Complete Nothing (True Love #2)(47)
GOING TO DAVE & BUSTERS @ THE MALL
I hit send and shoved my phone back in my bag, saying a silent prayer that True would come through and find a way to get Peter out of his house.
“Have fun!” my dad called out with a wave. When I looked up, I was mortified to see my entire family, even Corey, gathered around him.
“Sorry about them,” I muttered, buckling my seat belt.
“Eh. They’re not so bad,” he replied.
I smiled as he gunned the engine and started down my block. If everything went according to plan, by this time tomorrow—maybe even later this evening—Peter and I would be getting back together. As Keegan started to ask questions about my family, I tried not to feel guilty over misrepresenting myself as someone who was on the market. Keegan wouldn’t mind that we’d have only one date. It wasn’t like he was invested in this. He barely knew me. For him, tonight was just about having fun.
For me, it was about so much more.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
True
That night I was at the mall with Wallace and Lauren as we waited for Claudia’s text, discovering the hands-down coolest thing about cell phones—the huge variety of pretty cases. We had rounded the kiosk at the center of the wide marble hallway fourteen times as I pondered which of the many colors, patterns, and materials I wanted for my new phone.
If someone had told me a week ago that I’d be on this particular shopping errand, I would have exterminated them on the spot, but after countless millennia of the same old routine, I was starting to think that change was good.
“I don’t know,” I said, musing over my top three choices—a red-and-pink stripe, a purple plaid, and a blue with white polka dots. “I’m not sure any of them are me.”
“Oh my God, will you just pick one already! I’m starving!” Lauren groused.
“This is a very important decision,” Wallace told her calmly. “The case your cell wears means everything.”
Lauren widened her eyes at him, then let her arms and head slam into the top of the glass case dramatically. She turned to the side, so that her cheek was pressed into the surface. “This is my least favorite trip to the mall ever.”
I glanced up at the proprietor of the stand, who was busy texting on his own phone. “Do you have anything with a heart on it?”
He finished his text and then, silently, opened a cabinet and pulled out a white case. He dropped it in front of me and I gasped. It was decorated with a fat pink heart made out of glittering rhinestones. I whipped out my wallet.
“I’ll take it.”
“See? When you know, you know,” Wallace said with a satisfied smile, pushing his hands into his pockets to draw out his own phone. His case was gray-and-black argyle—the only two colors the boy ever wore.
As the proprietor rang up my purchase, I took the case out of its plastic wrap and snapped it onto my phone. Right then, the screen lit up with a text from Claudia.
GOING TO DAVE & BUSTERS @ THE MALL
“They’re coming here!” I said, my heart starting to race. This was a sign. It had to be. “What’s Dave and Buster’s?”
“It’s this huge place with tons of video games and prizes and awesome desserts. Only the perfect place for a first date,” Wallace replied. “This guy is good.”
“And they have the best fries in the world.” Lauren grabbed Wallace’s hand and my arm and started to drag us toward the escalator, nearly tripping a woman with a walker on her way. “Let’s go!”
“Wait! Wait! Wait! We have to text Peter and get him over here,” I reminded them. I yanked my arm out of her grasp and paused by the fountain in the center of the mall. “It’s kind of the whole reason we’re here?”
“Oh. I guess I forgot during the marathon case-browsing session,” Lauren sniped, rolling her eyes as she sat on the edge of the fountain. Then she grimaced. “Sorry. I get bitchy when I’m hungry.”
“Understood. Let’s get this over with, and then the fries are on me,” I said.
“Sah-weet!” she sang, perking up considerably. “Okay. What’s the plan?”
“Wallace? Can I borrow your phone?” I asked.
“What for?” he said, actually angling the pocket that held his phone away from me as if I were going to pickpocket him. Perhaps my reputation as a klepto had swelled. A pair of kids with wheels on their shoes parted to scoot around him.
“I’m going to text Peter, and I don’t want it to be traced back to me.”
“Well, maybe I don’t want it to get traced back to me,” he replied. “Peter Marrott could pound me into oblivion with his pinky toe.”
Lauren and I exchanged a glance. “Wallace, let me explain,” Lauren said patiently, rising from the stone frame of the fountain. “If this whole thing works and Claudia and Peter get back together, then Peter is eventually going to program True’s number into his phone, because True and Claudia are friends. Once he does that, he’ll be able to tell that tonight’s text came from her, and he’ll realize that this whole thing was one big setup. But if the text comes from you . . .”
“He’ll never trace it back to me, because there’s no reason that the great Peter Marrott would ever get the number of a dorkus like me,” Wallace finished flatly.