Page 18 of The Proposal
“See ya,” I say.
I empty the water bottle and then toss it in the garbage.I need to stop with the single-use plastics. I also need a shower—and a blow job, but that looks out of the question.
Irritated, I head toward my room. I pull my phone out of my pocket and check my texts.
Ripley: You didn’t wind up with my sunglasses in your bags, did you? The ones with the gold frames that I wore to the concert.
Me: Nope. Did you ask Tate? It would be a very Tate thing to wind up with your glasses.
Ripley: Funny. He said the same thing about you.
I roll my eyes, bumping my room door shut with my hip.
Ripley: Remember Carly from the Beau McCrae after-party?
Me: I’m bad with names.
Ripley: Of course. Let me try again. Red hair. Ginormous ass. Black leather skirt. Hung out with us for a while.
Oh, yeah. I grin.
Me: Turns out I’m great with adjectives.
Ripley: Well, she wants your number. Said she hit you up on Social but didn’t know if you’d ever see it.
Me: I never check that shit. It’s a sea of sharks.
I move away from the text app and open Social instead.
Ripley: I figured.
My eyes bulge at the number of unread messages in my account.
Me: The last time I responded to a girl on Social, it cost me a cease & desist.
Ripley:
“There was nothing funny about that,” I mumble, hitting my profile picture. I find my followers list and click it. My stomach swirls as I type in Blakely’s name.
Ripley: So, Carly? Yes or no on the number?
Blakely Evans follows you.
“That’s my girl.” I open her profile page, entirely too satisfied by this revelation. “Holy fucking shit. Why have I never looked at this before?”
Each picture provides a deeper insight into her world.
I sit on the edge of my bed and swipe through her posts. Blakely with Ella. A stack of books—romances, maybe. A cup of coffee. Blakely with Brock when they were younger, posted with a story about Christmas morning.
Ripley: Don’t ignore me, asshole.
Me: I’m busy.
I type Tate’s name in the search bar. Once I’m on his profile, I ignore the plethora of shirtless images and click on his followers.
Ripley: So that’s a no to Carly?
I growl, going back to the texts.
