Page 15 of So Wrong, It's Wright
“What? No! I’m not that kind of girl. No.” I’m saying the words, but my hand is already going to my cell. “I mean, would he evenhavesocial media?”
“He’s forty-two. He’s at least got Facebook even if he doesn’t have Instagram. We can just look at Ruby’s profile because I’m sure she’s linked to him on there.” Darren takes my phone from my hand and taps a manicured finger against the screen. It takes a few seconds and several taps and swipe before he grins triumphantly. “And… friend request sent,” he says, delighted with himself as I snatch back the device.
“You didn’t!” I press my phone to my chest and hope we can both disappear together. “You’re gonna make me look so desperate.”
“No, boo. I’m letting him know you’re interested in more than just that little diddle he gave you after the wedding. No harm in being forward. You know, a lot of men actually like forward woman.”
“And how many forward women have you dated, sir?” I respond with my brows lifted.
He smirks. “Touche. But to be fair, I’m a queen and Ireallydig forward men. So…”
“I will be so upset with you if this scares him away,” I sulk, looking at my phone and wondering if I should just cancel the request—will he still get a notification if I do?
“Trust me, girl! Iknowmen. And IknowAsh likes you. He’ll be happy about this.”
I glance up at him and sigh. “Why am I so nervous right now?” I ask, making him laugh just as my phone pings with a notification. “Oh, my god. He just accepted my request.”
“Yaaaaas.” Darren lifts both hands in the air. “Investigation time! Let’s check out what your big hunk of man meat likes to post about and what kinds of pages he likes. Oh, and if he’s in any groups.” Darren snatches the phone back again and we huddle together as he scrolls Ash’s timeline and comments on the content.
“Sounds like you’ve done this before,” I point out, giving him a sideways glance.
Darren turns to me and places his hand on his chest as if offended. “And you’re telling me you haven’t?”
“Well… Yeah. But not to this extent. I never even considered the pages and groups angle.”
“If it’s any consolation, it doesn’t look like he’s in any groups at all. And the pages he likes are so old, he probably did them when he set up his account when Facebook used to make you like pages to show your interests. His recent timeline is a mishmash of funny memes and articles about advances in medical grade prosthetics—”
“Oh, do you think that’s why he was reluctant to take his clothes off? He has a prosthetic?”
“I don’t think so,” he says. “There’s a picture right here of him at a party in a pair of shorts and a tank top, and I can’t see any prosthetic. But he’s a medical engineer, right? So maybe making prosthetics is part of what he does for a living? “
“That makes a lot of sense. I mean, I knew he was an engineer, but I didn’t know he was a medical engineer. Actually, I didn’t even know that medical engineers existed.”
“Oh, I did. Way back in the day, I dated one, and he was very proud of his work. Explained the intricacies of how a prosthetic foot works to balance the wearer out and was insistent that robots would one day take over the world Matrix-style. A little crazy, but he gave good…you know.” He sits back and chuckles. “Now, I’m not saying all engineers are crackpots, but that one sure got weird by the end. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You were just filling in time, waiting for Theo to turn up and sweep you off your feet,” I say, nudging him lightly with my elbow and loving the way his mouth quirks up in a smile. Knowing you’re with your soulmate can do that to you, I guess.
“Ohhhh. This is interesting,” he says, sitting straighter suddenly, his focus solely on my cell.
“What is.”
“Well, it’s a photo of Ash and some woman—averypretty woman with ink black hair. I wonder who she is…”
“He said he was single. Oh my god, show me,” I say, quickly snatching the phone back so I can take a look. The moment my eyes land on the screen, I realize I just accidentally liked the photo, too. “Oh, no! Shit. Crap. Fuck! How do you unlike a post?” I hold my finger on the illuminated ‘like’ and a bunch of emoji reactions pop up. “Make it go away!”
I practically throw my phone back at Darren, who laughs at me and unlikes the image with a simple tap. “You are too uptight, boo. That photo is over a year old, and the like is nowhere to be seen. No harm, no foul. See?” he says, showing me my screen. Just as a message alert drops down at the top of my screen.
Ash:Are you Facebook stalking me?
“Oh. Fuck,” I say, wishing the floor would open up and swallow me. “What do I do?”
Darren throws his head back and laughs. “Answer him, of course!”
ASH
Tahlia:Would you think less of me if I said yes?
An involuntary smile breaks over my face as her message pops up. It’s the first contact I’ve had with her since I left her in a daze over the weekend. It’s something I’ve been beating myself up about ever since, because I mean, who the fuck does that? She came and I went, and there hasn’t been a moment since then when I’ve looked in a mirror without calling myself a dickhead. I don’t know what came over me.
