Maybe: Great day, dear gentleman.
Maybe: Are you there, good sir?
Maybe: I appropriate your time and constipation in this matter.
What in the ever-loving hell is happening right now?
Why is Maybe texting me? Did Evan give her my number too?
And what the hell is she talking about?
Before I can even try to decode the messages, another one comes through.
Maybe: I may be but a mere innocent maiden, but I have desires that flow deeper than deep. I want to jump in your pool water and float on your big noodle raft.
And another.
Maybe: I have a delicate, desiring request to ask of you, good gentle sir.
And then, she drops a fucking bomb.
Maybe: Deflower me, please?
“What the hell?” I question out loud before I can stop myself. Cap’s overly curious gaze moves to my phone.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I say, but I shake my head at the same time. I stare at the screen, trying to make sense of it, but impressive article in Forbes and billion-dollar company or not, I’m coming up blank.
Cap’s curiosity only grows the longer I stare, though, and he moves strategically to try to get a glance. I bend it like fucking Beckham to ensure that doesn’t happen.
“What the fuck, dude?” he questions in near outrage. “What is it?”
“It’s nothing.”
He grins. “That doesn’t look like nothing.”
“Trust me. It’s nothing.”
Nothing I can make sense of and absolutely nothing I’m going to share with Caplin Hawkins.
He holds out his hand. “Let me see.”
“Fuck no.” I lock the screen of my phone and slip it back into my pocket. I may not know what’s going on, but now, while I’m so closely located near the billionaire equivalent of a peeping tom, is not the time to try to figure it out.
“Someone sending you titty pics?” he asks with a grin, and the sheer thought of Evan’s little sister sending me pictures of her breasts has me choking on my own saliva.
“Don’t be a fucking dick.”
“What?” he asks and raises both of his hands in the air like he’s the most innocent, well-mannered man who’s ever lived. “It’s a valid question.”
In Caplin Hawkins’s world, it is.
And, hell, maybe a few years ago, it would’ve been a valid question for me too.
But not now. And not Evan’s little sister.
Good God.
When I get out of the hospital, away from Cap’s prying eyes, and inside the privacy of Sam’s Escalade, I pull out my phone and reread her messages. Instantly, an absurd laugh escapes my lungs when I read the last one.
Deflower me, please?
Maybe Willis is a virgin?
No. I shake my head. Surely, this is just some sort of fun prank…right?
But the simple idea of Maybe, Evan’s little sister, sending out these kinds of text messages, no matter the reason, to random bastards in this city makes my gut churn with discomfort.
I guess it’s a good thing Evan asked me to reach out to her…
I’ll be contacting her sooner rather than later, that’s for damn sure.
Maybe
The sounds of a garbage truck slamming trash cans around startles me awake, and I pop up like a freaking jack-in-the-box to look at the clock.
A bright, glowing, red eleven shines back at me.
Holy moly. It’s already 11:00 a.m.?
Thirty-six hours since my surgery and I’m finally starting to feel like I’m no longer a cast member of The Walking Dead. I’m still a little groggy, but I’m more aware of the real world.
And apparently—and this really is news to me—I’m not dead. What I thought was the lobby for heaven was actually the recovery room, and as it turns out, God does not, in fact, look like Bruce and drive a Hyundai Elantra.
Who would’ve thought a single tooth removal could turn into such a shitshow?
Yesterday, I slept for sixteen hours straight and only woke up to pee, take some meds, and sleep-eat a bowl of vanilla ice cream. Being comatose came in pretty handy though, I can see now, as my mom evidently texted forty times asking me to “rate my pain” on a “scale from one to ten.”
Thankfully, the pain is subsiding, so I make a mental note to switch out this morning’s dose of Vicodin for Tylenol.
I toss my phone down on the pillow of my bed and slide over to the side to put my feet on the floor. My body protests as I drag it off the mattress, but by the time I make it over to my dresser to reread the doctor’s post-op instructions, everything seems to be limbering up. Now that I’m lucid, I can feel a layer of filth from the trauma covering my skin, so I make my way into the bathroom to gargle with some salt water and wash my face.
One glance at my reflection and I startle like that possessed chick from Paranormal Activity is living inside my mirror.
Holy mother of dragons. I touch my image cautiously. I look like shit warmed over.