Page 21 of Thirst Trap
9
Jake
Whitley:At a thing. Will call you later.
I don’t know how many times I’ve read that text over.
Does she mean it? Is this her polite way of telling me to fuck off? How long is later? What is a thing? Is she on a date?
I head into my kitchen to grab a beer—anything to kill time as I wait for Whitley to, or maybe not, call me back.
Maybe my text was too much? Should I have kept it more casual? Should I have called her sweetness? Just saying, “can we talk?” felt so impersonal. Especially when I’m trying to gauge if she hates me.
I take a hefty pull of my beer. I’m not this guy. I’m not the guy who agonizes over what to say to a woman on a text message. Or the guy who doesn’t leave his phone as to not miss a call.
Yes, my attempt in seventh grade of impressing Missy Fisher didn’t work, but I’d have to say that since then, my luck with women has improved. Slightly. I’m not Knox, the guy who can walk into a room and have any woman he wants. I’m also not Trent, the man who needs a whole bottle of liquid courage and a wingman to approach someone he’s interested in.
Then there is me. I’m the guy who has no problem approaching women, but somehow, I find my way into the friend zone so quickly I never had a chance. One woman I dated said that I was “so easy to talk to, it was like chatting with one of her girlfriends.”
That’s not what you want to hear from a woman you’re trying to sleep with.
I think that’s partly why I take every dare I do—especially ones involving women. I don’t want to be seen as the friend. I want to be seen as the guy who takes risks—the guy who is a little dangerous. The guy they want to know more about.
The guy who will give you a lap dance when he doesn’t even know your name.
The vibration of my phone almost makes me jump out of my seat. I look and see her name on my screen, yet I can’t make myself answer. If she hates me, this is going to be the last time I ever talk to her again.
But if she doesn’t…
I take one last deep breath and hit the green button. “Hello?”
“Hey, cowboy.”
That’s not the greeting of someone who hates me. At least, I don’t think.
“I told you I’m not a cowboy.”
“Semantics.”
I can’t help but smile, the sound of her voice an immediate balm to my nerves.
“Thanks for calling.”
“Should I ask how you got my phone number? Or did you use your super policeman skills to look me up?”
I smile at the teasing in her voice. “A good police officer never reveals his process.”
“Betsy gave it to you, didn’t she?”
I laugh. “A good police officer also never reveals his informants.”
“So, she’ll give you my number, but she won’t show me the video. Some best friend she is.”
Did she just say what I think she said? I figured that she had seen it after Betsy sent that message.
“You haven’t seen the video? That was actually why I was calling.”
“Oh, I thought maybe…”
