Page 80 of From Fling to Ring

“What are you doing?”

She reaches inside and returns with my cell phone. “I know your password, Lu. Remember when we were taking those photos at my party a few weeks back and you gave me your phone so I could take a picture of you and the gang?”

Oh shit.

“Well, I’ve changed the password. It’s different now,” I lie.

Petal swipes up on my phone screen. “Zero-three-zero-five,” she taps out.

“Ha!” she says. “Works just fine. You always use your birthday as your password. And I’ll tell you, Lu, someday your accounts are going to be hacked.” She continues to furiously tap on my screen.

“Yeah, like you’re hacking my phone right now.” I hop out of the car and reach for it.

But she’s faster and backs up out of my reach. I grab for it again, and she dodges me.

“Give me my phone.”

“Hey, Tyler,” she says in a high voice while she’s typing on my phone, “I’m really sorry I fucked up?—”

“C’mon, Petal, don’t do this,” I beg, lunging for the phone again.

This time, she takes off running across the parking garage, still trying to type.

Oh my God. Are we really going to do this?

“Gilly, lock the car, will ya?” she yells and heads for the stairwell.

I run after her, desperate to get my phone before she completely ruins my life. I chase her into the stairwell and while I don’t know my way around like she does, I hear her Converse chucks clomping on the steps above me. I hustle up the stairs, but it’s pretty much hopeless in my platforms.

Goddammit.

“I know you think you deserve some sympathy,” she yells in the echoing stairwell, “but you’re not getting any from me.”

A door above me, which is out of my line of sight, creaks open and slams shut. I reach the same door seconds later and yank on it.

It’s locked, of course, and I don’t have the key card that Petal does.

“Hey. Let me out!” I holler through the door.

Gilly catches up, breathing hard from the stairs.

“Are you going to behave?” Petal says from the other side.

“C’mon Petal. Don’t be a psycho. I have dirt on you, ya know. How ‘bout I tell Rake about the threesome you had last time we went to Burning Man? Or how you peed your pants all through kindergarten?”

The door flies open. Like I knew it would.

“Shut up,” she hisses. “The locker rooms are only just over there.”

Gilly and I pass through, and Petal gives me my phone back. The damage is done.

“I’m still tempted to tell Rake about the two guys you fucked.”

Petal shakes a finger in my face. “It happened long before I knew him, and besides, it would probably turn him on. So do it!” she says.

A security guard appears behind Petal. “Ladies, can I ask what’s going on here?”

Petal swings around. “Oh, hi George. Just goofing off with my friends,” she says sweetly.

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