Page 74 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 11

Monday

My dad couldn’t exactly turn Sophie away when she climbed into his back seat. Right?

“Sophie, Scarlett is grounded until Wednesday,” he said.

Darn it.

“But we have a project we need to do together,” Sophie protested.

“What project?”

“A research project.”

My father looked at me in the rearview mirror.

“Please, Dad. We’re just going to be on the phone doing it anyway. It’ll be so much easier if we can be in the same room.”

Sophie buckled her seatbelt, nestling into the back seat.

My dad sighed. But I saw a slight smile playing on the corner of his mouth. It seemed like whatever anger he’d had when he’d grounded me in the first place had evaporated. “Okay,” he said. “You can come over for a few hours. But you have to leave before dinner.”

“We’ll discuss dinner when it comes time,” Sophie said.

My dad laughed. “Absolutely not.”

“We’ll see.”

My dad just shook his head and pulled the car out of his parking spot.

Whenever I tried to convince my dad of something, I failed epically. I wasn’t sure how Sophie got away with it.

As soon as we got home, Sophie and I ran upstairs to my room. I pulled open the rosters on my computer. I scrolled down to the end of the list. Oh God. There were 42 guys on the varsity team. How the heck were we going to narrow this down?

Sophie cracked her knuckles, sat down at my desk chair, and started scanning the varsity list. “Ah, there he is.”

“Who?”

“Pavel the exploder.” She pulled out her cell phone and typed his number in.

“Sophie, concentrate.”

“Sorry, right. What’s the stalker’s number again?”

I showed her my phone.

“Thank goodness it’s not Pavel. I really think he’s the perfect person to hook up with to make Mr. Halifax jealous.”

I really didn’t understand her theory there. A grown ass man was not going to be jealous of a huge high schooler. But Sophie was the expert here.

Sophie typed my kiss thief’s number into Excel, but there were no matches.

I sighed.

“It’s fine. We figured it was a burner.”

“I was really hoping it wasn’t.”

“Well. Give me a second.” She pulled O’Reilly’s number into Google. And his family’s circus business came up. “I don’t think all of these are cell numbers. Some are probably house numbers and that one’s a business number. So there’s still a chance that RJ could turn up something.”

“I hope so. I don’t know how we’re going to narrow this down. And I didn’t even think about JV.”

“Let’s skip JV for now. They may not have even been invited to the party.”

I nodded.

“Okay, let’s filter it by height.” She put everyone in order from shorted to tallest. “And they always lie in these stats. So let’s subtract...say...two inches.”

I leaned over and stared as the stats changed.

“And how tall did you think the guy was?” she asked.

“I have no idea.”

“Think, Scarlett. Try to remember any tiny detail.”

I closed my eyes for a moment. I remembered trying to shove him off.

I’d reached out and felt his six-pack. And instead of pushing him away, my hand had trailed lower.

I moved my hand in the air. “Here,” I said and opened my eyes.

“This was where his six-pack started.” I had my hand out in front of me.

Sophie grabbed a ruler. “So he’s at least like eight inches taller than you. Probably more. But let’s be on the safe side.” She spun back around and eliminated anyone under 5’10”. “Rats,” she said. “Getting rid of the short kings only got rid of like a dozen players.”

I groaned and fell backward on my bed. “There’s still 30 guys on that list.”

“We need a way to narrow it down even more. Oh! Liam and RJ are on here. We can get rid of them. Unless you really think it’s RJ...”

“We had a deal.” I never should have opened my mouth and told her that stupid theory.

Sophie laughed. “Right. Okay. That takes us down to 28 potential stalkers. But if you get rid of Axel and Jacob it’s only 26. Should we eliminate them from the search?”

“I have no idea.”

She laughed. “Come on. Just come look. We’ll figure this out.”

I sighed and sat back up as she went through the list.

“Anyone popping out at you?” she asked.

“I barely know any of these guys.”

“But apparently he knows you .”

“Right. Maybe let’s narrow it down to who I have classes with then?” I asked.

“Brilliant. Um...” She scanned through the list and got rid of a few.

“Him and him,” I said and pointed to a couple of names.

