Mr. Wrong Number(65)
“Nice to meet you both.” She stood, and I saw my grandmother’s eyes roam over Livvie’s dirty sweater and the hole in her tights. She shook both of their hands and said to my granddad around a smile, “I see where Colin gets his great hair.”
My grandfather laughed and teased her about how the women in our family were responsible for turning it silver, and though my grandmother smiled, I could tell Olivia’s disheveled state had captured her full attention.
“We’ll let you get back to your dinner, dear.” She patted my hand and said, “Come by the house this week.”
“I will.”
As soon as they walked away, Olivia said out of the side of her mouth, “Your grandma definitely noticed the paw prints on my sweater.”
I shrugged and picked up the lowball glass of whiskey that reminded me I still owed Nick a bottle of scotch. “Who cares?”
Her eyebrows crinkled together. “You’re very mellow tonight, Beck.”
“Maybe it’s all the sex I’ve been getting lately. Makes me super chill.”
She rolled her eyes while laughing and pushed back her chair. “I’ll be right back, weirdo.”
After she disappeared our food came, and just as the waiter was filling her wineglass, my phone lit up.
It was Olivia.
Texting Wrong Number.
From the ladies’ room.
Olivia: I need to talk to you. Can I call you later?
I double-checked that my phone was on silent and put it in my pocket. What in the hell? She was out with me but thinking about Nick? Texting Nick from the bathroom?
I knew Mr. Wrong Number wasn’t an actual person and that Nick wasn’t attached to the number, but my gut burned at the thought of her wanting to talk to him.
Olivia
I rubbed my lips together and put the gloss back in my purse. I felt better now that I’d put Mr. Wrong Number on notice, and now I could go enjoy the rest of the night without feeling so guilty.
Because from the second Colin had grabbed my hand by the elevators at our building, I’d felt like a snake. Nothing was going on with Mr. Wrong Number, but it felt wrong to have a secret textual relationship that he didn’t know about.
The truth of the matter was that even though Colin might just be a “fun fling,” if he were doing the same thing—if he had his own Misdial who he talked to on the regular—well . . . that would not be okay with me.
Even though technically we’d never talked about exclusivity.
I was sad to lose Mr. Wrong Number because he’d really meant a lot to me since I’d come back to Omaha, but the combination of the no chemistry with Nick and the out-of-this-world chemistry with Colin left me without any doubt that it was the right thing to do.
Before leaving the bathroom, I scrubbed the paw prints off my skirt and sweater and removed my tights, tossing them into the garbage can.
Done and done.
When I got back to the table, Colin’s eyes dipped down to my legs and he smiled. There was something about the way he noticed little things—my missing tights, how early I liked to eat dinner—that made me feel like I mattered to him.
Even if only temporarily.
Colin seemed a little quieter when I came back. He was still charming and entertaining, but I felt like something was a little off.
Maybe he didn’t get along with his grandparents and seeing them had upset him.
Maybe he was embarrassed that they’d seen him with a girl who looked like she’d been dumpster diving. I wanted to break this weird feeling, so when we got in the car, I turned toward him in my seat.
“Okay. Question. Did you ever think about me before I moved in with you guys?”
He gave me a weird look out of the corner of his eye. “What?”
I giggled and looked out the window. “Let me give you an example. Even though I hated you because you were a jerk, there was a time your senior year when you crashed at our house. I had to go into Jack’s room at like five in the morning, looking for my charger, and there you were.”
He glanced over at me and just shook his head slowly.
“You were sound asleep on the air mattress, wearing just your boxers, and, well, this klutzy nerd about had a heart attack.”
He slid into one of his deep chuckles that warmed me from the inside. He squinted his eyes at me and said, “You little pervert!”
“Guilty. I can still remember exactly what those plaid boxers looked like.” I grinned. “Now you go.”
“Not a chance.” He hit the blinker and slowed as he merged onto the east ramp. “I plead the Fifth.”
“Oh, come on—give me something. There wasn’t one tiny moment of attraction in all of our years?”
“Not doing this,” he laughed.
“Well.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Now I wish I hadn’t been quite so forthcoming with mine.”
He tilted his head and laid on the gas, making me smile as that slinky little car moved forward like it’d been shot out of a cannon. He said, “Okay, well, remember when you got kicked out of the dorms?”
“I still have nightmares about those fire sprinklers.” I turned in my seat and said, “Wait—did you think I was hot when you came over for dinner?”
“Settle your ass down.” He grinned at me and then looked back at the road. “When I came over to your house for dinner, there were two things about you that I’ve always remembered. One, college turned you into the most incredible smart-ass. You finally had a comeback for all the shit I threw your way.”