Flirting with the Frenemy (Bro Code #1)(9)

“Yeah. Us either.”

Wyatt and Ellie, sitting in a tree. A-W-K-W-aaaarrrr-ding!

“Great. I’m actually leaving in…” Shit.

My phone.

I don’t have a phone.

I can drive. I’ve been driving again for two months. In a new hybrid car with more airbags than a bagpipe convention and sensors everywhere because other than refusing to drive a gas-guzzling tank, I didn’t have it in me to argue when Beck decided it was his job to make sure I had every safety feature known to man, including the freaking color of car least likely to be in a car accident.

Except the one feature none of us thought I’d need—internal satellite phone support.

I’ll always have my phone, which has a voice assistant, and that’s plenty good enough, we all agreed.

I don’t drive without a phone.

And I can’t call Monica—or Grady, my date for the week—because I don’t have a phone.

Fuck. Dammit.

If I don’t show up for dinner and the parade tonight, she’ll send someone up here to find me, because that’s exactly what I’d do if she was my maid of honor and she didn’t show up for a planned event on my itinerary when I knew she was still a little jumpy driving and that she had to come down off a mountain to get there because she desperately needed space from a certain other member of the bridal party and therefore wasn’t doing the easy thing and spending the week at the Inn.

I didn’t tell her I was bringing Grady as my plus-one, just that I was bringing a date, so she won’t know she can go to a local for help.

And the only person in the wedding party other than Monica who knows the backroads up the mountain is Patrick.

I flinch at the thought of his name, because while Wyatt was happy to tell me we shouldn’t have done that, at least he didn’t proclaim to love me with all his heart first.

And at least he didn’t bring his smart, skinny, beautiful new girlfriend along for the week.

That would be even better.

Look, Ellie, everyone but you is worthy of love. You couldn’t even get a fake date without asking four guys first.

I need to get off this mountain.

And get to that dinner.

I turn to head to the kitchen—Beck might have a spare phone in his junk drawer, not because he thinks of things like spare phones, but because he’s unpredictable and just when you think he’s completely irresponsible, he pulls out a spare cell phone—and for a moment, I forget that my hip doesn’t like to move that fast.

My knee buckles, but I catch myself on the end table before I go all the way down.

Wyatt’s crossing the room before I can think boo, but I hold a hand up. “Foot fell asleep,” I lie.

Those gray eyes bore into me, and his full lips go flat. Between the military haircut, the square jaw, the broad shoulders, and that glare, I feel like I should offer to drop and give him twenty.

And no, I don’t want to talk about what the combination is doing to my libido. My body doesn’t get a vote in this.

It did last time, and that didn’t end so well.

And I’m not talking about the accident.

I straighten myself and make my way more slowly to the kitchen.

If he notices the limp, he doesn’t comment.

If he notices the go away message I’m trying to send him telepathically, he also doesn’t comment.

Or go away.

“What do you need?” he asks, and I get another shiver, like he’s not asking what I’m looking for in the drawer, but what my soul needs.

I jerk my head toward the island, where my phone is in a bag of rice.

“Ah. Did you take the SIM card out?”

“Yes, Wyatt, I know enough to know to take the SIM card out.”

“Right. Of course you do,” he mutters. “You need to call someone?”

I instantly feel like a jerk, because we’re not kids fighting over the right way to shoot a free throw or kick a soccer ball anymore, and we’re not whoever the hell we were six months ago when he was home for Christmas and Patrick had just dumped me and he’d just gotten a horrific divorce settlement and we were both miserable enough to think we could drown ourselves in meaningless sex between two people who hated each other.

A lot’s changed since then.

Mostly me.

“I’m meeting friends in town.” I move aside a hand squeezer, fingernail clippers, a set of cards with Beck’s picture on them, condoms, and taco sauce packets, among other things, but I’m not finding any spare phones.

Beck changes his number on occasion, and because he’s Beck, I’m pretty sure he forgets to cancel his old contracts, but if he has any spare active cell phones, they aren’t in this drawer.

I should keep a burner phone up here.

“You lost your keys?” Wyatt says.

“I need a phone.”

There’s a pause, then a heavy, “Oh.”

And now there’s also this gigantic guilt giraffe standing in the kitchen, leaning all up in my space.

“Not that it matters, because I don’t know anyone’s fucking number,” I mutter as I realize my other problem.

“You want a lift?” he asks. “Tucker wants to see the parade.”

I open my mouth to tell him that’s not necessary, except…it kinda is.