(18+) RED (Complete)

Ch. 7: Anti-climax

"Hey, babe. Was it good for you?"

I groaned when I read the message that just ticked in, before I dug my face into the hotel pillow again. But no matter how tired I was, I couldn't help but to type a quick reply.

"No comment."

Then I woke up abruptly when I realized how bad that sounded.

"I really hope you're referring to the concert and not what I think you have in mind."

Another text popped up right after.

"Could be both. 😏"

I knew he laughed. I just knew it.

"And you just agreed to me calling you 'babe'," he wrote and I scoffed so loud that I woke up Gabby.

"What?" she groaned without even bothering to open her eyes. Then her hands went up to hold her head, and she whimpered.

"Hung over?" I giggled, thinking about the quite impressive amount of sparkling water she consumed yesterday.

"Silence! I kill you!"

The way she said that in Jeff Dunham style told me it wasn't that bad.

"But how you're not nauseous after all that chocolate yesterday..."

She circled her fingers in the air as if the rest of the sentence was in sign language, then stopped when she saw I was holding my phone, ready to type.

"Is it him?" she exclaimed with acute eagerness, but I just smiled. That caused her to sit up on her knees a little too fast, and she groaned in pain and grabbed her head again.

"Fuck... I'm getting too old for this."

"Old? You're only twenty-three Gabs."

"So? That's twenty-four in November. I'm practically a fossil. And would you please stop calling me 'Gabs'? It makes me think of crabs, and those bastards are creepy."

She suddenly snitched the phone out of my hand, which caused me to scream and wrestle her like an angry bear. And for once I won without too much struggle.

"I'll be damned," Gabby mumbled and propped herself up on her elbows. "Someone has been practicing their fight club skills lately."

"Stay away from my phone! And that's not even an order. It's a downright threat to you and everyone in your family, including Porkchops!"

"Hey! Why did you have to drag my dog into this? He's innocent."

"Not with an owner who steals people's phones, he's not. Every dog is a copy of its master."

"Be careful now, or I'll tell him to eat your shoes. All of them."

I gasped dramatically and clutched my phone tightly against my chest, like I was having a heart attack. Gabby just rolled her eyes.

"Come on. What's he sayin'?" she asked and raised an eyebrow toward my phone, and with a white-knuckled grip around it, I unlocked the screen and read Jake's messages.

"So if I can call you babe, then you can call me Al."

"You know the song? No? Okay. 😅"

"I'm getting nervous here. I really hope you liked the concert and that you're having fun at the hotel."

"I don't understand your resentment against the limo, though. What did it ever do to you? You've hurt its spark plug. 😭"