Page 1 of Wrong Number, Right Soldier (Wrong Number, Right Guy #11)

Saylis

“Hey, body-ody over here!” Stasia says to me, practically whistling.

“Why is that giving ‘bachelorette party’ and I’m not even getting married,” I pout.

“ If I get a teaching job,” I remind her, flashing the bouncer my ID. “I still have to finish the study course and pass the state exam.”

“Good thing you’re a genius and have literally nothing to worry about.”

“Cleo’s right, girly pop,” Stasia says, raising her voice as we file into the club.

“So say the actual genius lab scientist and the ridiculously popular fitness mogul? Thanks, guys, your compliments are…gallant.”

“Can we not do this, you guys?” Kim pipes up. “Look at us. Look. At. Us! We’re all hot. We’re all fucking smart.”

“Kim’s so right,” Stasia agrees, an expression on her face like she’s completely fired up and ready to tear the club up from just that sprinkle of encouragement. “Let’s fuck this night up!”

See—what’d I tell ya.

Lights and music and energy pulse throughout the space as the four of us head for the bar. Kim and Cleo quickly lose me in a discussion on the Singularity. Stasia waves down the bartender. I…just wait.

“ Wow, you’re gorgeous ,” a smooth, male voice cuts in. I swivel my head to discover that he’s actually talking to me . What? Weird .

“She’s really smart, too!” Cleo screams out over the music.

“Yeah, no really, she reads tons of books!” Stasia says, also screaming, also not helping .

“Big ones!” Cleo spreads her palms away from each other to indicate a length of…very long length.

My face is at least one billion degrees, and I promptly drop it into my hands, my elbows finding purchase on the bar top. “Oh. My. God you guys.”

“I’m so sorry, dude, they’re drunk,” Kim cuts in, rescuing me by stealing our other two friends away, right after she slides me my vodka-cran. “We’ll just be going.”

I turn my face and peek through my fingers to check that they’re gone, then barely spreading my fingers apart wider, I peer up at the stranger. To my great shock, he’s smiling.

“They’re a riot. Those your friends?”

“At the moment? Not so much.” I manage a smile. Somehow his is so disarming, I let my hands fall completely away. And then the vodka still pre-gaming through my system says to him, “So. You were saying?”

“That you’re gorgeous. My name’s Derek. What’s yours?”

“Saylis.”

“Sailor, cool name for a chick. Like Sailor Moon! Well Sailor, I’m actually heading out now with my boys but I wanted to at least give you my number.”

“Oh, sure…”

He’s already sliding a business card out of his wallet and handing it to me. “That’s my cell. Call me anytime, cutie .” He tacks on the endearment with oh-so-much ease. “I mean it. Any time.” He throws me a blue-eyed wink, as he turns to leave, all swagger.

I’m left stunned. That was… What was that ? He was smooth—too smooth. Minus the whole getting-my-name-wrong thing. Getting my name wrong twice . But he was handsome. Or is the vodka doing the seeing for me now, too?

He had a business card. For…business? Consulting, sales?

I can’t really tell just based off the card.

It’s times like this when I realize it would be super helpful if I knew more about real-world stuff, but instead I live and breathe books, always have.

Give me poetry and prose any day of the week.

Profits and patents and pay-per-lead? Thank you, next.

Unless it’s all a cover —this whole business-card thing. For what, though? For picking up average-looking women and…trying to date them? Not dating them?

Is it weird that he didn’t ask for my number? Or maybe it’s better he didn’t.

What am I supposed to do next ?

“What am I supposed to do next?” I’m asking my friends over brunch the next day.

“What do you want to do?” Kim asks me. “I mean, did you think he was cute, was he friendly, like was he authentic or—”

“Or was it Red Flag City?” Cleo fills in.

“Do you want to date?” Kim continues.

“You guys,” I mumble. “My head hurts…”

“Or, you can just not think about any of that,” Stasia says sagely. “You can just be like, hey, that was nice of you to give me your number, hope you and your friends had a fun night.”

