Page 30 of Delayed Offsides

Me:I need to shower and get some food.

Ami:I’ll pick you up in 1 hour and bring food with me.

Me:I love you.

Ami:I know you do!

As I stumble around my apartment with my phone and toward my bathroom, I gasp that I have forty-six text messages from Leo. I figured he would have tried to get a hold of me, but forty-six messages in seven days?

I stop walking and scroll through them. They start out funny, entertaining, and some endearing.

Leo:Thinking of you.

And then others were growing concerned.

Leo:Are you even alive? Should I call the police?

Then come the dirty ones. The ones where I know he’d been pulling out all the stops in order to get me to text him back.

Leo:Listen, I’m sorry if you thought it didn’t mean anything, but we’ve been friends for years. It meant something to me, Callie. I swear. And if I gave the impression it didn’t, let me make it up to you. Call me back.

That message came with a selfie of his bottom lip out.

Laughing, I touch the screen and the full lips that have given me such pleasure in the past. God, why is that man so sexy? Brown wavy hair that loops at the ends, usually over his ears when it gets longer. And those piercing blue eyes so full of life and laughter. You can’t help but smile at him. And his body? Fuuuck! Just the right amount of muscle. He’s built for speed, and it’s apparent.

In the bathroom now, I set my phone on the counter and reach for my toothbrush. Shifting my weight into the counter, I lean forward and slide my finger over the screen to the next message. It’s of his dick. He actually sent me one of his fucking dick. Hard and withSuck me, Calliewritten on the shaft.

I spit out my toothpaste and stare at the image on my phone, moving it in different directions to see it at various angles.

Jesus. Look at that dick. It’s ready for me.

My cheeks warm. I want to send him a message that says, bring it over. But I don’t. For one, I don’t know where we stand with one another after last night. Seeing him leaving with that girl wasn’t easy to watch. And I’ve ignored him for a week now. Me sending a message that says bring that dick over here won’t exactly send the right message, will it?

I set my toothbrush down and stare at myself in the mirror. “No. It won’t,” I say to myself. Do you see that girl staring back at me? She’s so confused. Poor girl.

In love with the wrong man.

Ami is right on time, as usual, and comes up to my apartment. She’s probably afraid I won’t come. I bailed on her on Wednesday night, so she’s a bit apprehensive now. Can’t blame her on that one.

“Why do you look flustered?” she asks, handing me a brown bag from Starbucks and a coffee.

“I read my text messages from Leo.” Ami watches me as she walks inside, setting her own coffee on the counter.

She sits on a barstool and opens the other bag to retrieve a muffin. “You mean the one where he sent a picture of his penis?” Her cheeks flush when she says penis. Ami might be involved with a hockey player and subjected to some of the foulest language around, but she still can’t curse without looking like a child cussing in front of her parents.

“I gotthatmessage.” I take a seat next to her. Reaching over, I take a bite of her muffin and then give it back to her.

“Yeah, well, he sent that out in a group message.” Picking at her muffin, I take half of it, and Ami giggles. “You, and like five hundred other people got it too. It was all over social media. Someone tweeted it.”

“Wow.” My fingers trace the cardboard sleeve on the cup in front of me. I missed everything by avoiding my phone.

“He was offended because I thought it was a clam,” she explains. “I only got a glimpse of it before Evan ripped the phone out of my hand. So I thought it was a clam.”

“How wouldthat”—I hold up the picture on my phone—“look like a clam?” And yes, I saved the picture so I can stare at it later.

Ami won’t even look. She covers her eyes, shaking her head. “I’m not looking!”

I hold the phone at an angle and paw at her hands on her face. She peeks one eye open. “You can’t put a dick on a screen and not look at it. Just look,” I urge, laughing. “I’ve seen Evan’s.”

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