A Perfect Ten

by Linda Kage

  She sent me a sad smile. “Actually, I do understand. Completely.”

  I guess she did. It was hard to believe now, but just a few months ago, Quinn had been completely forbidden to her since he’d been dating someone else. No matter how much everyone else could tell they belonged together, I’d had a bad feeling they would never hook up because they were both too honorable. But here they were now, together and happier than ever.

  That should’ve given me some kind of hope.

  Except it didn’t. My situation was a tad different than theirs. And I was in no way as honorable as they were.

  “I have to somehow sneak back into his room without him knowing it’s me.”

  Zoey snickered. “The return of Midnight Visitor?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded before her words sank in. And just like that, one of my crazy, spur-of-the-moment, off-the-wall ideas hit me. “Yeah,” I murmured again, eyeing her probably a bit maniacally. “Midnight Visitor. Zoey, that’s brilliant.”

  “Oh God,” she moaned, already cringing. “What did I just start?”

  I grabbed her forearm, squeezing excitedly. “Can you get his phone?”

  She began to say yes, when she realized what I really meant. “What? You mean right now?”

  Five minutes later, Zoey was weaving back to me through the crowd with the biggest grin on her face. “I did it! I got his phone.” She looked so excited and proud of herself, it was adorable. “I can’t believe I really did it. I feel like such a rebel right now.”

  “Oh, baby, you are. You so are.” I rubbed my hands together. “Now gimme.”

  She handed the cell phone over. The smooth plastic was cool in my hands. It looked like any other smartphone with a plain blue cover. But it felt almost electrified in my touch, as if its hallowed surface crackled against my fingers.

  This was Oren’s phone.

  Yeah, I was a freaking spaz for getting my jollies off just by holding his phone. But I didn’t care. I was holding his phone!

  “You’re not going to change anyone’s number, are you?” Zoey asked.

  “What? No. Of course not.” Realizing she was watching me be a total creeper, I cleared my throat and quickly flipped the phone over before I pushed the home button. When I unlocked it, a passcode request came up. I whimpered.

  But what the hell? He actually password protected his phone?

  No!

  I glanced at Zoey. She looked up and bit her lip sympathetically.

  “Any idea what it is?” I asked.

  “No. But I can’t see Ten having a difficult password. It’s probably something like one, two, three, four.”

  I nodded. Yeah, that sounded like him. I punched it in.

  No go.

  After a second of thinking, I tried another.

  “Damn. That wasn’t it, either.”

  “What’d you try?” Zoey asked.

  “Six, seven, three, six. You know, the numbers for O-R-E-N.”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s what Quinn does for his password too, but you know...he uses nine, six, three, nine for...Zoey.” She blushed and smiled until her eyes widened. “Oh! Can I try one?”

  I frowned suspiciously but handed the phone to her. “Okay. Sure.”

  She immediately punched in four numbers. Sadness entered her gaze, but then she nodded. “I’m in.”

  “What? Really?” I leaned in to see his home screen with a football-themed background. My stomach pitched with excitement and then disappointment because she’d known him better than I had. “What numbers did you use?”

  “What?” She zipped her face up quickly, her eyes wide with guilt.

  I pulled back, frowning hard. What the hell was she trying to hide from me?

  Before I could grill her, though, his phone rang in her hands. She yelped and almost dropped it. She had to fumble to keep it from slipping through her fingers, but once she had it securely back in her hands, her face drained of color. “Oh my God, it’s ringing. What do I do?”

  “Silence it!” I hissed, glancing around in the hopes that no one important heard the distinctive ring tone of 2 Live Crew’s “We Want Some Pussy”. But the place was so loud and the karaoke was so bad, I didn’t think we’d have a problem with anyone hearing much of anything we were doing over here in our private corner.

  Zoey continued to freak, though. “How do I shut it off? I don’t know where—” Her words cut off as her attention focused on the screen. And just like that, her entire face lit up. “Oh, it’s Quinn.”

  She pushed Answer and lifted the receiver to her ear.

