Fate's Return (Twisted Fate, Book 2)

Chapter Three

My phone began to ring, pulling me from my thoughts, and I jumped. I opened my locker and reached inside to pull it from the darkness and slid my thumb across the screen at the same time as I registered the name showing up on the display. Tucker's Arcade.

"Raffy or Mike?" I asked in lieu of hello. "I know it's not Gabe since he'd rather spit at the phone than use it."

A few weeks ago, Gabe had driven all the way to my house from the arcade to deliver a message because he hated phones so much. I tried to explain that using his car to drive over was less efficient—a total waste of gas and unnecessary pollution—but he'd shrugged. Then, without so much as a smile, he'd driven away.

A laugh shot through the phone, deep and amused.

I sighed. "Raffy."

"You got it, Babe."

"What's up?"

"I overheard this couple eating at the arcade today, and I wanted to know if you'd help prove something with me because I had a hard time believing what they said."

"Uh huh?" I rolled my eyes and braced the phone between my ear and shoulder and began sorting through my locker. "What's that?"

"Well..." he drawled. "They have this long-distance thing going on, and the girl was complaining that he acted like she left his mind when she left his sight—"

"Out of sight, out of mind, Raffy."

"Okay, whatever. He tried saying being apart made him want her more."

"Distance makes the heart grow fonder." Looking up to the ceiling, I counted to ten in my head, and then said, "Seriously, Raffy, what's your point? Other than wanting to annoy me with clichés?"

"He came up with a plan so that it would be like they are with each other every day. Phone sex or sexting or Skyping or whatever. Do you think that would work? Keep the relationship alive?" He snickered. "I don't believe it, but then I figured you might be skeptical, and would maybe want to prove it? With me, of course."

"What?" My hand paused in the air as I reached over to throw the things that I no longer wanted from my locker away. Is he asking me what I think he's asking me?

"We should try it, you know, having pho—"

"I'm hanging up now." I tossed my things into the garbage and reached up to grab the phone.

"Wait, wait, wait," he rushed, and I paused. "I phoned you for a reason."

"What do you want?"

"What are you wearing?"

"Ugh. Gross." I shook my head and ended the call as his self-satisfied laughter erupted over the line. If the world relied on us to repopulate it, we would be doomed to extinction.

I zipped up my hoody and slung my bag over my shoulder, happy that summer had arrived early this year so that I wouldn't have to change out of my shorts to go outside. Unlike winter, the sun had just begun to set even though it was eight-thirty at night. No darkness to escort me to my car, which somehow made me feel safer.

My phone rang again just before I reached the main exit and I answered without checking the caller id. "Look, Nimrod, I don't care how curious you are. No amount of distance will be far enough for my heart to grow fond of your ass enough to test out the merits of phone sex or sexting, or whatever the hell else you said you wanted to try. Got it?"

A heavy pause swallowed my words out of the air before a deep, gravel voice sounded in my ear. "Uh, good to know."

"Raffy?"