Page 30 of Left on Read

“Yeah.” I swallowed and toyed with a crease in the leg of my jeans. “Why?”

“Nothing. Johnny has a friend named Ryan who’s not part of our group or anything, but I’ve met him a few times. Crazy coincidence, hmmm?”

“Yeah.” I cleared my throat discreetly as he turned back to the laptop. “Totally crazy.”

Thankfully, the comedy special ended a few minutes later. Nerves tightened my chest as River leaned over to shut my computer down.

Now what?

We’d made plans to have dinner and hang out. We’d had dinner, and we’d watched the special. It wasn’t especially late, only around nine, but we both had to get up early for work in the morning.

“That was good.” He leaned back against the couch. “What did you think?”

“It was really good,” I said, hoping again that being vague would cover my bases and wouldn’t give away that I’d spent the entire hour in my head and not paying attention to the show.

“We should watch his other one next time.”

“Yeah, for sure.”

River’s expression went serious. “Are you okay? You’ve been really quiet tonight.”

“I’m fine.” I smiled, or at least tried to. “My eyes are just a bit sore.”

That wasn’t exactly a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth. My contacts were bothering me, but I was used to that.

“Your eyes are sore? That doesn’t sound good.” He sat up straight, concern written all over his handsome face. “Is this an emergency? I never know what is or isn’t.”

“No. It’s just my contacts,” I assured him.

“You wear contacts?”

“Mmmhmm. They irritate my eyes if I wear them too long. I’ll be fine when I take them out.”

“Do you want to do that now? Or I can go,” he added quickly. “I’m probably keeping you from…stuff.”

“You’re not. Do you need to go?”

“Not yet.” He leaned back against the couch. “But feel free to kick me out whenever you get sick of me. I’m really bad at that. I don’t really get social cues, so unless you tell me what you’re thinking, I’m probably guessing wrong.”

“You’re fine. I like hanging out with you.” My voice cracked on the last word like I was back in middle school.

River beamed. “Me too. I haven’t had this much fun in a long time.”

“Same.” I cleared my throat to make sure I didn’t embarrass myself again. “I’ll just go take these out.”

“’Kay. I’ll be here.”

When I was in my bathroom, I sent Ryan a quick text before dealing with my contacts.

Hayden: Does Johnny have a friend named River who’s an identical twin?

He read the text before my screen went dark. I waited as the little reply bubbles appeared.

Ryan: Maybe? He has friends from high school who’re identical twins. One of them has a Z name. Zephyr? Zayden? Something like that.

Hayden: Zane?

Ryan: that’s it! Why?

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