Page 57 of The Dallas Dilemma

There you are, Joey. I’ve missed you. And yeah, Pratt is pretty awesome, maybe even more so than Pine. And the Team Jacob bit was a joke.I’m no TwiHard, and I couldn’t care less. But Die Hard IS a Christmas movie, and I’ll die on that hill.

0 ?0 ?0

Did he…justagree with me on something? My eyes widen. He doesn’t know that I know who he is, right? That would mean he knows who I am, too. No. No way. Dallas would’ve said something. I bite my lip and type out a response.

JoeyB@JoeVSVolcano

Did you just agree with me on something? You’re getting soft, Buck.

0 ?0 ?1

My response getsa like from him immediately, and I wait for several minutes before I accept that he isn’t going to reply. But that doesn’t mean he knows who I am. He probably just had to end his break and get back to work. Yeah. That’s it.

There’s no way Dallas knows the truth.

Closing out of the app, I pull up my text thread with Twila and shoot her a message.

Me:Want to come over tonight when I’m done with work? I’ll order Antonio’s.

Twila has a cosmic connection to enchiladas suizas––her words, not mine––and I’m not sure she’dever turn the dish down for any reason. Especially the ones fromAntonio’s.

Twila:I would have come without the gooey, cheesy bribe, but no takebacks! I’ll be there at five-thirty.

Twila:With margaritas.

Me:Perfect. Thanks, bestie.

She sends a heart emoji to end the conversation, and I send one back before closing the app and setting the phone on my desk. I feel a bit better knowing she’s coming over and will listen to me vent about this whole situation with Dallas.

A little one-on-one time with my best friend is exactly what I need.

That, and margaritas, of course.

“Oh,my God. I think I just came.”

I laugh at Twila’s over-exaggerated groan as she shovels another cheese-drenched bite into her mouth. The food is amazing, as always, and I decided to put off the conversation about Dallas until we’re done eating and maybe a little buzzed from the tequila.

“Okay,” she says before licking her fork clean after her last bite, “thank you for dinner. And now that the eating portion of the evening is over, do you want to tell me why you really invited me over? Does this have something to do with the sexy guy across the hall?”

“More like the annoying guy who’s been trolling mefor the last year,” I mumble under my breath, but she hears me anyway.

“Aren’t they one and the same?”

Tilting my head back, I groan toward the ceiling. I look back at Twila as I take a too-large gulp of my frozen margarita. My head explodes with an epic case of brain-freeze, and I groan again. Twila waits patiently for me to recover and finally spit out what’s bothering me.

“Dallas posted something on Cackle today at lunch. I didn’t want to ignore it like I did the last one, so I responded with my usual snark…and he wasniceabout it.”

“What?” Twila asks, more confused than surprised.

“Here,” I say, pulling the thread up on my phone and clicking until it shows only our replies.

I watch Twila as she reads, taking much smaller sips of my drink until her eyes meet mine over the top of the phone. Then she cocks her head and hands the phone back to me before she speaks.

“So, what doyouthink it means?”

“I don’t know,” I say, dropping the device to the couch beside me. “At first, I was freaking out that he may have somehow figured out it’s me. But Dallas is the type to get things out in the open and talk them through. If he knows, he would’ve brought it up already.”

“Maybe he’s just too happy right now, in real life, to engage in online shit talk,” she offers, and I close my eyes and groan again.

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