanced at each other and then started eating again.

“RJ?” Sophie asked. “Have you heard any whispers about someone having the hots for Scar?”

RJ shrugged. “No. Why? Do you need a date for something, Scar?”

Was he...offering? I thought about his burner phones.

And the fact that he’d hacked the cameras in my apartment.

And that he was taller than me. And that he wouldn’t stop calling me baby doll.

He was definitely a little pervert. Oh my God.

No. Noooo. He couldn’t possibly have kissed me. Right? Gah! What was happening?

“No, we’re just curious,” Sophie said.

“I’ll keep my ears open,” he said.

“Atta boy.”

“RJ,” Axel said as he finally looked up from his phone. He slid it into the inside pocket of his blazer. And it seemed to be the only one in there. No secret burner phones in sight. “That kind of violates bro code.”

I was barely paying attention to what he was saying.

There was no burner phone on Axel. But apparently RJ had a ton of them.

And I was too busy panicking about the fact that RJ might have kissed me.

And then texted me very forward things? But there was no way my actual cousin had kissed me, right?

Or had he heard about Phase Incest somehow and taken everything too far? RJ always took things too far...

“So you’re saying someone has mentioned having the hots for Scar?” asked Sophie.

“Bro code,” Axel repeated.

Jacob shrugged. “My abuelo always says that bro code means hoes before bros.”

I laughed. “There’s no way Mr. Tanner says that.”

Jacob laughed. “Actually he does.”

“Well, he’s wrong,” Axel said. “Obviously.”

Jacob didn’t agree or disagree.

Sophie leaned in to whisper to me. “Someone has definitely said they have a crush on you in the locker room. Or more accurately they said they wanted to bang you. It is a locker room after all.”

I knew my face was scarlet.

***

Sophie laughed when I told her my theory about RJ. “Why would you want RJ to be your kiss thief, weirdo?”