Page 53 of Dash of Bryce
And now, I was finding it nearly impossible to play it cool. So here I was, acting like a lovestruck ninny, waiting for a call that would probably never come.
But then, maybe thirty minutes later, the phone not only rang, but rang a second time when I fumbled my first attempt at answering.
This time, I answered so quickly, it barely rung at all.
See, I never learned anything.
Chapter 26
Bryce
A two-hour delay, and she actually answered.
Was I surprised?
Hell, yeah.
AndI was impressed.From the start, I'd known this girl was different.
To her breathless hello, I said, "Hey, sorry about that. The guys hit a sewer line and made one hell of a mess. We had to get the city to send out a crew."
"Oh." She paused. "Yeah, thatdoessound messy."
"It was," I confirmed. "And you wanna hear the worst of it?"
She laughed. "Worse than sewage?"
"It was tome," I said. "Like a dumb-ass, I left my phone at the house when I ran over there to check it out." I smiled into the phone. "And Icould'vecome back to get it, except I didn't want to track any muck into the house. And you wanna know why?"
"Why?"
"Because of my landlord. She's hotter than hell, but a little crazy."
She snickered. "Oh, so I'm crazy now?"
"Don't forget hot."
"Yeah, right."
"No joke," I said. "And as far as the crazy – trust me, youwould'vebeen if I'd tracked that stuff into your house."
She hesitated. "Are you sure you didn't?"
Her concern made me smile, not because I wanted to see her in distress, but because it was vintage Harper. She was no slacker when it came to taking care of her stuff.
"Positive," I said. "But the entire lot was a mess. Somebody gave us the wrong schematics, but that's the city for you. Anyway, I ditched my boots on the front porch, and I'm not goinganywhereuntil I shower and change."
"Smart plan."
"Speaking of plans," I said. "You were saying something about me coming over?"
She paused for a long moment. "I was but…"
I waited, figuring this was the point where she'd tell me that she'd made other plans in the meantime.Maybe it would be true. Maybe it wouldn't.Either way, it would send me the right message – that she wasn't the type of girl to wait around.
It had been a while since I'd dated anyone new, but I knew well enough how the game was supposed to be played. This might've been fine except for one problem.
I hated games.
