Page 76 of Prickly Romance

I yelp when her weight almost smothers me. “Ah! What are you doing?”

She grabs my phone and, with an evil smile, scrolls through my contacts.

My eyes widen. I try to wrestle her for the phone but years of running track and lifting weights means she’s much stronger than I am.

My sister easily pins me down with her legs.

I struggle beneath her. “Don’t you dare, Yaya.”

The phone starts ringing.

I twist my head around to pin her with a dark look.

“Hang. Up,” I sign.

She smirks and then drops her attention back to the phone.

The light turns green.

Yaya shoves the device at me.

“Miss Williams?” Sazuki sounds annoyed already.

I grimace.

Yaya pushes the phone at my mouth.

“Miss Williams,” Sazuki repeats sternly, “why did you call me this late at night?”

I gesture frantically for Yaya to hang up.

She shakes her head.

Sazuki is going to kill me tomorrow.

“Uh, hi. Sorry to bother you. I’m calling because my sister and I are… we wanted to invite Niko to…”

Invite herto do what?

I give Yaya a desperate look.

“Bowling,” Yaya signs.

“We’re going bowling tomorrow night, and I was wondering if Niko would be interested in joining us.”

There’s a long silence on Sazuki’s end.

He’s going to reject me.

Humiliation makes my skin feel like it’s on fire.

He thinks I’m an idiot.

A minute passes.

Did he hang up?

“It’s okay if you’re not interested,” I say, trying to check if he’s still there. “Yaya has this thing about making friends with every deaf person she meets. It was really her idea…”