Holy shit.
Miss Misdial is Olivia?
She couldn’t be.
What in the actual fuck?
It couldn’t be possible, but I’d seen my text on her screen under the contact name of Mr. Wrong Number.
“You okay, Beck?”
I stared at my phone as it went dark and the messages disappeared. I didn’t want to look at her, didn’t want to see her face at that moment, but still I raised my eyes from the phone. Olivia was eyeing me from her spot at the table with an amused smirk, the smart-ass grin she always wore for me tilting up one side of her mouth.
“Fine.” I cleared my throat and slid my phone into my pocket. “Goddamned wonderful.”
I carried my glass over to the sink, needing to get out of there and clear my head. Because I wasn’t fine or goddamned wonderful. I set it on the counter, turned on the faucet, and clenched my teeth so hard they hurt. Apparently God had a sense of humor, and Olivia the Hottest Mess Marshall was my fantasy texter.
Hell.
I liked Liv just fine—she was easy on the eyes and fun to mess with—but Misdial was on another level. Or so I thought. I’d thought she was funny, charming, sexy, smart, unorthodox, and even kind of sweet.
Not like Olivia.
Could it really be her?
I started scrubbing one of the plates in the sink and felt gutted, like I’d just lost something by losing Misdial. Honestly, I was so damned disappointed I wanted to hit something. I wanted to tee off on something so badly because just like that, without warning, I no longer had a relationship with a stranger on the phone.
And not only was it over for me, but I was going to have to ghost her.
There was no other option.
I couldn’t tell Olivia the truth; I’d shared too much and couldn’t deal with her having that kind of information. And I definitely couldn’t keep texting anonymously now that I knew Jack’s baby sister was the recipient.
Oh, hell no.
So . . . I was done. I was done, it was finished, and I was going to have to nut up about the entire debacle and get over it. I’d known better anyway, right?
“So since I cooked, are you doing the dishes?” Olivia appeared at my side, but her perfume had reached me before she did. “I think that’s the rule.”
She was holding out her dirty plate, her eyes asking permission to dump the dirty dish on me, and I immediately regretted my decision to look at her. Because she looked the same. Long, dark hair, green eyes, pink cheeks—the same Liv I’d always known.
But now she was cross-contaminated with little bits of Misdial. Instead of just seeing the face of Jack’s sister, my brain kept loading up things I knew about her, like the fact that she preferred shoulder-biting, frenetic sex against the wall to a sweet romance.
Shit.
I looked back at the sink; I needed time to absorb this jarring turn of events before I laid eyes on her again. “That is the rule.”
“Seriously?” I saw in my periphery that she tilted her head, and I could feel her eyes on me.
“Seriously. You had a big day; I’ll get the dishes.”
She said, “Wow,” but stayed put beside me.
God, I just need her to go away. “Better go before I change my mind.”
“Colin.” She was telling me to look at her with her tone of voice.
“Olivia.” I did look at her then, and she was giving me a tiny smile. I shifted my weight to one foot and hoped I looked as exasperated as I felt, because I needed her gone. I raised an eyebrow. “What?”
She nudged me with her elbow, a playful touch of her funny bone to my side, and said, “Thanks for being cool tonight. It was kind of fun until you weirded out at the end.”
She was too close, too earnest, too playful, and I was careful to keep my voice level as I said, “Sure. Now go to bed, Olivia.”
She slow blinked another grin. “Sweet dreams, Colin.”