“You think it’s one of them?”

I laughed. “No. I don’t have classes with them.”

“Right.” She deleted them from the list. “Okay. If the person has a class with you this year...that leaves 20 potential stalkers. Oh and we can get rid of Pavel. Because I call dibs.” She deleted him, leaving the total at 19. “You can easily kiss 19 guys.”

I shook my head.

“It’s like Prince Charming with a slipper but way hotter. Come on. I can already picture the kissing booth in my head. It will be so epic.”

“But people will come to it even if they’re not on our list.”

“Which is probably a good thing,” Sophie said.

“Because this list is shaky at best. Stalkers don’t have to have classes with you.

Axel and Jacob could easily be on this list. You could have remembered the guy’s height wrong.

He could have been some rando that stripped down to his boxers at the party to fit in with the varsity guys.

And we can’t really rule out the JV list entirely. ..”

“Sophie!”

“I’m just saying.”

I hated her logical side. “Let’s just focus on the 19.” That number seemed a lot more manageable. I could kiss 19 guys, right? Gah, why was I even considering the kissing booth? It was a terrible idea. And yet...it was also the only idea we had.

Sophie drummed her fingers on the desk. “OMG, I’ve got it.”

“You know who it is?”

“No, but I know how to find out. Hand me your phone.”

I gave it to her. She started typing something.

“Done.” She smiled and handed it back to me.

“Sophie,” I whispered as I stared in horror at what she’d just done.

She’d sent the kiss thief a text: “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

“You’re welcome,” she said.

“Why would you text him THAT?!”

“So he shows us his dick of course.”

“Why would we want a dick pic?!”

She laughed. “Why wouldn’t we? I’m so curious about what he’s packing. He’s super possessive. Stalkery. He has all the signs of big dick energy.”

I opened my mouth and closed it again. “Sophie, I’m not sending him a sexy picture of myself. And getting a picture of his manhood does not help narrow down this list.”

“His manhood?” She laughed. “Please never use that phrase again. And it does help us. I’ve seen six dicks on this list. I remember what they look like. So if we see your stalker’s, we can narrow it down.”

What the hell? “Sophie, if you’ve seen six of them, just delete them from the list. They’re obviously not stalking me if they’ve hooked up with you.”

“I don’t see your reasoning here.”

“Because it would be weird. We’re cousins.”

Sophie sighed. “How many times do I need to remind you that Axel and Jacob...”

“Are not my biological cousins! Stop it. Delete the six penises you’ve seen.”

She sighed again. “Fine. But this list is very shaky now.” She deleted the six guys she’d hooked up with.

“Okay.” I stared at the list. “There’s only thirteen now.”

“A baker’s dozen,” Sophie said. “Are you hungry now? Because I’m hungry. All this sausage talk has my stomach growling.”

I didn’t feel hungry. My stomach was twisted into knots. And I kept glancing at my phone. Not because I wanted a dick pic from my kiss thief. I didn’t actually think he’d send one.

But I didn’t love what he was going to think about me after getting that text. He’d think maybe I’d done more things than he first realized. He said he was going to steal all my firsts. If he didn’t think there were any left...would he just...disappear?

Sophie stood up. “Come on. Let’s get some dinner.”

“My dad said you had to leave before dinner.”

She rolled her eyes. “As if.”

I laughed and followed her out of my bedroom.

My parents were in the great room, chatting on the couch.

“Can we order pizza?” asked Sophie and plopped down on the couch next to my mom.

“Oh. Um.” My mom turned to my dad.

“Sophie, we talked about this,” my dad said. “If you’re done with your research project, you need to head home. And isn’t your father expecting you home for dinner?”

“Probably not. And we’re not done with our project yet.”

Technically that was true. We still had a baker’s dozen men to whittle down. I glanced at my phone. My kiss thief hadn’t replied.

“It’s on me,” Sophie said and pulled out her phone. “What kind would you like?”

My dad laughed.

“Ellen already has a lasagna in the oven,” my mom said.

Yum. Ellen made the best lasagna.

“Lasagna?” Sophie thought about it for a moment. “That could work. But I have some questions.”

