Lana crosses her ankles on the coffee table. “So what do the two of you talk about?”
“Well, it’s only been a few times. Mostly we spent our time arguing because I wouldn’t leave him alone.”
“You’re such a clingy bitch,” Donovan snarks.
“Shut up, Donovan, I am not!” I smack him on the thigh, pout. “I hate being ignored, that’s all.”
Lana scoots forward, sucking on her diet soda with a noisy slurp. “The guy would jizz his pants if he laid eyes on you.”
I do a mental hair flip but just shrug; I know I’m pretty—beautiful if we’re being honest. I’ve been hearing it since I was young, flattery from strangers, my parents, family and friends.
And, of course, guys.
Guys love me.
My red silky hair. My slender waist and pouty lips. My fantastic boobs.
Vanity is one of my flaws, but I’m not going to pretend to be modest, either. That would be worse.
“Here’s what I want to know,” Lana says slowly, arm on the back of the couch, leaning into me. “Why did you text him…when you can call?”
I bite my lip. “You think I should call him?”
Her brows go up. “Why not?”
Why not indeed.
Rhett’s phone rings four times before he answers, the rich quality of his voice reminding me of a lumberjack, a rugged outdoorsman. Masculine and heavy.
Smoky.
Far deeper and sexier than I was expecting when I dialed his number.
“Hello?”
“Rhett?”
Pause. “Who is this?”
“It’s Lau—” I stop short, remembering I gave him a fake name. “It’s Alex.”
Silence.
“Hello?” I ask because the connection is so quiet. “Are you there?”
“Yeah, I’m here. I’m tryin’ to figure out why you’re callin’.”
He’s southern?
Stop it.
I don’t know what I thought his voice would sound like, but I sure as heck wasn’t anticipating a slow, lazy drawl with a rich tone. His deep timbre sends a startling shiver running down my spine.
Tryin’. Callin’.
“I…” I can’t tell him my roommates told me to call him, or that I thought it would be fun and wanted to know what his voice sounded like. “I called on a whim.”
“Why?”
“I felt like talking.”
“Can I be honest with you, Alex, so we can stop wastin’ each other’s time? I’m sure you’re really nice, but you seem a little too aggressive, and that’s not really my style, so maybe you should call someone else.”
Wastin’ each other’s tiehm…
Oh God, so southern. I wonder what state he’s from and how he ended up at Iowa—and why he hasn’t told me to fuck off by now. He sounds like a really nice guy, much different than the hypersensitive asshole texting me back the other day.
“What is your style?”
Rhett is quiet again. I hear him thinking about his next words. “Look Alex, I’m not trying to be rude, but…” He leaves the sentence open-ended, voice trailing off into dead air.
“But you don’t want to talk?”
When he doesn’t answer, I pull the cell away from my face to check that the call hasn’t been disconnected. The timer at the top of the screen shows the seconds ticking away, so I know he’s still there.
“Can you just tell me one thing?”
Reluctance. “Shoot.”
“Where are you from?”
“Louisiana.”
That makes me smile. “I thought I detected an accent.”
The line goes quiet again, and I wonder what the hell I’m doing. This whole conversation is like pulling teeth, and the last time I forced a man into a conversation was never. Why start with him?
But then, “I was raised in Mississippi, but my parents moved back to Louisiana my sophomore year of high school.”
“Near New Orleans?”
“No, Baton Rouge.”
“Near all the plantations?” A low, amused chuckle greets my ears, making my girly parts get a little bit damp. Jeez, what is wrong with me? “What’s so funny?”
“That’s usually one of the first things people ask when they hear where I’m from.”
“What’s the second thing people ask?”
“If I’ve ever wrestled an alligator.”
“Have you?”
Another laugh. “No ma’am.”
Ma’am.
His accent is doing funny things to my lower belly, so I shift in my desk chair, rest my elbows on my desk, prop my chin in my hand. “Are you always this polite?”
A low chuckle into the receiver. “No.”
