Page 30 of Mr. Hook-up

I really thought about her question.

In my mind, Love was her name, and it fit for so many reasons.

But if she gave me hers, I would have to give her mine, and a quick Google search would show her all the recent articles written about my best friends and me since Hooked had exploded. Being a cofounder of this app was a conversation I didn’t want to have now or over the phone. It was a talk that needed to happen in person. The last thing I needed was for her to think I’d targeted her somehow or that I’d manipulated the match results.

“I want it when I see you again,” I told her. “When I can hold you in my arms and look into your eyes and process what I’ll now be calling you. It’s going to be hard to give up Love when that couldn’t be more perfect for you.”

“You don’t have to give it up, just like I’ll forever call you Mr.Boston ... as long as that’s okay?”

“Of course.”

“Good. I love that. Now after you say my real name, what would you do next?”

“I’d whisper something ...”

“I’m afraid to know what those words would be.”

My eyes finally opened, showing the large building was up ahead, but our arrival wasn’t the reason I smiled. “Don’t be.”

CHAPTER NINE

“Are you trying to win a contest?” Holden asked.

His question, which broke the silence in the room, startled me. I shook my head, glancing away from the screen of my laptop to look at him, both of his palms pressed against the top of his light-brown, shaggy hair. “What are you talking about?”

“That’s the longest I’ve ever seen anyone smile.” He nodded toward me. “You’re going on twelve minutes straight. I’ve timed you. And you do realize that, within those minutes, you haven’t moved, you’ve barely breathed—you’re just sitting there with your fingers on your keyboard, smiling. What the hell is going on?”

I was on the floor of our living room, my laptop on the coffee table in front of me. But he was right: my hands had been frozen on the keyboard, my whole body still.

Love was dominating my thoughts.

Not just the obvious need of wanting to be with her again, but a recap of the conversations we’d had lately. The one about the coffee shop and her lack of chasing me, something that still stung. Along with the talk we’d had about whether I was married to Boston and the answer I’d given so quickly.

The answer that had been nagging me since I’d said it.

I couldn’t help but consider what would happen if I did move out of this city.

If I should be more open to the idea, even if it wasn’t possible. But something about Love made me consider possibilities I never had before.

I pulled my fingers away and clasped them in my lap. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“Good things, obviously. Feel like sharing?”

Grayson came in, eating a sandwich, half the meat falling out the back of the bread while he took a bite. “What are we talking about?”

“Why Easton has been smiling for the last twelve minutes,” Holden said to him.

“That’s some impressive shit right there,” Grayson said. “But that’s not the first time he’s done that. I saw him the other day, gazing out the living room window, looking all flushed and heart eyed, like an emoji I would never use. It’s pretty obvious that motherfucker is already married to Love.”

I slid away from the table until my back hit the base of the recliner, and that was where I stayed. “I’m thinking about her a lot, I’m not going to lie.”

“What’s the deal with you two?” Grayson took a seat beside Holden on the couch, wiping the mustard off his lip. “I know you guys hooked up at the masquerade party. You’ve been talking a shit ton. Now what?”

I took a deep breath and swallowed. “I don’t know. I guess we’re just seeing where things go. We haven’t been able to meet up again. Something is always getting in the way of that. But we’re still talking and texting a lot.”

Holden smiled, the whites of his teeth gleaming from the sun that came in through the window. “You like her.”

I groaned, knowing Grayson was going to unload several rounds of bullshit I didn’t want to listen to, but there was no reason to deny what my best friends already knew.

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