I forced myself not to groan.

“Is there parmigiano Reggiano in it? Or parmesan?”

“Parmesan I think,” my mom said.

Sophie scrunched up her nose. “I don’t like that. I’ll order pizza from that place I like.”

And by that she meant the only pizza place in town that didn’t hang up on her immediately. Sophie was a very picky eater. And it was low key embarrassing going out to eat with her. It should have been harassment when she asked the waiter a bajillion unnecessary questions.

“Sophie,” my dad said. “We’re having lasagna for dinner. You don’t have to stay. And despite what you said, your father probably is expecting you home for dinner. Have you texted him?”

Sophie sighed. “Fine, Uncle James. Twist my arm, why don’t you? I’ll eat the weird parmesan based lasagna.” She ignored the whole part about telling her father.

“I think it’s mostly mozzarella cheese,” my mom said. “With just a little parmesan on top.”

“Just on top? Wait. Please tell me it’s at least deconstructed?”

My mom’s eyebrows pulled together. “Deconstructed lasagna? The whole point of lasagna is that it’s constructed...into lasagna.”

“Can I just have plain pasta and sauce? Wait, what kind of sauce is it?”

“Ellen makes it from scratch.”

“Do you have a list of the ingredients?”

My mom shook her head.

“Well, how many cloves of garlic are we talking? It’s not tomato sauce if all you can taste is garlic. There’s a balance to it.”

“I have no idea, Sophie.”

Sophie sighed. “I’m going to starve,” she whispered to me.

I stifled my laugh. As soon as Sophie tried the lasagna she was going to love it. I don’t know why she always made such a fuss.

And I was right. A lot of complaining later, and Sophie even had a second helping. Everyone was talking at the table, but I was barely paying attention. I kept checking my phone. I really didn’t love that the kiss thief thought I knew my way around sending and receiving sexy photos.

But I had touched his abs while he kissed me.

And then there was the whole fact that I didn’t know who I’d kissed.

My kiss thief probably already assumed I was pretty loose.

Which wasn’t correct at all. Hopefully he was focused on the whole thing about it being my first kiss.

And not how the kiss itself had gone down in a dark closet with someone I didn’t know. What is wrong with me?

I glanced at my phone again. I had no idea why I was worried about his opinion of me . He was the stalker.

But when his text came, I almost fell out of my chair.

He hadn’t responded to my texts about his name. But it hadn’t taken him long at all to respond to one asking for a picture of his manhood. I shook my head. I was supposed to stop calling it that.

“Are you okay, sweetie?” my mom asked.

“Mhm.” My voice came out weird and high-pitched. “May I be excused?”

“Someone has a bathroom emergency,” Liam said.

I shot him a look. “It’s not a bathroom emergency.”

“Whatever you say.”

I didn’t really have a rebuttal. I needed away from the table immediately. It probably did look like I was about to shit myself. “I...um...” I glanced to Sophie for help.

But she was too busy eating the lasagna she’d complained about the whole time it was cooking.

I kicked her under the table.

She yelped.

I stared at her, hoping she could read my mind. When she didn’t say anything, I looked down at my phone and then back up at her.

Sophie cleared her throat. “It is about time we got back to our research project. Thanks for dinner, Aunt Penny and Uncle James. It was delicious.”

“Any time, Soph,” my mom said.

Sophie and I hurried toward the stairs.

“Double bathroom emergency,” Liam said behind us.

I ignored him and ran up the stairs. I closed the door to my bedroom and turned to Sophie. “He texted back. And it’s so much worse than what I thought it was going to be.”

“Oh no. It’s small?”

“What? No! He didn’t send a dick pic. Because of course he didn’t.”

“So what did he send you a picture of? A ball or something? Please don’t tell me he’s into feet. Although that might narrow down who it is. I told you not to eliminate my six.”

What was she talking about? “He didn’t send a picture. He just sent a normal text.”

“Well, what did he say?”

“This is bad. Really bad. Why on earth did you text him ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours’?”

“Because it was a good idea. Now spit it out! What did he text back?”

I showed her his response. It was just two simple words. The first two words I’d heard from him in days: “You first.”