Page 129 of Heartless Sinner

See how nice I am?

Getting the suitcase up the stairs and through the garden outside the Fawn Quarters had been a bitch, but I’d managed.

While waiting for us to be up in the air long enough, I opened my text thread with her, scrolling all the way back to the beginning and reading our first texts.

Even after all these years, I couldn’t bring myself to delete them.

Me: Hey, what’s up?

Daphne: Who’s this?

I remembered staring at those two words like a fucking idiot, typing my answer, deleting it, then typing another.

I was never nervous around women.

Daphne had decided to make herself the exception.

Me: Take a guess.

Daphne: Brooks’s hot friend?

Daphne: Josh, right?

Fucking Josh.

He’d asked for Daphne’s number again at the gym the next morning. I’d answered by smashing the basketball into his face and chipping his tooth.

Fucker didn’t ask me again.

Me: It’s Brooks.

Daphne: Brooks who?

Me: I’m offended you need a last name.

Daphne: You texting me a lame, “WHAT’S UP,” offends me.

Me: What would you have preferred I said?

Daphne: Hello, Princess. Sorry I kept looking at your chest while talking to you in the kitchen. Also sorry I made my friend cancel his date with you because I made him look like a freaking jack-o’-lantern.

Me: Hello, Princess. Sorry I kept looking at your chest while talking to you in the kitchen. Also sorry I made my friend cancel his date with you because I made him look like a freaking jack-o’-lantern.

Me: Better?

Daphne: Much.

Me: How’d you find out about Josh?

Me: And wait, how the fuck did he get a date with you?

Daphne: He found me on social media. It’s the new form of stalking these days.

I remembered grinding my teeth at that message.

Josh had already lost a piece of his tooth over Daphne. I’d considered maybe he needed to lose more.

Daphne: Why are you texting me?