Chapter 1 #2
By the time I did finally manage to send off another message, I looked back up to find that Tyler had left me again, stumbling through the crowd in the direction of the dance floor where our other roommates, Ryan and Jacob, were currently grinding on a couple of blondes I thought I vaguely recognized from my organic chemistry class.
Tyler meant well.
I believed that. I really did.
But I still wanted to kill him.
I slumped back down on the bar stool and really wished I’d taken the bartender up on another drink so I’d have something to calm my nerves right now.
He was down at the other end of the bar at the moment, though, so I had nothing to distract me as I stared at my phone and waited for the scary girl’s reply.
When my eyeballs started to feel too dry from all the staring, I realized how dumb I was being. She probably either hadn’t seen the messages yet, or had already blocked my number. A totally valid response, of course.
Unless she really was going to try to report me as some kind of creep?
I broke out in a cold sweat, pretty sure I was overreacting but still totally unable to stop myself from imagining one doomsday scenario after another where my life got flushed down the toilet all because of my drunken roommate’s complete lack of boundaries.
I re-read the messages Tyler and I had sent, trying to put myself in Scary Girl’s shoes.
FRIDAY 11:23 PM
I’ve been a bad, bad boy. Will you come spank me if I promise to call you Mommy and suck on your tits?
FRIDAY 11:26 PM
Hi! Please ignore that. I am SO sorry. It wasn’t from me.
Okay, as apologies went, mine pretty much sucked, but I’d been panicking!
Maybe I should send another message and try to explain a little better?
Before I could decide if that was a good idea or another disaster in the making, she finally replied.
FRIDAY 11:31 PM
A bad, bad boy? Of course it wasn’t you. ;)
Okay. Um, she didn’t sound mad? That was good. But what did the winky face mean?
Did she not believe me?
FRIDAY 11:32 PM
But it really wasn’t me.
FRIDAY 11:33 PM
And that’s exactly what a boy who’s been bad would say, now isn’t it?
I gaped at my phone. Oh my God, she didn’t believe me.
FRIDAY 11:34 PM
No!
I mean, I wouldn’t know?
FRIDAY 11:34 PM
Is that a question?
FRIDAY 11:35 PM
No.
I just
Oh God. She had me so flustered that I hit send too soon. But also, I had no idea what I was trying to say. So maybe I should just admit that?
FRIDAY 11:36 PM
I don’t know.
FRIDAY 11:37 PM
Because you’re a good boy?
My knee started jiggling. This conversation felt like it was running away from me.
But I couldn’t just leave her on read, right? Not when I was the one trying to apologize.
On the other hand, how was I supposed to reply to a question like that? Who even asked something like that?
I typed and deleted some really dumb-sounding things, then finally just went with the truth.
FRIDAY 11:40 PM
I try to be.
She sent back a smiley face. And then—
FRIDAY 11:41 PM
That’s all you can do. I’m proud of you for trying.
I blushed.
Oh God, I was legitimately pathetic. A few words of praise from a stranger—a scary one, according to Tyler—and I was blushing?
At least she’d never know.
FRIDAY 11:42 PM
Thank you.
Wait, had she been being sarcastic?
Shame curdled my stomach, because probably, yeah. Which would have been nice to realize before thanking her.
But then my phone pinged with another reply, and I was back to blushing again.
FRIDAY 11:42 PM
See? So polite. You really are a good boy. ;)
I grinned at my phone stupidly for a minute before my brain finally registered the winky face. The second winky face she’d sent.
“Oh shit,” I breathed out, my grin dropping away.
I was no expert at flirting—the only girls I’d ever dated had asked me out—but that…
that looked a lot like flirting. With a girl Tyler said would terrify me in the bedroom.
One who I may or may not have just given the wrong impression about myself to.
I swallowed hard, then quickly typed out another message.
FRIDAY 11:43 PM
I’m not hitting on you!
Oh wait. Maybe that sounded rude?
FRIDAY 11:44 PM
I just mean that I really was just trying to apologize for that first text, not that someone wouldn’t want to hit on you. Or like, flirt. Just not me. I’m not flirting here. I definitely wouldn’t do that.
Only because I don’t know you, though!
Well, also because she was scary, but I couldn’t say that.
FRIDAY 11:45 PM
I’m sure lots of guys do want to flirt with you, though.
Tyler obviously did!
I’m sorry. I’ll shut up now.
I squeezed my eyes closed, then thunked my head down on the bar.
Oh. My. God. I was pretty sure I’d just made it worse, and she’d just… just let me.
Although maybe that was for the best? Maybe she had finally blocked me, somewhere in the middle of all that.
But no. When I finally got the guts to peek at my phone again, she was typing.
