by Emma Hart
I shook it off. I wasn’t going to think about it.
ME: Yeah. Block her. She’s played you.
DICK GUY: Damn it. I bet her picture was from Google.
ME: Probably. You can’t trust the internet. Abraham Lincoln said that.
DICK GUY: He wasn’t around when the internet was invented.
DICK GUY: Wait.
DICK GUY: I got it.
ME: I was about to question your intelligence.
DICK GUY: It’s late and I worked all day. Thanks for your help, stranger.
Was this goodbye? I was kinda sad about that. He was a better way to pass my time than watching yet another series of How I Met Your Mother for the fiftieth time before giving up after Lily and Marshall had their baby and it got boring.
ME: You’re welcome, stranger. Maybe make sure you have the right person before you send your genitals to them next time.
DICK GUY: Or avoid getting drink and going on a dating website.
ME: Even better.
CHAPTER THREE – REAGAN
If You Name It, It’s Yours
“So, I have a problem.”
Ava eyed me. “When don’t you have a problem?”
“This is a serious one.”
Halley rolled her eyes and gripped the library cart.
Yes, I’d accosted her at work and dragged Ava with me and no, I did not regret it. It was our lunch hour and it wasn’t my fault my best friend was constantly taking my brother to lunch instead of me.
When else was I supposed to offload my eggplant-texting stranger issues if not over lunch?
At work.
It was her own fault.
“Okay, so, you remember on Monday when y’all came into work after your run?” I looked between them.
“You mean when Ava was a huge baby and groped your fridge to cool down?” Halley questioned.
“I was hot.” Ava huffed out a breath and folded her arms over her chest.
“Exactly.”
“Yes, then,” I said quickly before anymore bickering could start. “Well, I had a wrong number text that morning.”
Ava tucked her black hair behind her ear and adjusted her bright-yellow glasses.
I didn’t know why those two had to have such bright glasses. Probably the same reason I had bright purple hair.
“Is that what you were going to talk about until your phone rang?” Ava asked, handing Halley the book she’d motioned to.
“Yep.” I nodded to punctuate it.
“What about it?” Halley asked, jumping off the step stool and looking at me. “People get wrong number texts all the time?”
“Not these wrong number texts.”
“Was it a confession from a serial killer?”
“I’m not sure they do those over text.”
“A grandma looking for her grandchild?”
“No, but I do have an old lady as my number neighbor who cannot text and has a friend named Cheryl who loses her keys.”
Ava frowned. “How do you know that?”
“I texted my neighbors,” I replied. “Back to the point of this conversation: it was a penis.”
They both froze.
“A penis?” Halley asked, one eyebrow raising and disappearing under her blonde bangs.
“Yep. He accidentally sent me a dick pic. At two a.m., meaning it was the first thing I saw when I woke up on Monday morning.” I took my phone out of the ass pocket of my jeans and, after quickly unlocked it, shoved the phone in Halley’s direction. “Look at it! Look!”
“I don’t want to!” She did her best to duck and dive from my enthusiastic picture-pushing, including covering her eyes.
“I’ll look.” Ava grabbed my wrist and pulled the phone in her direction, tilting the screen so she could see it. “Not bad. Good size. Length and girth. Probably a good handful,” she said appreciatively.
“You’re in a library!” Halley jerked around with a hiss. “You can’t go flaunting unwanted dick pics everywhere!”
“This wasn’t unwanted,” I corrected her. “It was accidental. A wrong number dick pic.”
“I don’t care how it came to be in your possession. I don’t want to see it.” She grabbed some books from the cart. “Did you tell him he’d sent it to the wrong person?”
“Yes. I told him he got the wrong number, but he had a pretty nice dick, so it was okay.” I wrenched my wrist from Ava’s grip, locked it, and tucked it back into my pocket.
“There’s no such thing as a nice dick.” Halley pushed the cart along. “They’re all ugly. Even your brother’s.”
Ew. Gross.
“La la la la la!” I put my fingers in my ears.
Ava snorted. “She had that coming.”
Halley nodded. “I don’t get it. You don’t know the guy. He apologized, right?”
I dropped my hands with a click of my tongue. “Yep. I told him it was fine.”
“Reagan, that is not the correct response to a dick pic. Preston sent me one last week, and I told him to fuck off.” Halley rearranged a few books. “Nobody likes dick pics.”
“You’re forgetting who you’re talking to,” Ava said and turned to me. “Didn’t you once ask for a dick pic when you were on that dating app?”
“Yeah, but they banned me.” I paused. “To be honest, I asked because he looked like he had a small one, and those guys can be deceiving. Plus, this guy is really nice.”
“You’re still texting him?”
“Yeah. He thanked me for being cool about it because most girls wouldn’t be. I told him how to get a better angle and asked why he was sending it.”
“Oh, hell,” Ava muttered.
It was a bit crazy when I laid it out like that.
“So are you, like, friends now?” Halley asked, putting the now-empty cart off to the side.
