Page 11 of The Other Guy

“Why haven’t you called the guy?”

“I tried one number that I thought it could be but an elderly lady answered and it freaked her out. Thought I was scamming her and yelled. A lot.”

“Spitfire,” she murmurs.

“She was. I kind of wanted to talk to her more, actually.”

“I still don’t understand why you wouldn’t just immediately tell me, or us, apparently, that we’d been duped.”

That’s where it’s hard to explain without me coming across as completely pathetic. Or lonely. Or bored. “Well…” I hedge.

“You know what? I don’t really care. I’m just glad I know that he’s a jerk and you’re his accomplice.”

“No. What? No, I’m not!”

“What would you call it, then? Allowing this charade to go on?”

“I…” Crap. Is that what I am? Am I just allowing this guy to continue by talking with the women for a few days before I let them down? I didn’t think I was but maybe she’s right.

“Yeah. Anyway, nice talking to you. Just do me a favor and stop leading us on, okay? There are enough jerks out there, obviously, and we don’t need someone who’s possibly a nice guy just working the system, too.”

“Sorry.” I don’t know what else to say. Until this moment, I didn’t really see that much harm in chatting a little bit before telling them it wouldn’t work out. But now I see my mistake. I should have put a stop to it immediately. I could have worked harder to get a hold of this guy and tell him to stop using my number. But… “You know what? I might have been helping him out, unknowingly, but at least I really am a nice guy. What if he had used some other phone number and the person on the other end was a complete jerk? At least I was trying to spare y’all’s feelings a bit.”

“Whatever makes you sleep at night.”

I know she’s pissed by the tone of her voice but honestly, I’m over it. I wasn’t the one who gave her the wrong number. I was just trying to dull the pain a bit of finding out that she’d been duped. It’s not as if I set out to be a dick, like he did. He knew exactly what he was doing the second he was doing it. So why am I the one in the doghouse? This isn’t something I asked for and if she can’t see that I was trying to be decent… whatever. It’s not as if I truly do enjoy getting these texts almost nightly.

“It was nice talking to you,” I grit out, mad at myself for being angry when I actually understand why she’s upset also.

“Wish I could say the same.”

And then she’s gone. I look at my phone, surprised that she actually just hung up on me. “Well, that escalated quickly,” I mutter.

I take a deep breath of the night air and wish that tonight never happened. What a mess my life has become. I used to have everything planned. I’d go to culinary school. Become a chef. Maybe open my own restaurant like my dad did. Get married and have a few kids. But life changes and I’ve learned it’s best to roll with it. So life didn’t exactly pan out as I’d hoped. It’s not as if I’m miserable.

My own business is successful. For most people, that would be enough. Okay, maybe not most but a lot.

I open the door and head back inside, taking a seat at the bar and finish off my now warm beer. I would ask for another but I’m really not in the mood, the liquid souring my stomach already.

“I can only guess how well that went over,” Sierra says, coming to stand in front of me.

“Yeah.”

“Care to share?” she asks, leaning over the bar on her elbows.

“Not really.”

“Figured.”

I give her the short version anyway, partly because I’m curious if she thinks I’m in the wrong here, too.

“Hmm.” She hums after I finish the story of how I’ve been filling my time over the past several weeks and Sixteen’s reaction.

“What?”

“I see both sides, I guess. I understand why she’s mad, of course, but it’s also not as if you were trying to be a jerk.” She shrugs one shoulder then narrows her eyes on a spot over my shoulder. “Though, I gotta say, I’d really like to meet this guy.”

I glance behind me but don’t see anything other than the wall. Maybe she’s just thinking and not actually looking at something – or someone – in particular. I spin back around and she turns her head to look at me when I ask, “Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”

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