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Thirteen
Wes
“What’s with you?” Tash asks, eyeing me curiously as she shoves a handful of crisps into her mouth.
“Nothing,” I mutter, scowling at the empty inbox on my email app.
“Then why are you glaring at your phone like it’s just said something to deeply offend you?”
I let out a heavy sigh and set my phone down, bringing my pint to my lips for a long swig. “He’s stopped replying.”
Natasha’s brows draw together in confusion. “Who?”
“The email guy. Daredevil. He hasn’t written back all week.”
She shrugs. “Maybe he’s just been busy?”
“Too busy to shoot off a quick reply that says ‘hey, sorry, I’m swamped right now but I’ll catch you later’?” I groan and rub a hand over my face. “Oh, fuck. I sound like a thirteen-year-old girl, don’t I?”
She offers a wry smile. “A little bit.”
“It’s just a bit weird, that’s all,” I say with a sigh. “I know it sounds kind of mad, but we’ve sort of become…friends. And you of all people should know I don’t like being ignored by my friends.”
“Oh, do I ever.” She gives a little shake of her head, no doubt recalling the countless times I’ve spammed her with texts after a day of radio silence. “Okay, let me read the emails,” she says, holding her palm out for my phone. “All of them. I think it’s time you got an objective outsider’s opinion about this.”
I hesitate for a moment. There’s some information contained in these emails that I’ve never actually divulged to Tash, despite how close we are, and I’m not entirely sure I want her finding out now.
At her expectant expression, I finally relent. “Okay, fine. But you have to promise not to judge me.”
She rolls her eyes. “Please, if I can get past that thing with the Kraft Singles I can get past anything.”
“That was a scientific experiment,” I say defensively.
She holds up a palm. “Let’s not re-hash it.”
I hand over my phone and she starts going through the emails. “Alright, let’s start at the beginning.”
I watch anxiously as she reads, her expression growing more and more wide-eyed the further she gets. Finally, she sets the phone down and gazes up at me. “Oh my god, Wes. I know who this is.”
My jaw practically hits the table.“What?How could you possibly know? He’s a stranger from the internet. He could be in Australia, or Denmark, or Indonesia for all we know.”
“He has a dot UK email address, and he follows Chelsea, not to mention all the British slang—I think it’s safe to assume he’s from here.”
“Well, congratulations, then. You’ve narrowed it down to over sixty million people,” I say dryly.
Natasha rolls her eyes. “Look, just hear me out, okay? And whatever you do…don’t freak out.”
“Okay…” I lean back in my chair, suddenly overcome by a sense of wariness. “Who is it then?”
She draws in a breath, as though she’s preparing to deliver news of a fatal diagnosis. “Devon.”
I sit bolt upright. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You can’tpossiblythink this isDevon Montgomery,” I say, gesturing wildly at my phone.
“Just think about it for a second,” she urges. “This Daredevil guy broke up with his ex on the exact same day Emma and Devon broke up. A couple of threads in, he mentioned he was at a party with people he didn’t want to be around, including his ex’s brother who he supposedly hates. That same night, Devon was at Emma’s going away party, where you just happened to be in attendance. Also, Daredevil is clearly quite well-off if he’s gifting two hundred pound vouchers to trendy restaurants—that sounds exactly like something Devon would do, doesn’t it?”
“I think you’re reaching,” I manage to cut in, although I’m starting to get a queasy feeling in my stomach.
She lets out annoyed huff. “Fine then. Time for the coup de grace: I don’t know which team Devon supports, but I do know that Ryan’s daughter is named Lola. I talked to him at Emma’s party, and he mentioned she’djust turned four.”
