The Arrangement

I noticed this last message was a little different. It was within the same conversation, only this one came from Burke.

That part sent a couple of butterflies fluttering through my stomach.

Yeah, right.

I clicked a few buttons and looked up the laughing emojee. God, I hated emojees. But I used it anyway:

::laughing::

Yeah, sure! See you there.

It was still fun, still flirty. Right? Only now, for some reason, my heart was beating a lot faster.

Hey — you were the one who teased them, Kayleen.

I guess I had. In retrospect I’d even started it. Now they’d gotten the best of me, teasing me right back. One-upping me on my own dumb flirty bullshit, which only—

We’re serious.

The message stopped me in my tracks. Two little words. Two tiny words with all the impact of a runaway freight train.

I went to type again, then stopped. Hesitated. Sat there for another minute, with the phone in my lap. Then, after another half-minute of silence, another message appeared:

Are you?

Serious? Serious? Of course I wasn’t serious! I was just playing along, doing the text-message thing. Flirting and laughing and having some sexy little fun, only maybe the guys had taken me a little more seriously than I was taking myself.

Or maybe…

Or maybe they were only bluffing. Having some fun with me.

Do you call them out on it?

I could. That part was easy, of course. But if it was an obvious bluff, why was my stomach all twisted in knots? And where the hell did this lump in my throat suddenly come from?

Weasel out backwards? Or call their hand?

For once, I didn’t know what to do.

They are bluffing… right?

In a snap decision I grabbed the phone. My fingers moved faster than my brain could even think.

Fine. Friday night, Eight o’clock.

And there had better be wine.

The phone suddenly seemed foreign to me. Like it wasn’t mine. Like it had a life of its own, and had typed the message all by itself.

It was Nathan who wrote back this time. Apparently he was monitoring the conversation also:

LOL, you already know what

we have here. You buy our wine.

That part made me smile. He had somewhat of a point. I hammered out one final message, then tossed the phone to the other side of the couch:

I’m talking about good wine.