The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “What kind of message?”
“Here.” She licks more mustard off her thumb, then pulls her phone out of her pocket and opens it to voicemail. After tapping on the screen, the sound of heavy breathing plays in the apartment.
One second.
Two.
Three.
And then the call ends.
“You’re sure they’re spam?” I take the phone from her and check the readout. It’s an unknown number, but give me a few minutes and my computer, and I’ll have it nailed down.
“I mean, who else could it be?”
Maybe a jaded ex-boyfriend.
My face must have screamed his name because Anastasia rolls her eyes. “It is not Jack, Sawyer.”
“You’ve talked to him since the breakup?”
“Well, no. But the guy is FBI. He has a lot more important things to do than call me in the middle of the night.”
But he would know well enough to block his number. “Can you let me look into the calls? I can try to get a location at the very least.”
“Sawyer, this is not worth your energy, trust me.” She smiles and turns her phone face down. “Tell me, what’s new in your life? See any good movies lately?”
Even with her dismissal, the unease grows. Heavy breathing isn’t an AI bot. It’s not even a spam caller.
So who is calling Anastasia late at night?
“Nah,” I say, letting it go…for now. I’ll run the records tonight and see what I can come up with. Until then, I’ll let her play it off. No sense in worrying her when I’m not even sure something is going on. “I am planning to start a re-run watch of Hogan’s Heroes, though.”
“Really?” She perks up. “I love that show. Haven’t seen it since I watched it with my dad.”
“Want to watch it with me? I won’t watch any episodes without you this time,” I add, remembering the time I accidentally kept watching Scrubs after she’d seen episode one with me. Apparently, I’d silently agreed to watch them with her, and she’d made me re-watch episodes two and three all over again until we were caught up together.
“I would love that! First one tonight here at my place? I can make us dinner.”
“How about I bring dinner, and you make the popcorn,” I counter.
She smiles. “Deal. My day just got even better. Thanks, Sawyer.”
“Of course.” I would walk on a bed of nails if it made her happy. Bringing dinner and a show over seems like such a small ask in exchange for being the reason my heart beats.
Chapter 8
Anastasia
“It is so not a date,” I say as I pull on a pair of leggings and slip into my favorite sweatshirt. “We’ve watched plenty of shows together.”
“That was before the guy told you how he felt,” Tessa counters.
“Exactly,” Katelyn agrees.
While I left out Sawyer’s heartbreaking backstory, I did tell my two best friends what he said about being friends with the hope of something more on the horizon. How could I keep news like that to myself?
“It’s an old TV show, dinner, and popcorn. It is not a date.” I slip a pair of fuzzy socks onto my feet and pull my hair back in a short ponytail.
