Page 60 of The Love Scam
He didn’t even have to think about it. “Because I like being around you guys. What, that’s so hard to believe?”
“Yes. Very. You didn’t think you were going to get laid, did you?”
“No! I swear!” Truth! At best, he’d thought… “I wouldn’t have said no to another kiss, though. You’re the best kisser.” He saw the unwilling smile bloom. “You are! You fiend, you knew it all along.”
“I did not!”
“You’re always walking around with your lips hanging out, flaunting them, being all oh my God please don’t tickle me again.”
She’d been reaching for his ribs but pulled up short when he begged. “Hmph.”
He grinned up at her and squashed the urge to sit up, grab her, and pull her down onto the bed into a full-bodied hug. “Your ‘hmph’ isn’t fooling me, look at you! You were worried and everything. What, you thought I’d have such an infuriating conversation I’d pass out in a rage?”
“Kind of,” she admitted.
“You’re sweet!”
“Shut up.”
“‘She said sweetly.’”
“Stop it. Look, will you please call him? Don’t you want to get this over with?”
“Allright,jeez, such a nag. A nag with good advice, actually.” He got up, unplugged his phone from Delaney’s charger, then reread Blake’s doctoral thesis of a text. He sat back on the bed and got right to it.
Christ Blake I thought my phone was going to blow up what’s going on with you I mean jeez?
Ahhhh, felt so good. He didn’t have the vocabulary to express how good it felt to be texting again. And this was just the sort of text that would aggravate the bejeezus out of his brother: profane, a run-on sentence, no punctuation. Heh.
A few seconds went by, and then:
Did you lose another phone, idiot?
Nice. All his bro knew was that Rake hadn’t been returning his texts. Was it because he’d been kidnapped? Hurt?Gored by a bull? Run over by a train? Bobbing facedown in the Grand Canal? Any of those things could have been true. (One of them was maybe true, and the third one almost happened.) But noooo, it must be because Rake lost another cell phone. God, lose five in two years and everyone rushed to judgment.
No! I know right where it is, it’s still at the bottom of the canal so now who’s the idiot?
Canal? Never mind. Thank you for eventually acknowledging my dozens of communiqués.
Ugh. Blake texted just like he talked: like no one from this century.
Only YOUR phone autocorrects communications. See? Mine didn’t. Where are you?
If you’d listened to any of your voice mails, you’d know.
Rake snorted.
And if you had a Facebook page like a real live boy, I’d also know. Where?
The fifth circle of Hell.
He reread the text, troubled. Blake didn’t just say things; there was always a double or triple meaning. If he was comparing something to Hell, that meant he was in the middle of something truly awful. Shit. Blake was supposed to helphim,not the other way around.
So let’s see, since Blake loved to be literal, where was Hell? Or, more important, where did Blakethinkwas Hell?
You’re back in Vegas?
No. The real Hell. Actual Hell.