“No. I have no idea what his name is.” I made a show of examining my nails. “I didn’t give him mine, either. No idea what he looks like or who he is.”
The eyes of both my best friends were trained on me, and I knew exactly what they were thinking.
I’d lost my marbles.
It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.
“I know people think Halley is the weird one here, but you are really quite strange,” Ava said slowly, drawing her brows together in a drown.
“Hey!”
“Yeah, no, she’s right.” Halley raised her eyebrows. “So what are you going to do? Just keep texting this nameless, faceless, unknown man with the relatively nice dick until…”
“Until I get bored, I guess. That, or I have a one-night stand with him and recognize his cock.” I shrugged. I’d thought last night was the end of our chat, but he’d texted me this morning to wish me a nice day. “He’s a nice guy. We actually have a bit in common.”
We took the stairs in single file, avoiding the stream of teens who were headed to study.
“Hey,” Ava said brightly when we reached the bottom.
“What?” I asked.
“Have you considered that we might know the guy whose penis that is?”
I was pretty sure I’d remember those tattoos, but what if they were new? What if I’d just never paid attention to tattoos on anyone I’d met before? I could have passed him in a coffee shop and never known.
“No,” I said firmly. “No, no, no, no. I’m not going to believe that. Ava, why would you do that to me?”
She shrugged, but her eyes were full of mischief. “It just occurred to me. I mean, who is he? Is he even legal? Is he young and hot? Or is he the limping janitor at the high school?”
I was going to throw up.
Halley laughed and turned around. “I am so glad I didn’t look at that picture.”
“No, no, no.” I was muttering to myself at this point. “No!”
Halley’s lips curved and she met my eyes. “You’re just gonna have to ask him, aren’t you?”
“Fine. I’ll do it right now. He is not the limping janitor from the high school!�
� I yanked my phone out of my pocket, opened our message chat, and hit the reply box.
ME: By the way, who the hell are you?
“There. Done.” I showed them the screen once more before putting my phone away again. “As soon as I get an answer, I’ll let you know.”
“I can’t wait,” Halley drawled. “Are we still going out on Friday?”
“If by going out you mean ordering pizza and vegging on my sofa, yes,” I replied. “Preston feeds the raccoons now. You can have a night off.”
She frowned. “He has a weird friendship with Boris. I caught him searching for a big old branch for him the other day and he refused to speak about it.”
Ava smirked. “Maybe he’s teaching Boris how to be faithful to Betty after the stuffed raccoon incident.”
Halley paused, then shivered. “We will never speak of that again. I still can’t look at the damn thing without getting mental replays of his little ass going like the clappers.”
“Neither can we,” I say dryly. “Since you showed us the videos.”
“Preach that,” Ava muttered.
***
It’d been two days since I’d texted Dick Guy and I’d had no response to me asking who he was.
It was fine.
It wasn’t the end of the world. It was Friday, it was girls’ night, and all I had to do was get through the last few hours of work and I could drink as many margaritas as I wanted because I didn’t have to work tomorrow.
Cue fireworks.
All right, it wasn’t fine.
Realistically, I knew that there was a slim chance our paths could cross in real life. Logic dictated that if he was matching with women who lived in South Carolina, he lived there or thereabouts.
And Creek Falls, South Carolina, was where I happened to live.
Part of me wanted to know who he was, and the rest of me wanted to never speak to him again. Unfortunately for me, the curious part of me was pretty strong and persuasive.
Which was why it was super annoying that he hadn’t replied and told me his name.
I mean, I’d seen his penis.
Erect.
The least he could was tell me his name.
That was common courtesy.
At least when these images came on the internet, you knew what to call a guy.
I served a huge bouquet of roses to a guy who had ‘I’m About To Propose’ written all over his face. I handed him back his credit card with a few words of encouragement, which seemed to calm him a little.
He was followed by a young woman who screamed ‘Someone Just Died’ who asked for my help in picking an appropriate bouquet for her grieving boss. We picked a selection of lilies, hydrangeas, and a few roses in shades of white and cream, and I packaged them up with an appropriate card for her.
The rest of the day went much the same way. It was a steady stream of people until around half an hour before closing when I made a start on the behind-the-scenes jobs.
The rest of
By six-thirty, I was leaving the store, safe in the knowledge it was ready for my mom to run tomorrow.
I drove back to my apartment in silence. The day had been hectic from the get-go, and my head was pounding from all the times the goddamn bell had rung today.
I had to get the damn thing replaced.
I fucking hated it.
I pulled up in my designated parking spot and cut the engine. I had a feeling the girls would already be here since they both had a key and got off work before I did. Still, I needed a minute to breathe in the silence of my car, so I pulled my phone out of my bag with every intension of scrolling the news.
It was always good to keep up on the daily bullshit.
I didn’t make it that far.
Dick Guy had replied.
DICK GUY: Sorry. I’ve been working a shit load this week. I’m headed back in soon. My name is Noah.
“Noah.” I rolled his name around on my tongue. It was a pretty hot name. It figured that the tattooed guy with the nice penis had a hot name.
