Page 20 of Jagged

"Fine," she agreed in haste. "I'll go."

"Good." I patted her arm then hopped up. "Off to work. You at the shop today?"

"Yeah." She sat up and stretched, a giant yawn escaping her. "All day. You coming by after work?"

"Yup. Mural is almost done." I strapped on my gear belt, then removed my weapon from the bio safe beside my bed.

"Need a ride?"

"Nah. I'm good." I saluted her as I pulled my phone out of my pocket. "Later."

"Adeus." She waved before bounding out the door.

While staring at my phone, half a dozen unanswered texts lingered on the screen. I ignored most of them, choosing Zay's first.

Want a bagel? he asked. Hurry up n answer me, arrived a minute later. I'm getting you a bagel. Fuck it.

I laughed at his spammy messages, each in a new text and finally replied, Yeah. Thanks.

About time.

Slow morning. U good?

All good.

I shook my head and moved on to the next. Frankie sent me an inappropriate photo of her boobs asking me if I liked her top, to which I replied, Who are you hooking up with?

No one.

Liar. Use a condom.

Girls don't need condoms with girls.

You need condoms with everyone.

Ha, she replied with the middle finger emoji.

I smirked, then tapped the text from an unknown number. A photo accompanied the text, and it took a second to load. In the low-light photo, an image of my cracked and faded street art filled the screen. I remembered where I tagged it, on a ten-foot wall in the alley beside Planned Parenthood when I was barely sixteen. No one bothered to remove the My Body My Choice mantra spraypainted inside a giant pink uterus. My tag name stood out in the corner as always. A few other bits of graffiti covered portions of it as it appeared over the years, but the longevity of the piece always tickled me. I expected some assholes to deface it with their rhetoric, but to my surprise, that never happened.

Is this you? asked the text from the number.

New phone. Who dis? I replied in the most asshole way.

You don't have a new phone.

Who is this?

That's your work, isn't it?

Yeah. Who is this or I'll block you.

You should store my number.

I frowned at my phone as my thumb hovered over the block icon.

Considering you're expecting quite a bit of information from me.

My brow narrowed and I nearly tapped the block until the next text chimed.

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