Page 83 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 11

“No. Plans a prank.”

“Oh. Right.” I stared at the empty drawer. Uncle Rob loved his pranks. Especially ones involving pudding. “It’s not Thanksgiving though.” That was usually the day he chose to unleash puddingy hell.

“Yeah, he’s practicing, I guess. I’m going to end up with pudding all over myself sometime over the next few days. I should probably go change out of my uniform just in case it’s tonight.”

***

After searching the apartment for hidden pudding traps, we were now in the family room doing our homework. I kept glancing at my phone, hoping RJ or the kiss thief would text me back.

It took a whole hour before my phone finally buzzed.

I grabbed it. “We have access.”

Sophie tossed her calculus book to the side. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited for anything in my life.”

I logged in and my screen split into 6 smaller screens, all with live footage from the men’s locker room.

“There’s barely anyone in there. Can we rewind it?”

I rewound the footage to when RJ put it up. There was a closeup of his face in one of the screens. “Perfect,” he said and jumped off one of the benches.

“I’m so glad these cameras have audio. Look! Guys are coming in!” She pointed to one of the screens.

Liam and RJ pretended to look all casual as their teammates walked into the locker room.

RJ turned toward the camera and pulled off his shirt. And then he winked.

What was that little pervert’s problem? I exed out of that screen so I wouldn’t accidentally see my cousin’s dick.

“Ah! More guys are changing!” Sophie grabbed my phone and zoomed in. “Bingo.” She showed me a closeup of someone’s junk.

“Sophie! I don’t want to see that.” And why was it out? Where was his underwear?!

“But Single Girl Rule #9: If you hear about a well hung-man, share the news.” She pointed to the penis on the screen.

“What are you talking about?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I found a list in that Russian chick’s apartment titled Single Girl Rules. They’re wild to say the least. And I’m highly considering making them my whole personality.”

“I don’t think we should be following a list of strange Russian rules.”

“Single Girl Rules.”

“Whatever.” I exed out of the screen that was paused on the penis.

“Hey! I wasn’t done with that yet.”

“What else did you want to do with it?”

“Scarlett, we need to study it. That was Eli Jones. He’s on your baker’s dozen list.”

I sighed. “I don’t know what his penis size has to do with him being my kiss thief.”

“Everything when he’s packing that much in those tight little football pants. You definitely need to make out with him on Saturday.”

The kissing booth wasn’t happening. Because we were going to catch our mascot. Speaking of which... “Do you see the mascot costume anywhere?”

We both leaned over the phone to scan the locker room.

“Negative,” Sophie said. “But check him out.” She pointed to Luis Rodriguez and then zoomed up on his dick. At least he was wearing boxers.

“Sophie, stop zooming in so much.”

“But Luis is on your list too.” She cocked her head to the side. “I’m guessing he’s a grower.”

“Sophie, I didn’t put the cameras in the locker room to survey the whole team’s penis sizes.”

“I mean...”

“No.”

“But...”

“Put that away.”

She sighed. “Aren’t you even a little curious about Jacob? And Axel? Because they’re both on screen 3.”

I looked down at where the two of them were changing. Jacob had just pulled his shirt off. I stared at his six-pack as he unbuttoned his dress pants.

But then my phone dinged with an incoming message. From the kiss thief.

“I don’t want you to think less of me. Just know that I wished you’d been my first everything too.”

Sophie’s jaw dropped. “It’s definitely a dude. He basically admitted he’s slept with a million people. A woman would never say that. I mean, maybe the last part because it’s sweet. But never the first part. She would have just pretended to be a virgin.”

“So it’s not Gigi?”

“Highly doubtful.”

“Wait! Fast forward in the footage to like one minute ago. Maybe someone will be texting in the locker room!”

“You’re a genius.” Sophie sped up the footage to exactly one minute ago. But there were only like five people in the locker room. And they were all just changing out of their workout clothes.

I kept watching until it didn’t make any sense to keep watching. I sighed. “He’s so elusive.”

“Should we rewind the footage again to look for the mascot?”

I stared at her. We both knew that wasn’t why she wanted to rewind the footage. And it was a really good thing only I had the login info, or she was going to really misuse it. “Let’s watch all the footage on like 5x speed just to see if there’s any hint of the mascot.”

“Boo.”

But we were both glued to the screen as we watched the footage in its entirety. And there wasn’t one sign of the mascot. Not even a lone feather.

“Maybe we’ll catch him tomorrow,” Sophie said.

“Yeah, maybe.” But I was starting to realize there were a lot of holes in my plan. Did the mascot even practice? Or did he just show up for games? He might not make an appearance until Saturday. And by then it would be too late. I’d already be making out with a third of the football team.

“Hey, girls,” Aunt Daphne said as she carried in a stack of books and papers. “How was your day?”

“Great, Mom,” Sophie said.

“Pretty good,” I said.

She smiled and sat down next to me on the couch. “I see that you’re ungrounded again.”

“And back to flats and unrolled skirts. Even though Liam is always wearing his uniform wrong.”

Aunt Daphne shook her head. “If you’re father isn’t careful, you’re going to just go crazy when you’re finally off on your own in college.”

“Like my mom?”

She looked shocked. “I did not say that.”

I laughed.

“Definitely didn’t say that.”

“I know, I was just kidding.”

She shook her head. “Do you girls want to turn on a show while I grade some papers before dinner?”

Sophie’s mom was a teacher. But she was a cool teacher that respected boundaries and didn’t teach at our school.

“Absolutely,” I said. “Should we do one of those cooking shows you both like so much?”

“No!” Sophie and Aunt Daphne said in unison.

I laughed. “Okay then.” I’d been joking. You couldn’t watch cooking shows with either of them. Or RJ. They all ended up dry heaving from the combinations. They had very unadventurous palates.

I grabbed the remote to turn on something less offensive.

And then I heard a giggling sound from behind us.

“Did anyone else hear that?” I asked.

“Hear what?” Sophie asked.

“I swear I heard...” I shook my head. “Never mind.” I hit the button to turn on the TV and the remote exploded in my hand, somehow shooting pudding straight into my face.

The giggling sound turned into full laughter as Uncle Rob walked around the couch.

“Uncle Rob!”

That just made him laugh harder.

I wiped the pudding out of my eyes.

“Told you that you should have borrowed a change of clothes,” Sophie said. “I knew a pudding prank was afoot.”

Yeah. I wiped the rest of the pudding out of my eyes. But I was smiling. I’d really missed coming over here.

It was easy to not be worried about kiss thieves and kissing booths when you were laughing.

But as the night went on, it was a little harder not to be worried about tomorrow.

The brief moments I’d had alone with Axel recently hadn’t been great.

And I didn’t know what a whole night with him was going to bring.

And for some reason, when I got home and climbed into bed, I rewound the footage again. This time I watched as Axel pulled off his shirt.

I swallowed hard.

I’d been trying so hard to get him out of my system. But it was hard when he’d been in it my whole life. I stared at his six-pack. Was it his abs I’d tried to molest in that snake infested closet? Was that possible?

It didn’t seem like it. I tried to picture today’s kiss. But I couldn’t picture anything because it had been dark. And my stupid nose had only picked up the smell of cleaning supplies. Not expensive cologne or the smell of freshly cut grass.

I clicked out of the footage and pulled up the last text from my kiss thief. I wanted to believe it was Jacob. I needed it to be Jacob. I wanted to move on so my heart would stop hurting so much. I texted him back: “I wish you’d saved all your firsts for me too.”