  “No!” I yelped, reaching to snag it away.

  Too late.

  It was natural instinct for her to talk to her man. She was already saying, “Hi!” A split second later, her eyes grew wide and she flashed her gaze to me. “Oh crap,” she mouthed as she realized she’d just answered Oren’s phone.

  I could hear Quinn’s voice on the other end of the line, no doubt asking her what she was doing, answering his phone.

  Panic filled her face. “Um...because I just helped Caroline steal it,” she said, only to wince and press her fisted hand against her head. “Sorry,” she whispered to me. Then she kept on confessing everything. “Because she’s Midnight Visitor...and I’m helping her set up one of those Google Voice phone numbers in his contacts list and—”

  “Zoey!” I ripped the phone from her hand before she could tell him everything...even though she just had.

  “I’m sorry,” she wailed again, clearly distraught. “But I can’t lie to him. I just...I can’t. I swear his voice is like truth serum to me.”

  I growled at her and pressed the phone to my ear, my mind racing over how I could cover damage control. “Quinn?” I said hesitantly before I bit my lip.

  “Caroline.” He was usually nice and polite to me, but the hard tone in his voice as he said my name let me know he wasn’t feeling very nice...or polite. Then he exploded. “What the hell did you just pull my girlfriend into?”

  “I’m sorry,” I instantly gushed. I really was sorry for putting her in such an awful position. “But she was the only person I knew I could count on. You know, you should be honored to have such a reliable, supportive woman.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m a bit too ticked at the moment because you just sucked her into some devious little nest of lies. Zoey hates to lie.”

  “I know. I know.” I winced, feeling even more guilt from everything I was doing.

  If I was smart, I’d call this off now and go home, pretend last night never happened. But when it came to Oren, I was never smart. I was way too emotional for that shit.

  “I feel like crap for sucking her into this, but...it’s too late now. Please just tell me you’re not going to tell Oren...or Noel.”

  “Are you seriously asking me to lie to my two closest friends on earth?”

  Oh, boy. I was screwed. But I said, “Yes, I guess I am. I’m sorry. But please.” Please, please, please.

  Of course he’d tell them, though. Why wouldn’t he tell them? His loyalties would always lie with both Oren and Noel before they’d ever lie with me.

  It felt as if my life had just ended. Things started sinking into the pit of my stomach. Evil, awful things that didn’t belong anywhere near a stomach.

  Panic, dread, hyperventilation.

  Noel was going to find out what I’d done.

  Oh shit. Oren was going to find out. What would he do when he learned last night had been me? Would he ever talk to me again? Would he be...disgusted?

  “Dang it, Caroline,” Quinn muttered in my ear. “As much as I think they both deserve to know what you did, you just had to go and pull Zoey in on it, didn’t you? I can’t let her catch any heat from this.”

  I blinked, shocked speechless. But, oh my God. I’d completely forgotten there was one more person with whom he’d always side, with whom his loyalties were even stronger than the ones he had for his two closest friends on earth.

  A slow smile spread across my face. I had
Zoey on my side, which meant I had him on my side, too. Yes! “So, you’re not going to tell them?”

  “Only because you’ve already gotten my girl involved.”

  “Oh my God!” Relief made my eyes throb with happy tears. “Thank you. Thank you so much. I love you.”

  He laughed. “Sorry, but I’m already taken.” And thank God he was. His love for Zoey was the only thing ensuring his silence right now. “Let me talk to her again,” he demanded.

  “Sure.” I happily handed the phone over.

  I watched Zoey spew out apology after apology before she gushed on about her love for him. I was beginning to think it was unnatural how quickly those two forgave and made up by the time she finally finished the call. But whatever. I liked seeing them make up probably more than I’d like to see them fight…if they ever did fight.

  It was also unnatural how they never fought.

  “Don’t forget to erase his call from the phone’s history,” I cautioned.

  She did and then handed it over. I had to take my own from my pocket to retrieve the new number I’d given myself, and then I plugged the details into Oren’s. A thrill raced through me as I saved my new information.