ME: Don’t worry. I get it. I just got off work, too.
He was obviously around, because he replied instantly.
NOAH: What’s your name? I shared. You share.
ME: Reagan.
NOAH: Well, Reagan, it’s nice to kind of meet you.
I snorted.
ME: It’s nice to kind of meet you, too, Noah.
NOAH: *grin emoji*
NOAH: I’d love to chat, but I need to shower before I head back to work for tonight. So, Reagan with the purple hair and apparently nice tits, I’ll talk to you later.
I grinned. It was dumb, but I fucking grinned.
ME: Good talk, Noah with the hot tattoos and the nice cock. Have fun at work.
Banging on my car window stopped me from grinning at my screen like the idiot I became whenever he texted me. Something was seriously wrong with me.
I looked up at my window. It was Halley and Ava and, as I’d suspected, they were already at my apartment. Judging by the half-empty wine glasses they held, they’d set up camp quite a while ago.
Friday night was officially a go, and thank God for that.
I got out of the car and almost immediately, Halley grabbed me.
“What were you grinning at in there?” she demanded.
“Get another dick pic?” Ava waggled her eyebrows.
I rolled my eyes and grabbed my purse so I could lock my car. “No. I did, however, get his name.”
“Today? You texted him two days ago!”
“He said he was working.” I shrugged. “It happens, you know.”
“Well, what is it?” Halley asked, using my key to unlock the front door and let us in. She shoved the door open with her hip.
“Noah,” I replied.
Ava tilted her head to the side. “Nope. We don’t know him. I don’t know a Noah, do you, Hals?”
Halley nodded. “But he’s my friend’s six-month-old cousin, so he’s probably not the culprit here.”
“Gee, ya think?” I drawled, taking my keys back before we hit the stairs. “Is the pizza here yet?”
Ava checked her watch. “Ten minutes and yes, I poured you wine.”
I unlocked the front door with a smirk. “Sometimes, I don’t regret giving you a key at all.”
CHAPTER FOUR – REAGAN
It’s Getting Hot In Here
I locked the door, rubbing under my eyes so I didn’t smudge my mascara. Two bottles of wine, two pizzas, and the Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice later, girls’ night was finally over.
It was barely eleven o’clock and I was exhausted. Problem was, I had to shower. I had pizza sauce in my hair and I just felt generally grimy thanks to a full day in the store.
After quickly checking my phone, I stripped off on my way to the bathroom, leaving a messy trail of clothes through my apartment that I’d clean up tomorrow. I didn’t much care right now.
I just wanted a good long, hot shower.
So that was what I did. I turned the heat up until it was the hottest temperature I could bare and got in. There was a quick detour to grab some face wipes to remove my makeup before my mascara could run and sting my eyes.
I soaked myself in the water, reveling in the sensation of the heat beating away at my skin. The entire bathroom steamed up as I went through the motions of shampooing my hair and conditioning it. My skin was red raw by the time I was done scrubbing it with my sponge and then my loofa.
But I was clean.
I was oh so clean and it felt oh so good.
I turned the shower off and climbed out. I grabbed the nearest towel and wrapped it around my body, then picked up a second and twisted my hair into it on top of my head.
It was like a giant diaper on my head.
It wobbled as I made my way through to my bedroom, humming along to myself. Taylor Swift’s latest song had been played on the radio over and over today and it was firmly stuck in my head. It was the tune to my post-shower rituals of digging o
ut my oldest, most comfortable underwear ready for tomorrow morning’s lazy session.
I dragged out a tank top that declared me wanting to be where the people aren’t and thick banded panties that branded Victoria’s Secret all around the waist. After quickly drying myself off, I got into the clothes, adjusted the fabric over my boobs, and reached up for the towel.
It took me a few minutes to work a wide-toothed comb through my hair and get the knots out of my thick curls. When that was done, I snapped a band on my wrist before grabbing my moisturizer.
It took a few more minutes to work through my nightly skincare routine, and I was eyeing up the sachet of cucumber face mask when I paused.
Something smelled…funny.
I pushed my stool back from my dressing table and walked out into my apartment. The closer I got to the front door, the stronger the smell was. I couldn’t place—
Burning.
Something was burning.
I spun, checking every inch of my apartment. There were no lit candles, and I hadn’t used the cooker at all day today, so I knew it wasn’t that. Nor had I turned on my hair tools for it to be one of those.
Oh, my God.
What if something was wrong somewhere else?
I ran to my front door and tugged. It didn’t open. It was locked. I’d locked it before I got in the shower.
I fumbled with the keys from the coffee table and got it in the hole on my third attempt. The lock undid with a click, and I pulled the door open to black smoke filling the hallway. Fire alarms blared through the air with the one exception:
Mine.
I’d never replaced the batteries.
Mr. Jennings’ door was closed opposite mine, and I dashed back inside for my phone. I had no idea where the fire had started or what was going on, but I had to call nine-one-one and see if my neighbor was okay.
