Page 7 of Roughing the Princess

“Not interested.”

“But I think if you…”

I kicked Mav under that table.

“Ow.” He said and grabbed his leg. “Don’t hit me so close to my knees. You know a busted knee is my greatest fear. And it almost happened.”

“I barely tapped you. And you bruised your knee years ago. Give it a rest.”

He shuddered. “Not the knees, man.”

“To healthy knees. And another season where we railroad everyone.” I lifted up my glass.

“Here’s to that.” Jasper lifted his glass.

Mav lifted his glass too. “To a third ring.”

We tapped our glasses and I was about to take a sip when my phone buzzed in my pocket.

I set my glass down and pulled out my phone. I had a text from an unknown number. Just one line: “Hey. I heard you wanted a word?” My heart started racing as I stared at the text.No fucking way.

“What is it?” Jasper asked. He took a sip of his beer.

I showed him my phone. “Do you think…”

Jasper spit out his beer. “It’s Tova!”

“Calm down.” I grabbed a napkin and put it down on the mess he’d just made.

“It could literally be anyone,” Mav said. “It’s more likely a stalker that somehow found your number.”

“Dude,” Jasper said. “You gotta believe. Wait, hold on.” He pulled out his phone and smiled. “It’s definitely her. Because look at what’s all over the internet. He showed me a picture of myself from outside the bar flipping the bird to the camera.

“What does that prove?” I asked.

“That she loves mustache rides like I fucking told you.”

I laughed.

“I mean, what are the odds that she texts youtonight? After over a week of having your number and giving you the cold shoulder? She saw the stache, man. Text her back.”

“We don’t know if it’s actually her,” Mav said.

But what if it was? “I got it.” I quickly wrote out a text and showed them.

Mav scanned the message. “You can’t just flat out ask her if it’s her. Be cool.”

“Right.” I deleted the text and then just wrote: “Who is this?”

“Perfect,” Jasper said. “It makes it seem like you haven’t been checking your phone every two seconds for over a week.

“I haven’t been.”

“Haven’t you though?”

I ignored him and hit send.

Those little dots showing that she was texting back appeared. The three of us all leaned over my phone as her next text came through: “Your worst nightmare, Talon.”

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