Page 11 of Can't Text This

“I…well, shit.” I scratch at my week-old beard, knowing I should probably shave today. “That could be it, could be why I can’t get her out of my head.”

“She’s the one that got away.”

“In a sense.”

He narrows his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She left her number.”

“And you haven’t called her because…”

“Because…she’s different.”

“She doesn’t look like the girls you’re always after—so what? Big deal. Call her anyway.”

“Zach, dude, I’m telling you—”

“She’s different—yeah, I got that. How?”

“Monty is…innocent. She just has that look about her that says girl next door. She’s all buttoned up and…reserved.” I hold my tattooed arms out. “I’m clearly not.”

Zach stares hard at me, and I wonder what’s going through his head.

We both know I’m not one to go for the girls who have clearly spent more time hidden inside their safe little bedrooms than in bars.

He might be onto something here. Maybe the reason I can’t get Monty out of my head is because we didn’t finish what we started. Maybe it’s because I don’t know what she’d feel like beneath me and Ineedto know…for research purposes. Science and all that shit.

Yeah. That’s totally the reason.

“Get your phone out.”

My attention snaps to Zach and his hardened expression. “Huh?”

“Get your phone out. You’re texting her.”

“I am not.”

“You’re taking this Monty broad to Funkytown whether you like it or not. Phone—now.”

I shake my head. “No. She ran for a reason, dude.”

He gives me one of his famous all-knowing grins, and I want to slap the glasses off his nerdy, handsome face. “She gave you her number for a reason too.”

He’s not wrong.

I pull my phone from my pocket.

Me: Hey. This is Robbie. From Lola’s.

“Smooth,” Zach murmurs.

“Shut the fuck up.”

I carefully fold the paper towel I got her number off of and slide it back into my sleep pants. I don’t know why I want to keep it even though it’s now saved to my contacts, but I do. There’s something about it that feels so…old school. No one writes their number down anymore. It makes me a little sentimental.

We watch my phone like two insane people, agonizing every time the three familiar dots appear and disappear.

“Maybe if you had opened with something better, she’d have a responded already.”

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