I cringed, pretty sure I didn’t want to read whatever she was about to send.
FRIDAY 11:48 PM
Who’s Tyler?
I stared. Then laughed. Then scrubbed a hand over my face.
Okay. Right. I’d just started blowing up her phone, and she’d been great about it, but she actually had no clue what was going on, did she? She was just a nice person. Or maybe a bored one?
Either way, I definitely needed to explain.
FRIDAY 11:49 PM
Tyler is my roommate. You gave him your number tonight, remember?
The tall ginger? At the club? You wrote it on his arm?
Anyway, he’s the one who sent you that first message, but it was from my phone because…
well, that’s not important, but I felt bad for, like, how it probably came across? That’s not really how I talk to girls.
I mean, women!!! (Sorry.)
So, um, anyway… here we are.
It took a minute for those ones to show read, but finally they did.
And then it took her another minute to reply.
FRIDAY 11:52 PM
Ok, first, you’re adorable, sweetheart. But second, that wasn’t me.
I blinked. What?
FRIDAY 11:53 PM
You didn’t give Tyler your number tonight?
FRIDAY 11:53 PM
I did not. :)
FRIDAY 11:54 PM
But then how did he get it?
She sent back a string of laughing emojis before actually replying.
FRIDAY 11:55 PM
You said your friend got someone’s number at a club…
FRIDAY 11:55 PM
***
FRIDAY 11:56 PM
If alcohol was involved, she may have... written it down wrong. Accidentally or on purpose. ;)
What? Well, that would be rude. Did she seriously think that had happened? Because even if I did kind of want to strangle Tyler for getting me into all this, I was honestly a little offended on his behalf if his scary dominatrix had lied to him like that. And in sharpie.
Another text came through.
FRIDAY 11:57 PM
Or maybe your friend just made a mistake when he put the number into your phone. :)
I blinked. Yeah, that could have happened. And it was definitely better than the first option.
Or… she could be lying right now? Like, it really was her, but now she wanted to get out of hooking up with him?
FRIDAY 11:58 PM
Are you sure you’re not really you?
I got back more laughing emojis, and I blamed the fact that I was still feeling pretty tipsy for how long it took me to realize why she was laughing this time.
Oh God, she must have thought I was a total idiot.
SATURDAY 12:01 AM
I mean, Tyler’s you! You’re not her?
You’re not Tyler’s girl? Wearing all the leather?
Wait, I don’t mean Tyler’s! Not, like, you belong to him. But you’re not the one he was hitting on?
More laughing emojis, followed by—
SATURDAY 12:02 AM
Yes, sweetheart. I’m sure.
SATURDAY 12:02 AM
But… REALLY sure?
SATURDAY 12:03 AM
Really sure. ;)
There was another one of those winky emojis. And now she was calling me “sweetheart,” too? Before I could decide how I felt about that, especially after I’d just told her that I wasn’t flirting, she sent another one.
SATURDAY 12:04 AM
Trust me, if your friend Tyler had asked me to spank him tonight, he would have called me Daddy, not Mommy… and it definitely wouldn’t have been my “tits” he’d be promising to suck on.
I gasped and dropped my phone. Then snatched it right back up and read the message a second time. And then let out an embarrassingly high-pitched squeal when the bartender startled the crap out of me by suddenly appearing out of nowhere to collect my empty glass.
“Want another one?” he shouted over the music.
“Um…”
He must have taken my deer-in-the-headlights impression as a yes, because not even a second later, he slid a full glass across the bar to me.
I mumbled a thank you, cringing inside at the tab I must be running up. That was definitely not going to help my tight budget.
But then I decided I was actually grateful he’d taken the decision out of my hands, because yeah. I kind of did want another drink. Maybe even needed one given that it took me re-reading the scary girl’s last message three more times before finally wrapping my head around what it meant.
She didn’t want to be called Daddy.
Because the wrong number Tyler had put in my phone belonged to a guy.
A guy who kept calling me sweetheart and talked about sucking on…
My stomach twisted up, and I put my phone face down as I squirmed on the bar stool, feeling really freaking weird about the whole thing now.
I mean, it was good that I hadn’t accidentally been sexually harassing some scary dominatrix, and I couldn’t even fault her—I mean, him—for sort of maybe sexually harassing me back, since I’d started it?
Well, Tyler had.
And he—“Daddy,” not Tyler—hadn’t so much been sexually harassing me, I guessed, as just explaining how I’d gotten it all wrong. But what I wasn’t sure about was whether all of that was better or worse than the mess I’d originally thought Tyler had gotten me into.
I picked up my phone and re-read the whole conversation again, then took a sip of my new drink—a huge one that made me choke, then cough so hard tears leaked out of my eyes—before finally deciding on… better.