Life's Too Short (The Friend Zone #3)(20)

She looked at me, dead serious. “Let me see it. You don’t have any dick pics. What’s the problem?”

I grinned. “Okay. Let me see yours.”

She shrugged. “Fine. Whatever. But no deleting anything first. We hand them over and whatever’s in there is in there. No filter.”

“Okay.” I unlocked my screen and handed it to her.

She grabbed at it excitedly. But then she froze and clutched it to her chest. “Wait, why aren’t you nervous?”

I cocked an eyebrow. “Because there’s nothing in there you can’t see.”

She narrowed her eyes. “This feels suspicious. Is this your burner phone?”

I laughed. “No. What kind of guys do you date that you think I need a burner phone?”

“I told you, I don’t date. I just find it awfully odd that you’re not sweating bullets right now.”

“Because there are no dick pics in there. Like I said.” I put my hand out for her phone.

She gave me a long, hard, playful glare and then slapped her cell into my palm.

We both went quiet looking at each other’s phones.

Vanessa’s cell was like the digital version of her. Nothing but fun. It was bejazzled in pink rhinestones with a sparkly PopSocket on the back. Her home screen was a picture of Grace wearing a little beanie with teddy bear ears.

Mine was the opposite. Black, functional, and with a stock lock screen. And I meant what I said. There was nothing in there she couldn’t see.

Her home screen had a music app, Uber, Lyft, Tripadvisor, Audible, Instagram, iFunny, and a couple of games.

I tapped on her photo icon and started to scroll through. Everything in her gallery was excitement and color. Pictures of resorts. The bed in the hotel room, an elephant made of towels on the comforter. A snowy small town with a huge mountain range in the backdrop. Her, laughing in a bikini at a swim-up bar in a pool. There were pictures of her holding a sangria on a cobblestone street. A cruise ship on blue water somewhere.

My gallery was boring in comparison. I almost felt sorry for her getting the short end of the stick. It was mostly legal documents and several dozen shots of the sign in the parking garage downtown by the courthouse so I’d remember where I parked. A picture of a light bulb I needed to pick up at the store, the claim ticket on a dry-cleaning order.

“Wow,” she said, looking at my screen. “You sure do park a lot.”

I chuckled and scrolled on. There was a picture of Vanessa dressed in a milk maid’s costume of some sort under a large tent. She had an enormous stein of beer, bigger than she was. I turned the phone to her. “Where was this?”

She looked up from my phone. “Oktoberfest. Germany. Where are your pictures of Rachel?”

“I don’t think I have any,” I admitted.

She laughed. “So you had a girlfriend, but she doesn’t go to this school?”

I smirked. “You don’t think I had a girlfriend?”

She shrugged. “I’m just sayin’.”

I nodded at my phone. “Look for her on Instagram. Her account’s private, but if you search on my phone you can see it. Her name is Rachel Dunham.”

I watched her punch the icon and scroll through my phone and my smile fell a little. I should probably unfollow Rachel and her fake account. I made a mental note to do that as soon as I got my cell back. I looked back at the picture of Vanessa, trying to distract myself.

In the Oktoberfest photo her chest was pushed up almost to her chin by a bodice of some sort. Her hair was in an intricate braid that wrapped around her head and she was smiling. She looked beautiful in it.

Her cell phone vibrated in my hand and a number popped up at the top of the screen. It was mine.

“What are you sending to your phone?” I asked.

She didn’t look up. “Pictures of you. I told you, the ladies aren’t going to believe I’m hanging out with you. I’m gonna need proof.”

I tapped on the message and a text from my phone filled the screen. She’d sent herself three pictures of me from my gallery. One was me with Mom and Grandma at Mom’s birthday back in June. Another was a shot of me shaking hands with Marcus, at a fund-raiser. And the last one was my finisher picture for the last marathon I’d run, six months ago.

“You know, just because you have pictures of me doesn’t prove anything,” I said. “The ladies might say you just took them off my Instagram.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Good point, lawyer. I am a known cyber stalker. What do you have in mind?”

“We could take a selfie,” I suggested.

She brightened. “Good idea! Let’s put the baby and the dog in it for a time stamp.”

She picked up Grace and handed her to me. Then she grabbed the dog and crawled through the pile of trash between us, scooted over, and leaned into me, her shoulder pressing into my biceps.

The contact sent a warm ripple through me. It surprised me, gave me an impulse to turn my head to her.

I kept my face straight.

She angled my phone, we smiled, and she took the picture. Then she took Grace from me and moved back to her side of the pile with the baby in her lap.

The spot Vanessa had touched felt vacant.

We spent another few minutes going through each other’s phones. We both played the first song in each other’s favorite playlist.