Page 20 of Third Time Lucky

I walk back inside in such a fog, it takes me a minute to realize the buzzing in my ears is coming from the phone I left on my counter. Tani texted me five times, and the last one needs a response.

T-Diddy:If you don’t answer, I’m assuming a mob hit and calling the police. One of them is a Finn, right? I’ll name drop. I swear I will.

I type out a quick reply.

J-Pop:I’m alive. Was talking to the neighbor.

T-Diddy: Lobby Lurker?! Give me a second to get rid of my brothers and I’ll call you. This movie is so bad I can’t even enjoy their suffering.

I nod as if she can see me, mentally rolling up my sleeves and diving back into the pile as I wait. My head isn’t in it. It’s still stuck on the man who found out he was a father and started learning to play his daughter’s favorite song.

There has to be something wrong with him.

He had a one-night stand, he doesn’t know who Lizzo is, his mother sounds like Cruella and he hops over things without asking.

People hookup all the time, have different taste in music and dysfunctional families are the norm. The jumping thing is unusual but also pretty damn sexy, so that’s off the table as a flaw.

Straight. Straight. Straight.

Valid and effective. Nail-in-the-coffin effective. “That did it.”

Cardboard Quinto is staring at me with his mind-melding know-it-all gaze and I lay down the law. “I mean it. I’m not even putting him in the fantasy fodder folder.”

Fascinating.

“You shut your Vulcan mouth.”

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