Page 13 of Roughing the Princess

And then there was a pretty big time gap before she texted one more time:

“Seriously, I hate you.”

I smiled and texted her back. “So you did watch, huh?”

“I happened to have the game on in the background. Don’t make it weird.”

“You loved my touchdown dance, right?”

“No, I hate you.”

“Stop saying that. You know you love me.” I pressed send and then realized what I’d just typed.Fuck.I stood up from the bench.What the fuck did I just say to her?

Every time I mentioned meeting up or video chatting or anything besides texting she ghosted me for hours. And now I’d just dropped the L bomb. I read my text again. At least I hadn’t told her I loved her. I probably never would have heard from her again. This was just a joking text. Clearly it was just a joke.

But she still didn’t respond.

Fuck me.I tossed my phone back into my bag.

“Women troubles?” Jasper asked as he pulled on some clean clothes.

“Nope.” I tried my best not to talk about Tova with Jasper and Mav. The last thing I wanted was to give them more fuel for their jokes. Or for Jasper to bring this up on our podcast again.

“Have the two of you started sexting yet?” Jasper asked.

I mean…kind of. But I was pretty sure that was one sided. She hadn’t even sent me more pictures. I just kept scrolling up to the one of her in that t-shirt. It did things to me.

“You better be careful,” Mav said and sat down on the other side of me. “You’re toeing the line of getting friendzoned.”

“Tova isn’t friend-zoning me.”

Mav shrugged.

“She’s not,” I said more forcefully.

“So are the two of you dating then?” Jasper asked.

Not yet. But we would be. “She just got out of a really long relationship. She’s not looking for anything serious.” We actually hadn’t talked much about that. All I knew was that it didn’t work out with her ex. And I hadn’t pressed it because I wanted to make her laugh. Not cry. But I was curious about where she thought this was going. I knew what I wanted. I’d known what I wanted for a really long time. Her.

“Mav’s right,” said Jasper. “You’re about to be put in the friendzone.”

I laughed. “Definitely not.”

Jasper stared at me like he wasn’t convinced. “So when are the two of you meeting up then? In person?”

“Soon,” I said.

“Her tour ends in a couple weeks, right?” Mav asked.

“Yeah.”

“Good. She’ll have a lot more free time once it’s over in September.”

I stared at him. “Why do you know so much about her schedule?”

He shrugged. “I was just curious about who my friend is dating. Or not dating. Since you’re in the friendzone.” He high-fived Jasper.

I knew they were just messing with me. But their words went round and round in my head.Friendzone.I didn’t want to be fucking friendzoned.

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