Page 44 of Red Flag, Green Light

Sara: More.

Done? With what? More of what?

An email comes through. I stare at it.

Looking at our message thread, I bemoan the idiocy that said,Google what alcohol goes well with chocolate milk and get the hardest one.Yesterday, after bringing Ceres back home from Taco Bell, I biked to the ABC store, grabbed what good ole Googs told me to, and biked home with it in my basket. I’m basically a grown-up toddler with grown-up money who needed to learn agrown-up life lesson.

Alcohol solves zero problems.

Never ever assume it will help with anything based on movies and popculteveragain.

Another message comes through.

Sara: I pulled the document to Word, since that’s where I normally work, but I’m wondering if it’d be easier for me to work in the Doc itself, considering you’ll be getting me consistent content and downloading a bunch of chunks then reviewing them in pieces is more effort for both of us.

Sara: You were too out of it yesterday to discuss the process with.

Sara: Speaking of the trainwreck that was yesterday, I hope everything’s okay this morning.

A niggling sensation of panic overlaps pain as I drag my cursor to the email she sent, click, and open. Once the attachment loads, my stomach dips so violently I nearly throw up.

First of all, I apparently sent my little goddess adisasterriddled with so many grammatical errors I should be imprisoned.Second of all, I might have sent her the fancified equivalent of…my diary.

Internal screaming begins in my poor skull as I scroll through comments, eyes flicking across lines of thoughts that belonged inside my head, where they should have been taken out back and shot. My heart rate thunders, nausea swelling. An array of curse words join the ballet spinning in my brain, then they take up tap, then they devolve into hiphop.

Finally, both them and my heart screech to a marvelous halt.

Because my eyes land on a comment.

It has highlighted some truly unhinged pining—the sort of obsession a male lead absolutely should seek therapy for—and,yet, it says, “I LOVE HIM. OH MY GRACIOUS. YES. PLEASE.”

Love him.

Love…me?

It quite entirely hurts to swallow, but I manage a flighty breath, pry myself from my desk chair, and drop to the ground in the center of my bedroom. Several pushups later, death seems more attainable than acceptable shoulders, but if I can scam Ceres into falling for my character—at the rawest, most unhinged level—maybe there’s hope.

And if I can’t?

Maybe my shoulders will be at a kidnapping girth by the time I need them to be.

As with most things, it’s my personal belief that preparation is key.

Chapter Fourteen

How am I this bad at people?

Ceres

Mars seems…different. Somehow.

For starters, he knocked. On my door. And now he’s standing on my porch, smiling at me. As though he’s a normal visitor and a regular person. As though he’s never before walked right into my house, unprompted.

It’s been two weeks since we started working on this Flag Day thing together. Two weeks since last I saw him. Even though he told me that he had plannedfrequentcheck-ins to keep him abreast on progress and my schedule reiterates that intent.

“Morning,” he provides, amicably.

Tucked behind my door as though he’s a wild animal ready to pounce, I murmur, “Morning…”

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