Bait (Wake, #1)(29)

“He's fun to talk to,” I said shrugging as I leaned over toward my dad and returned my phone to my pocket.

“What does he do for a living?” What a dad question to ask.

“He's a brewer. He works for Bay Brewing Company. He actually just got promoted or something and he's doing sales for them. I think he's worked there a long time.” I tried to remember more of our conversation from the night at HLS, when he told me I was drinking his beer, but I wasn't paying close enough attention to what he was telling me. I was too busy watching his lips move and imagining what they’d feel like flush against my…well, everything.

The sun started to make its way to the opposite side of the field and I had to pull my sunglasses down from my hair and wear them.

Finally my dad said, “I always wanted to brew my own beer.” He smiled. He didn't push or pry, but I could see so many unasked questions in his expression. “Sounds like a cool guy.”

“Very cool,” I said before I thought better of it.

His head snapped to me and I gave a terrible fake impression of a smile.

“Not cooler than me, though.”

“No. Of course. You're the coolest man I know.”

“Good. You're the coolest girl I know.”

My faux-smile transformed into the real thing. I swelled with pride. “You think I'm cool?” I laughed and leaned forward to grab the beer I'd set on the cement between my feet.

He winked. “As far as women go, yeah. You're cool.”

“Cooler than Mom?”

A mischievous smile crept across his face. He adored my mom, but I was his baby girl. This was a true test.

“Let's just say you have more cool than her on account of your genetics. It's only logical that you're doubly cool because of your parents. I guess that makes you lucky, too.” My dad, so witty.

He leaned over and gave me a kiss in my hair and said, “Be good, Blake.”

He said it at the right time for it to imply he didn't want me trying to throw my mom under the bus, but I know he meant be a good girl and not a cheater or I'd lose my cool card.

Oh. Wait. I already had. In that moment I felt like telling him everything. The whole story, but I didn't have the nerve. The feeling like I'd lied to my dad for the first time burdened me.

It was the friends terminology that made it false, deep down I realized that we weren't just friends.





Sunday, June 29, 2008


THERE WAS NO FUCKING way we were going to be just friends.

Number one, my dick didn't get hard when I text my friends. Number two, my dick didn't get hard when I simply thought about texts with my friends. Number three, I rarely asked my friends for naked pictures. Especially when they were in a relationship.

Me: Just one?

Honeybee: You're out of your goddamned mind!

Me: LOL You're right.

Me: If you're going to send one, then you might as well send two. What was I thinking? I'm a silly man.

Honeybee: I'm not sending you a picture of my underwear drawer.

Me: Prude. I bet it's so organized. You're a freak aren't you?

Honeybee: If preferring perfect rows for my G-string, satin thongs makes me a freak then...

Okay. Our texts had escalated.

She was so funny. Seriously, the weirdest person I'd ever had the pleasure of meeting, but I couldn't get enough. She ate mustard on her tacos. She didn't like her look. Her term was geek-chic. She couldn't sleep with socks on. Actually, she'd prefer to never wear them. She never remembered to charge her damn phone. She had both terrible and also a generous amount of self-esteem, it just depended on the subject. On the flip side, she was more competitive than any man I'd ever met and was convinced that she could beat anyone at anything. She was a walking, talking contradiction.

Me: That wasn't fair. We were texting about your tidiness. Don't change the subject. Your brain is always in the gutter.

Me: Am I gonna have to block you?

Oh, and she wound up like a clock. She was stubborn and her temper was fascinating. The strangest things got her feathers ruffled.

We were texting about ketchup and she swore and pulled the “I'm a trained f*cking chef card” when she argued that it had to be refrigerated. I think she almost blocked me for real when I made her send me a picture of where it said that it needed to be refrigerated after opening. She couldn't and she was pissed about it. I had to remind her that I didn't invent ketchup and that she needed to contact them. In reality, some ketchup said it and some didn't.

But she would back down eventually. That was my favorite part.

Honeybee: I have to go to sleep. I'm going into the office tomorrow. It's my first day. I want to be coherent. I'm not staying up late texting with you again tonight. Don't you sleep?

Me: You don't have to text. I told you. Send me pictures.

Me: Or call.

I'd asked her to call me almost every night, but she never would. She said that friends didn't talk in bed. I had to, of course, remind her of the friendly things we'd already done in a bed and that talking on the telephone was a much lesser offense.

She got mad. Went radio silent. Then text me the next day that her phone had died. It was quite predictable.

Honeybee: Goodnight, Casey.

Me: It was. Anything else?