Page 26 of The Tiger in the Sack

The other guys snickered and I didn’t care. I was about to sprint down the hallway to the locker room where I could read this text in private with my dignity intact.

Fox and I pushed our chairs back and slunk from the room, but the second we hit the hallway, we both took off running toward the locker room.

I pulled out my phone the second we were inside the doors. Fox put his shoulder against mine and read stared down at the screen. I let him because there was clearly no other option and because if I tried to stop him, he was going to put his elbow into my ribs.

Fox made a sound like a man who had just been handed a surprise ice cream cone. “Dude.”

“Don’t.” I tried to turn away so he couldn’t see, but he just used his finely honed running back moves and flipped around to my other side.

“DUDE. She likes you.” He smiled, but also shook his head like it was a woman liking me was some huge anomaly.

“Maybe, but how do I reply to this?” It was clearly an opening from her to talk some more. Do I call her, send a shirtless pic? I did have killer abs. I knew better than to send a dick pick.

“Don’t answer yet.” Fox’s tone was pretty fucking confident, and I trusted it zero percent.

“What? Why not? She gave me an opening. I should text her, or send her another picture in reply.”

“Don’t answer fast. Answer in like seven minutes. You don’t want to look thirsty.”

This from a man who’d never in his life had to ask a woman out. He could get laid just by entering a room. Fucking movie star smile got them in zero point two second flat every time. “I am not playing that game.”

“You don’t know it but you are playing a game. Like cat and mouse. But I think you’re the mouse in this case.”

Since she’d ignored me for days, I was going to make sure she was still on for our ride on Friday.

Just as I was about to be brilliant an email popped up from Gabrielle.

The subject line read: Trouble incoming — My sister Tiki. Those two words sitting there like a tripwire. Gabrielle did not send emails. Gabrielle sent agendas. She probably wanted me to give her younger sister a signed jersey or something.

It wouldn’t be that much trouble, I just did not currently have the bandwidth for thinking about any other woman’s needs at the moment. I had a cheerleader who’d texted me a cat in a cereal bowl and had not yet agreed to get on my bike. That was the only weather I was tracking.

I did not open the email.

I would deal with it later. Later being a flexible, generous, possibly imaginary window of time.

Back to my brilliant, charming, flirty cute texts.

Do you want to bring your marshmallow covered cat on our bike ride?

I bounced on my toes waiting and if she didn’t reply soon, I’d have the strongest calves on the team.

Cheerleader

About that…

Uh oh.

Fox slugged me in the arm. “I told you. Thirsty. Girls can smell it and it stinks.”

“How would you know? You’ve never been thirsty in your life.”

“True. But I have thirsty friends.” He stared at me like I was supposed to guess he was talking about me.

The three dots appeared on her side of the screen and I felt them in my actual stomach. Ping, ping, ping.

The three dots disappeared.

The three dots appeared.