Page 36 of Dopplebanger

I leaned in to his embrace, practically floating.

I’d barely clicked my seatbelt into place when my phone buzzed at my hip. I pulled it out of my pocket, sure it’d be another text from my mom. Instead, it was Tori.

Tori: I tried to be patient, but remember how I’m living vicariously through you? Have you and Evan banged one out yet?

Tori: Two out yet?

Tori: Three?! OMG, you nympho!

Tori: But seriously, I’m going to text until you answer, and you know I have nothing to do now that you’re not here to hang out with.

“Everything all right?” Evan asked, making me jump and drop my phone. I quickly snatched it back up. His eyebrows drew together. “You look a little flushed.”

“All that exercise. Walking. And… getting in the car.”Yeah, way to brag about how you can get out of breath sitting and putting on a seatbelt. That’s super believable.

Although, honestly, not as far of a stretch as it should be…

My phone vibrated in my hand.

I swiped my hair behind my ear and cleared my throat. “Tori’s just being Tori. Basically she’s being a needy wench, and I mean that in the most loving way. In fact, I’m going to tell her that, because I think it’s on the British side of the spectrum, which will make her happy. Although I’m not sure she deserves for me to make her happy right now.”

Evan nodded, his expression slightly vacant. As big of a fan as Tori was as Evan, I worried he didn’t especially like her. Admittedly, she was an acquired taste and took some time to get used to. With things progressing between Evan and me, it felt even more important they like each other, but I’d have to worry about how to accomplish that later. After I shut off the stream of texts.

Me: OMG, you needy wench! Stop blowing up my phone!

Tori: Ugh, so you haven’t had sex with him yet.

Me: Why do you say that?

Tori: Because if you’d been laid, you wouldn’t be so grumpy.

Tori: Unless it was bad. Don’t tell me it was bad. It’s such a disappointing shame when hot guys end up being mediocre in bed.

Tori: Probably because they never had to try. Wankers.

Me: Judging from the kissing that won’t be a problem. And before you ask then what am I waiting for, I had an allergy attack last night. My ice cream had peanut butter, so I took a couple of Benadryl and passed out, but not before saying embarrassing stuff, apparently.

Tori: WHERE’S YOUR EPIPEN? DON’T TELL ME YOU’RE TRAVELING WITHOUT IT!!!!!!!!!!!

“Oh my gosh, now Tori’s lecturing me on using my EpiPen,” I mumbled.

“As she should,” Evan helpfully added. Well, at least they found common ground.

Me: I have it and I’ll use it if I need to. As for the other thing…

I glanced at Evan, admiring his handsome profile and the way his long fingers curled around the steering wheel. The thick traffic meant he was concentrating on the road, and I should get to being a better copilot. But since that’d be hard to do with Tori texting every five seconds—not to mention Evan might see the texts while I was showing him the directions on my phone, and then I’d have to die, come back from the grave, and haunt my best friend—I decided to tell her what she wanted to hear.

Me: As soon as I get the chance, I’m totally jumping my boyfriend’s bones.

As I hit send, my resolve strengthened. Last night had been a bit of a disaster, almost like once I’d decided to have sex with my boyfriend the universe was like “oh no you don’t.”

But now that we’d gotten that out of the way, surely karma would give me a break and give me the night I deserved with my amazing, sexy, nerdier-than-expected boyfriend.

NINETEEN

The two-story house loomed in front of us, the bright-yellow light flooding the windows at odds with the doom and gloom brewing inside of me.

Great. More nice people to pull into this switcheroo scheme. Just what I needed to feel even worse.

---