Accidental Tryst (Charleston #1)(19)

No.

I wouldn't.

That would be nosey. Snooping. A violation of privacy. It was none of my business. Besides, we lived in different cities. What would be the point? I swallowed, disappointed that my good side had won this round.

I opened his phone and looked for a restaurant app of some kind that was location-based. Nothing looked promising on the first page, and I did well to ignore the dating apps with notifications pending. There was a crypto-currency tracker, a foreign currency exchange app, a jogging app, chess (interesting), Words with Friends (obviously), all the social media apps (except Facebook which was a weird omission). "Ooooo," I cooed out loud. "A Kindle app." I'd be back to that later.

God, his text messages buzzing in every few minutes were getting annoying.

I kept searching, checking each folder I saw.

He was quite good at keeping his apps organized, unlike me. Then I saw Yelp. Ahhh. I pulled up a list of nearby restaurants looking for anything that had at least three stars and published their menus. Call me cautious, but I didn't feel like ending up getting sick on top of everything I had to deal with. On my own phone, I had a gluten-free restaurant tracker that listed restaurants that catered to special eaters like me, either with a gluten-free menu or easy to modify items. The most appealing place I could find was about a twenty-minute walk. A quick check behind the curtains and through the window thick with a coating of pollution showed me it was dark and still raining in sheets.

I looked around by the entry, but there was no umbrella.

I'd have to pop across the road to the little corner store I'd seen and at least buy some nuts and a piece of fruit if they had any.

I grabbed some cash, and the key, put my flip flops on, and opened the front door. I splashed through a disgusting two inches of water and climbed the slick steps. I was soaked in seconds. I shouldn't have bothered to shower after yoga.

Thank goodness the store was open, though tiny. I snagged two bananas, a small carton of Greek yoghurt, two bottles of water, and a bag of peanuts. Not exactly satisfying, but it would have to do for dinner and breakfast.

I splashed back across the road and descended into the small warm tomb. I stripped down and climbed back into a hot shower, then pulled on my favorite pineapple sleep shorts and a cami. Hanging my wet clothes up, I then settled in on the couch and ate a banana while trying to read my current book on my Kindle, a new series about hot astronauts by Brenna Aubrey. At least I didn't have to worry about work. I'd already put together our presentation deck for the pitch on Friday when I was back.

Trystan's phone buzzed again, and my eyes rolled as I saw yet another female name. You busy tonight?

The urge to respond on his behalf was overwhelming. But I forced my mind back to my book.

He definitely dated women. But there were a few texts from guys too. Hard to guess if they were romantic though. Maybe just one peek at his dating app profiles, I told myself as I opened his phone.

"Ugh, what are you doing?" I asked the empty room and put his phone down. What was wrong with me?

My book. I searched the page for where I was in the story. At least he had his laptop with him so he could get online, check emails, and even watch Netflix. Basically he could have a life. I had this huge pressing problem I needed to deal with and I could do nothing about it till I got home, had access to my computer, and got my phone back.

At the very least I could look at the list of nursing homes back in South Carolina and see if I'd missed one that might be farther out, more reasonable and also dealt with dementia. I opened his phone and went to the web browser. There were a few pages open already: ESPN, the New York Islanders homepage, and Ticketmaster. What was he buying tickets for, I wondered? I opened it and saw he was looking at dates for next year’s Coldplay tour. Huh. Well, at least he had good taste in music.

I opened a new page and searched nursing homes in South Carolina. Somewhere no more than three hours away from Charleston. That way I might be able to get there and back in a day.

The phone buzzed in my hand and another text appeared at the top of the screen. Another woman. I had fun the other night. Repeat?

Ugh. He must be bored out of his mind having my phone. No one called me except my boss, David incessantly, Armand, and my good friend, Annie, of course. But Annie was a new mother, my godson was two months old, and she knew I was spending the next few days with David so I doubted she'd call.

I wondered if perhaps I should join some dating apps. I'd tried a few last year, but for some reason when people saw my profile picture something about it screamed dominatrix. There were so many weird messages with coded questions that I was too scared to google on my work laptop in case they were gross. I had to get Annie to decipher and research, and yes, they were gross. It made me never want to try online dating ever again. And you had to get past the fact most men used fake profile photos, one even used Chris Martin from Coldplay, I mean, please.

But even worse, most of the people who messaged me were open about the fact they had significant others, they were just looking to be spanked on their lunch breaks. It was hard to look at society the same way again. I gave a little shudder in remembrance.

Though looking at Trystan's phone, dating apps clearly worked for some people. I hovered over an app called Whirl. It had 3 pending notifications.

I bit my lip. Was I really going to do this?

I dropped my thumb and touched the app. It opened.

I told myself I'd only have a quick look. I'd never seen this app; I just wanted to see what it was about. How it worked . . .