Chapter 27
GEORGE
I am up bright and early, ready to get down to it with Sebastian. Or at least aware that I need to because it’s two days before Christmas and Anabel will notice if I don’t, in fact, turn in a manuscript three weeks from now.
I never heard back from Owen last night. Which is fine. Obviously.
He certainly doesn’t owe me a play-by-play of what happened with Zoe after I let him know she was Listicling him.
Okay. I’m dying to know what happened.
And… well, he texted me yesterday, right? I mean, I’d been trying to keep it to email because I didn’t want to overstep.
Except giving the guy a full walking tour map right after he complained about Zoe’s itinerary was possibly the definition of overstepping.
But he seemed to like the walking tour, so I’m ignoring that. Anyway, now he’s texted me, so I think it’s fair game. Right?
Oh goddamn it, I should not be worrying about this. I should be writing an elaborately staged kidnapping scene with a sexy double agent and a private jet.
I sit at the table. I open my laptop. I sip my coffee.
Fuck it.
I grab my phone.
George
What happened? (Are you up? Please be up. Did I wake you? Sorry I woke you. WHAT HAPPENED?)
I hit send and watch my words pop up in a new bubble. I was going for “comically excited,” but on reread, I’m pretty sure I just hit “neurotic” and “too much time on his hands.”
I am already concocting a story about how the text was meant for someone else.
Not Zoe, obviously. Who the hell else do I text?
Screw it, I could just make someone up. I am already writing the text, scrambling for a name.
Marco Valenti, maybe? He was a minor character in the last Steele book. Would Owen know that?
But then three little bouncing dots appear.