  I was about to click out of his address book when I noticed the name Marci Bennett. My fingers froze as I stared at the name of the bitch who’d ratted Aspen and Noel out to Aspen’s boss and gotten her fired. I didn’t like seeing her name in Oren’s phone. And I liked even less knowing what it meant by being in there.

  Sick nausea swamped me. Had he been with Marci Fucking Bennett? I suddenly wanted to cut his penis off. But then I loved his penis. I loved how it had felt in me, how it had moved and—damn it! Why did he have to go and share it with every fucking woman he met?

  Before I could stop them, my fingers started to delete the number. But Zoey caught my wrist. “What’re you doing?”

  “He has Marci Bennett’s name in here. Marci...Bennett.”

  Zoey blinked blankly. “Who?”

  “The bitch who wanted Noel for herself, so she took pictures of him and Aspen together to get my sister-in-law fired from her job.”

  “Oh.” Zoey’s mouth fell open. “Her. Well...” She bit her lip and looked down at Marci’s name in Oren’s address book, wincing.

  “This is his little black book, isn’t it? All the women he’s ever slept with have their digits in here. I can’t believe I was so stupid to think...I don’t know. I don’t know what I was even thinking to accomplish by coming here tonight and breaking into his phone.”

  “You can’t blame him for women he had in the past, Caroline. I mean, Cora is the last person on the planet I want to have carnal knowledge of Quinn, but she’s probably the one who taught him half of the stuff we do together. And yes, that does bother me. But if I let it consume me, it would. If you can’t get over what Ten did before he ever met you, then—”

  “But what if he does it tonight? Or tomorrow or...hell, Zoey. I was just another Friday-night hookup to him. Nothing—absolutely nothing is keeping him from moving on to his next score.”

  “I thought that was why you put your new number into his phone.” Zoey motioned to it, looking suddenly uncertain. “You were going to keep his attention on you so he wouldn’t...” But her words drifted off as if she too realized that probably wouldn’t work.

  Oren wouldn’t just out-of-the-blue decide to become monogamous to some stranger in the dark who refused to show him her face or tell him her name.

  “I can’t text him, saying, ‘Your dick is now mine. Get it near any other woman, and I’ll physically remove it from you and keep it in a jar by my bedside.’ That would sound a bit creepy.”

  “Actually, I was thinking it sounded a lot creepy.”

  I huffed out a breath and shoved at her shoulder. “Whatever. I can’t...I just can’t...”

  But then I glanced toward the bar. No one had started up on karaoke since the last person had finished singing, so a regular song was playing through the speakers and Ten was bobbing his head to the beat as he filled a pitcher with beer at the tap.

  After he handed it over to the waiting customer and accepted the payment, he danced his way toward the cash register where Noel was counting out change. Oren said something to my brother before he turned his back to Noel, pooched out his ass and pretended to booty grind against Noel’s leg.

  I couldn’t help it; I laughed while Noel shoved him away before letting out a reluctant grin and shaking his head.

  That right there was what always drew me back to Oren: his lighthearted, carefree, potty-mouth ways that made him uniquely him. It didn’t seem to matter what anyone thought of him; he just went his own way, did his own thing, and managed to build up loyalties for those he called friends that were unbreakable.

  “Okay, maybe I can handle his...filthy past,” I told Zoey.

  I glanced at her, feeling bolstered. I’d been waffling all day, knowing what I’d done was wrong and wanting to do it again anyway. But now...now I felt totally certain. I had to see him again.

  “We need to get this phone back where you found it.”

  Zoey nodded and began to reach for it, but I shook my head. It had been beyond lucky she hadn’t gotten caught the first time she’d gone to the bar. A second trip would be too risky.

  Skimming my gaze over the bar to make sure Noel or Oren hadn’t spotted us yet, I froze when I made eye contact with the third bartender. Asher smiled and started to wave, but I shook my head frantically and slashed my hand across my throat, asking him to stop.