“I mean, you did tell me to fuck off when I first texted you. I guess that isn’t exactly polite, is it?”
“Don’t feel bad. I told every single girl who texted me to fuck off.” The curse rolls off his tongue, sweet and sour. Fuck awe-ff.
“Well that makes me feel a tad bit better,” I admit.
“Did it offend you?”
“Not really.”
He laughs into the phone again, and if I wasn’t sitting down, my knees would be a little weak. Jesus his voice is sexy; it suddenly has me wishing he was a tad better looking.
“So, Alex, where are you from?”
A knot of guilt prickles at the mention of my cousin’s name.
“Illinois. Not nearly as exciting as Baton Rouge.”
“No alligators?”
“Only at the fraternity house,” I joke.
The line goes quiet. “Spend a lot of time there?” he asks quietly, his voice gruff.
“Not really.” Not anymore. “That place is a cesspool of bad decisions.”
“So if I said, ‘Alex, meet me at a frat party Saturday night,’ you wouldn’t go?”
“If you said meet me there, I’d think about it.”
“Only think about it? Ah, I see how it is.”
“What do you see?”
“I think you’re tryin’ to flirt with me. Am I wrong?”
I want to deny it but can’t get the words off my tongue. “Are you flirting with me?”
“I’m terrible at it, but I think it would be obvious if I was. Besides, I don’t even know you.”
“You don’t have to know someone to flirt with them, Rhett.”
“I know that, but it’s just not the same, is it?”
“I’m not so sure about that. For example, if I told you the sound of your voice makes my imagination run wild, what would you say to that?”
“I’d say…I’d say…” He stumbles over his words—adorable.
“Shit, I don’t know what I’d say.”
“I can hear you smiling, so I’ll take that as a good sign.”
I’m smiling too—grinning actually, wide and goofy. I picked up a pen a few minutes ago and have been doodling a cartoon crocodile aimlessly on a notebook, surrounded by little black hearts.
When I look down at the paper, there are dozens of those tiny ink hearts scattered like confetti across the flat surface. “That’s good, right? Smiling is good.”
“It’s very good.”
“What do you look like?” I can’t help asking, though I already know the answer. I want to see if he’ll tell me, want to see what he’ll say. “I’ve seen the poster, obviously, but is that really what you look like?”
“Yes.” He forces out a strangled laugh.
“You sound hot,” I blurt out, because he does. The sound of that raspy voice is doing a wild, reckless dance in my stomach, down my pelvis. “What color is your hair?”
“Brown.”
“Just brown?”
“What kind of question is that?” he wants to know. “How many browns are there? Is that question a chick thing?”
“A chick thing? Yeah, I suppose it is. Are your eyes brown, too?” I wasn’t close enough to see those in the parking lot of the diner, and the photocopy of his face on the flyer obviously didn’t translate colors.
“Yeah. Dark brown.”
I hum, thinking. “Do you play sports?”
“I wrestle.”
“How tall are you?”
“Six one.” Rhett pauses. “How tall are you?”
“Five-seven. Kind of tall for a girl, I guess.”
“What color is your hair?”
“Black,” I lie—again, because I can’t tell him my long, straight hair is the color of flaming hot cinders. I’m a natural redhead, and he would see me on campus and know me on sight. “My hair is black.”
Like Alex’s.
“Black,” Rhett repeats, mulling it over. “Huh.”
“What’s the ‘huh’ for?”
“You don’t sound like you have black hair, that’s all.”
Awll.
“What color hair does it sound like I have?”
“I don’t know, blonde? Brown? Definitely not black.”
“Interesting theory. Got any other interesting thoughts?”
He stops to think for a second, and I hear him rustling around. Picture him climbing onto a bed and leaning against the wall, legs hanging over a twin-sized mattress.
“I do actually.”
“Let’s hear them.”
“All right.” Hesitation. “Since I’m never going to meet you in person, I can safely say this without anyone findin’ out: I’m beginning to regret comin’ to school here.”