Page 12 of Tricking an Introvert

It went on and on. She read them all before writing a reply.

“You guys really need to get a life! And Whitney? This shall not be forgotten. If you so much as see a hottie, I’ll tell everyone you’ve ever known. Piper, we’re talking nuclear hot. Which is why, Tori, we were most certainly not engaged in any form of pounding. I was stuffing my face at a Maryland crab feed. With him and his best friend, otherwise known as my favorite author—after you, Cassie—and commonly named Michael Croft.”

“You’re shitting me! You landed Croft?!”Whitney shot back, with a dozen of excited emojis.

“Well, technically, he was thrown at me. Cole told him to look at my art. He’s a nice guy. And definitely not interested in me. Not even a little bit.”

She couldn’t have been clearer. This was automatically followed by a series of eyerolls—typed out, in emojis, and as GIFs.

“Do you ever think guys are into you?”Anna asked the group.

“No. Because they aren’t.”

“Finn thinks you’re hot.”

Tessa laughed. Finn Johnson, Anna’s partner and almost as hot as Cole, certainly didn’t think about her one way or the other. She couldn’t blame her friend for trying to cheer her up. “Yeah, right.”

“One hundred percent true.”

“Bryant would totally do you. But that’d be weird, because we only have sex with other people together, which means I’d have to do you, too. I don’t have sex with my friends.”

Tessa wished she had brain-bleach to wipe Tori’s comment out of her mind forever.

“Thanks? I think. You can all stop now. Please.”

The next moment, a video call started in the group. Tessa’s finger hovered over her screen, and for some reason she ended up answering.

She almost dropped her phone in the bath when Cassie’s husband, Carter Harris, her former boss, appeared on the screen.

Tessa rushed to bury her breasts under the bubbles.

Carter looked uncomfortable as fuck. “Sorry, I have been overruled. I am ordered to repeat what I told my dearest wife a few weeks back. I didn’t used to make passes at women working for me—until Cassie, anyway. If I had, I certainly would have…” He winced.

From the background, Tessa heard Cassie encourage him. “Go on! Word for word what you said. She needs to hear it.”

Carter apologized. “I’m sorry, Tessa. I said it with the understanding that my dearest wife wouldn’t use it to humiliate us both. I told her I certainly wouldn’t have minded a few dates with half of the art department. Tessa Michaels being top of the list.”

Jesus.

“Err—thanks?”

“I’m so sorry,” he repeated. “She tells me who she fancies, too. It’s our thing. Honesty. We don’t usually repeat it. I don’t know why she’s making me.” He was rambling. Carter Harris wasn’t a rambler, dammit.

“No worries. Let’s just forget this ever happened.”

He was visibly relieved. “With pleasure.”

Tessa ended the call and started to type. “Cassie? I hate you.”

“Maybe, but now you can’t deny it. You’re hot. Everyone thinks you’re hot, and you don't even try. And I bet Cole Whatshisname has noticed.”

Highly unlikely, although she wasn’t about to keep denying it and opening herself up to more video chats with terrorized dudes.

“Well, I guess we’ll find out. He’s driving me home tomorrow.”

She chuckled at the second series of overexcited images.

Her girlfriends might be a little too much some days; she loved them to pieces nonetheless.

---