“That sounds like a phone call that could have been a text,” Cleo offers.

“I think what Stasia is saying is: talk to him like a friend to a friend. Don’t think of it as more than just that.”

“Or do you want more than that?” Cleo checks in.

“Ahhhhh! Y’all! These questions are harder than the teaching reading state exam study guide!”

The girls fall silent then, and then Kim gingerly ferries a glass of water toward me, and I take a long drink.

Eventually, Stasia speaks up. Her tone is the just-right blend of gentle, yet firm. “Just call him.”

“And be like what, hey it’s Saylis? He’s not even going to know who that is. He got my name so wrong.”

Stasia half shrugs, saying, “Sometimes that happens.”

“Literally never,” Kim says, and Cleo, Stasia—and this time, even me—all throw her a look, and Kim breaks out in a grin. “Sorry, y’all with your beautiful, ethereal names.”

“Kimberly is a stunning name!” Cleo insists.

“ Do not call me that. My mother calls me that.”

“So I should just call him?” I turn the subject back.

“ YES !” they all shout as one.

I wait a beat, then ask again, coy, “I should call him then?”

Cleo grumbles and leans over to smack a baguette against the top of my head. We all bust out laughing.

“I’ll do it tonight,” I vow.

“Why not now?” Stasia ‘suggests’.

“I vote now,” Cleo chimes, beaming with mischief. I flick my eyes to Kim, but she’s of zero percent help this time.

“I’m also Team Now,” Kim murmurs sheepishly.

I briefly consider it, but: “No, I can’t, I really can’t do it now, you guys, I’m sorry. I have to study, but I promise, I’ll do it today. Tonight .”

“Make sure it’s FaceTime,” Stasia says.

Cleo gives her a look. “Why FaceTime?”

“To make sure she wasn’t just seeing him with ‘vodka goggles’”—she air quotes—“and that he is really as attractive as she remembers.”

“Okaaay, but you liked him, didn’t you?” Cleo asks me. “So, does it matter?”

“Oh, so virtuous, Cleo.” Stasia rolls her eyes, then her gaze shifts toward me, locking in. “Babes, you don’t even know him yet, so you can’t like him yet, either. You get to be shallow.”

“I could just look him up on LinkedIn?” I suggest.

“He’ll know you looked,” Kim says, shaking her head. “And pics aren’t the same.”

“You all saw him.” My eyes rove over each of my three friends. “Was he…good looking?”

“It was kinda dark in there, honey.”

“I was pretty tipsy.”

“I was just trying to get these two away.”

“You’re a saint, by the way.”

“I do try.”

“So we all agree, FaceTime?” Stasia picks the topic back up. The fact they are all so invested in this means I have three of the best (albeit quirky) friends, or my dating life has been in a sad, sad state.

It’s the former, and the latter, in almost equal measure.

And so that’s how I’ve ended up alone on my bed, cross-legged with my phone nestled in my lap like a baby bird, my brain fried from studying, my heart in my throat. About to call Derek like ‘hey, so, my name’s not actually Sailor, it’s Saylis.’

Or maybe open with something…that isn’t that .

I tap my phone for the millionth time to check the time as if it might be running laps around me. It’s getting late, almost nine p.m., but he did say ‘any’ time—with emphasis; I distinctly remember that part clearly. My headspace is tired from overthinking how much of this I’ve been overthinking.

“Fuck it.”

In all of my post-cram-session, red-eyed, hair-in-a-bun-on-my-head glory, I open up FaceTime and punch in the number exactly as it appears on the card, which admittedly, isn’t super clear, due to a teensy ink blotch over one of the numbers.

It can only be either a nine or a four, so I take my chances: Four best friends since we were four in 2004. I have to go with four.

It rings. And rings.

And rings .

Then on the lucky-number fourth ring, a face that is so mercilessly good looking it’s borderline obscene looks back at me.

Now that —is a Man !

… Just not the one I remember .