Page 39 of The Catch

“Good. I’ll call you when I get home from my trip and give you the details. I wish it wasn’t another week away.”

Her smile pulled wider, and she laughed.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just… me too.”

Fourteen

“Ilike these,” Dani said, holdingup a pair of grey and white, leopard print shorts.

Sonya scrunched her nose from her spot, sprawled out on Cat’s bed. “They’re kinda short. Is that what she’s going for?”

“Why wouldn’t she be?”

They both turned to Cat. She’d been sitting cross-legged on the floor of her bedroom, letting the two discuss her outfit options for Dylan’s pool party the next day while she scrolled through the thread of text messages between her and Josh for the hundredth time.

There was intention behind the outfit selecting appointment. She had a closet full of options, and what to wear had never really been something she dwelled on. What she did have was an entirely different problem that required a specific kind of help.

She’d been making herself insane all week wondering if Josh intended for this to be a sleepover date.Probably.And if she wanted it to be.Yes. This little game of hers was starting to feel more dangerous by the minute. The first two matches had landed squarely on Josh’s board, given the way she’d been dreaming about him all week, and she didn’t like the feeling that was starting to creep in.

She’d become more smitten with every text exchange and late-night phone call she and Josh shared. He’d yet to make a major misstep, and he also kept forgiving hers, watching her with a sort of amused adoration each time she made an ass of herself, as if it endeared her to him somehow. She needed to reshift the balance, which is why she needed Dani. She also needed to keep herself from backing out altogether, which was where Sonya came in. Emma was liable to turn this into a whole different discussion, so she’d purposely planned it on a night her friend with the perpetual rose-colored glasses was otherwise engaged.

“Cat,” Dani said, dragging her back into the conversation. “Too short?”

Cat shook her head.

“That’s my girl.” Dani tossed the shorts into the keep pile and went back to the closet. “Should you even pack sleepwear? What’s the point?”

“Of course she should,” Sonya said. “She doesn’t want to put her clothes from the night before back on as soon as she gets up. She needs something cute for coffee in the morning.”

“Why are you guys assuming I’m sleeping there? And that I’ll be waking up naked.”

They both laughed, and Dani held a hand out to Sonya to take the explanation. “It’s like this, Cat. The lunch date was theI promise I’m not just in it for the sexdate,” she explained, with Dani nodding in agreement. “Your co-worker’s retirement thingy was thesee how hard I’m willing to work for it?date. A party at his friend’s house, an hour away and lasting into the night? That’s thebut can we please have sex?date.”

“Very enlightening. Look, I have no idea if I even like him.” That was a lie. What she meant was that she had no idea if she was willing to admit that she liked him. A lot. It wasn’t just about the bet, admitting how Josh made her feel before she could rationally put a name to it was dangerous.

“So why did you agree to see him again for the third weekend in a row?” Dani asked, flipping through the catalog of blouses Cat had hanging in her closet.

Cat shrugged her shoulders. “To prove Emma wrong.” More lies. She was pathological.

Sonya dropped the pile of bathing suits she was pawing through, her face turning hard. “Catia.”

“Emma thinks I make my own problems—”

“We all think that,” Dani interrupted.

“Okay, well, you’ll all see then.”

“You’re playing games, Catia. Someone’s going to get hurt.”

“I’m not playing games. I’m just fast-forwarding to the inevitable. Why waste my time or his? Let’s just get to the part where he ends up being a jerk, and I end up eating a couple pints of ice cream, and then I get over it.”

Dani rolled her eyes. “So you’ve been seeing him every weekend just to speed up the time it takes to break up? That makes zero sense. Besides, it seems like things are going well, despite your ridiculous behavior.”

They didn’t even know the half of it. Specifically the Kasey half of it. “I don’t know,” she said. “Frankly, after the first date, I’m not sure why he even wanted to see me again. I think I accidentally brought up every sore subject imaginable, and that wasn’t even the plan.”

“Maybe he’s a masochist who loves being tortured by your awkwardness,” Dani suggested.

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