I frown. All I wrote him was “Hey.”
ME:I didn’t miss you.
BOOGIE BOO:Well, I missed you.
A weird twitch happens behind my ribs.
BOOGIE BOO:What are you up to tonight?
ME:Family dinner.
If Mom wasn’t in attendance, I’d have suggested he join us.
ME:You?
BOOGIE BOO:Work. Want to meet after?
Why in the world am I tempted to say yes?
ME:My mom’s in town.
Dots appear. Disappear. Reappear. And then words finally materialize on my screen.
BOOGIE BOO:Can I still see you?
ME:Let me see how dinner goes and what Malachi’s plan is.
When Cillian leaves me on read for two full minutes, I type out a follow-up message.
ME:You haven’t forgotten why I said yes in the first place, right?
BOOGIE BOO:And you haven’t forgotten that I have every intention of making you fall for me.
I smirk.
ME:You’ve got better odds of winning the lottery, Romeo.
“Who has you smiling so wide?” Mom’s voice makes me tap the sleep button on the side of my phone and slip it underneathmy thigh in case the screen lights up and advertises my conversation in one of the SUV’s many tinted windows.
“I’m not smiling. I’m working out my jaw.” I cradle it and demonstrate. “It’s called mewing. All the cool kids are doing it.”
Mom looks at me as though I’ve been lobotomized. Granted, considering all the idiotic things I’m spewing, I, too, start to wonder if my brain is intact.
“Elle is seeing someone,” Dorian says smugly, knowing full well that Mom will be on me like a seagull on small fry now.
I mouth, “I will kill you,” and accompany it with a throat slash. My threat just nurtures his smugness.
“Who?” Mom has turned most of her body to better see me. “Electra Serran, tell me everything.”
I cross my legs. “Nothing to tell.”
“He’s a dance instructor. Human,” Dorian explains. “Mrs. Murphy introduced them.”
“A dance instructor?” she murmur-gasps.
I can’t tell whether she sounds appalled or charmed. Probably appalled.
I bet she was hoping I’d date a fellow Atlantean. Not that I’m actually dating Cillian, but I’d sooner let the Holy Hunters waterboard me than admit my crush on Malachi.