  He did, frowning slightly. Then he glanced toward my brother and turned back to me to cock his head in a curious manner. I set my finger over my mouth and motioned him to come to us. He once again checked out what his coworkers were doing. Then he turned back to me with a nod as he held up a finger, telling me to wait a minute.

  “Incredible,” Zoey murmured beside me. “I think I actually followed that entire conversation you guys had. You and Asher would make awesome spies.”

  I winked at her. “If only we could use our powers for good.”

  I barely caught Asher giving me the go-ahead to meet him over by the hallway as he lifted a tray full of used glassware.

  “Come on.” I grasped Zoey’s hand and jerked her after me, weaving through people so we could stay out of sight from the bar. Our mission grew more perilous as we had to move close to it to reach the hall, but Oren and Noel seemed busy without Asher on hand to help. So, they didn’t notice us.

  Asher waited with his arms still laden with dirty glasses. I slowed to a stop, Zoey catching up to my side. Frowning at the dishes he was lugging toward the back kitchen, I shook my head. “Didn’t Pick just buy you guys a new one of these sanitizing machines where it washes those right under the counter?”

  Asher sighed and rolled his eyes. “It’s on the fritz, and the new one is on back order. Pick is pissed.” Then he glanced curiously between Zoey and me. “What’s up, ladies? Finally decide to give up on your men and be my favorite band groupies?”

  My shoulders sagged. It’d probably be better for my mental health if I did give up on Oren to follow Non-Castrato around, but...I’d already come this far. “Unfortunately...no.” I lifted Oren’s phone to show it to him. “Can you sneak this back behind the bar?”

  Asher glanced at the cell phone and lifted an eyebrow. “That’s Ten’s.”

  I nodded and sent him a cringe.

  An ornery grin lit his face. “Do I even want to know what you did to it?”

  This time, I shook my head no.

  He laughed. “Cool. I’m in. Slide it in my front pocket here, sweetness.”

  Since his hands were full, holding the tray of cups, I reached for the front pocket of his black T-shirt and slid the phone in before patting it gratefully.

  “And a little sugar?” he encouraged, tipping his face down and to the side to show me his cheek.

  I rolled my eyes but leaned up to kiss his cheek. He nodded his approval and then turned to Zoey. “
You too, princess. Don’t be shy.”

  Zoey reluctantly stepped forward and kissed his cheek too.

  Asher straightened, looking rather proud of himself. “Ladies,” he murmured. “It was good doing business with you.” Then he turned away and was off.

  I wanted to stick around to make sure he got his job done. But I trusted Asher, so I gripped Zoey’s arm. “Let’s get out of here before we’re caught.”

  I had some text messages to write.

  “Holy shit.” I gaped at the screen of my phone as I read the text that had been sent to me while I was working.

  The bar had closed nearly twenty minutes earlier, and all of us left behind to clean up were just about done with our duties for the night. I’d just grabbed my phone where I’d left it sitting by the cash register when I’d noticed I had a waiting message.

  Have you been a good boy since our first encounter? I’ll only give you a repeat of last night if you’ve been a good boy.

  The sender showed up as...Midnight Visitor.

  “Holy fucking shit.”

  “What?” Noel asked curiously as he came up to me from behind.

  I spun toward him, feeling the instinctive need to shield my screen from his eyes. But then I told myself that was stupid. There was no need to keep this from him. No reason at all. So I turned the phone around to let him read the message.

  “She somehow got hold of my phone and added her name and number.” I turned it slowly back to me and wondered aloud, “That’s so totally whack. And how the fuck did she know you guys had been calling her Midnight Visitor?”

  Unless it really was Caroline. Maybe Gamble had mentioned it to her, or Ham had told Blondie, who’d told her.

  As I wiped a suddenly shaky hand over my mouth, Gam laughed and slugged me in the shoulder. “Well, aren’t you a lucky son of a bitch? Who the hell cares how she got in? She’s going to let you see her again. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “Yeah,” I murmured absently. “I guess.” But fuck, I couldn’t believe she’d contacted me. The way she’d lit out of my room last night, I was sure that was the last I would hear from her. I began to sweat, nervous and elated at the same time.