Chapter Three
I bolted up in bed when my cell started doing its annoying vibration dance on my side table. God, what time is it? I grabbed the offending phone and swiped it on. 4:00 a.m.? Who the hell was texting me at this hour and why hadn’t I turned it to silent last night? Oh, because I don’t get messages or texts late at night because I don’t engage in socialization, that’s why.
I shut the phone off and rolled over and went back to sleep. An hour later, I gave up on sleeping and automatically reached for my phone. The light was flashing and then I remembered the whole sleepless morning had started with that damn text.
It was a number I didn’t recognize. Great, even better, I thought. Wrong number woke me up early and put me in a fantastic mood for the rest of the day.
I opened the text and nearly fainted. It was from him. The guy I bumped heads with in the restaurant last night. Holy shit. He had texted me. At four a.m.? Why was he up so early? Why was he texting me? Why did I give him my number?
Hey, it’s Finn. Enjoyed meeting u today. Sorry for the awful text time. Looking for another blind date to hit on today. U up for the challenge?
I flopped back into bed and stared at the phone. This stuff just didn’t happen to me. Suddenly it hit me. It was a joke. Sam was pranking me. I had told her about the guy in the bar during my recap of the official worst blind date ever. She must think she’s so hilarious.
I hit reply.
Nice try Sam. I’m on to you. Whose phone are you using? And WTF r u doing up at that God awful hour?
My phone beeped. Wow, Sam must have an early call time today, or she was still out from last night.
Who’s Sam? Does he talk to strangers in bars too?
So, she was going all the way with this one.
Hardy har har. Why are you up so early Sam? And whose phone are u using?
The reply came instantly, but in the form of a phone call, not text.
I answered it on the second ring. “Sam.”
“Well, I think this Sam and I need to meet.” Oh shit, shit, shit. That wasn’t Sam’s high, flirty voice on the other end. That was a rough, decidedly male voice on the other end. Shit shit shit. It really was him. Now what was I going to do?
“Oh, hi.”
“Hi”
“So, I thought you were my best friend Sam. She takes pranking me to a whole new level.”
“Ah, so this Sam is a girl then?”
“Yes.”
There was some serious awkward silence. I had no interest in encouraging this conversation. How was I going to get convince this guy that his efforts were better spent elsewhere? I didn’t do the dating thing. I went over the weight limit for allowable baggage to bring on a date. I needed to warn him off of me.
“So, what do you think? It wouldn’t technically be a blind date, but are you free tonight to try again?”
“I don’t know. I kind of have a one crap blind date per week limit.”
“Insults already? How do you know a date with me is going to be crappy?”
“I don’t. But if it goes anything like my blind date last night, it could be pretty damn crappy.”
“Ok, well let’s re-categorize this date. Since we have met, it’s no longer in the category of blind date. Now it’s just a date. What do you say?”
“I don’t know. I am not really into dating right now.”
“Really? ‘Cause it looked like it last night when you were on a date.”
“Sam, forced me into that one. I’m not very good dating material.”
“Why don’t you let me decide that for myself? Look, it’s six in the morning. I just got home from work. I’m going to bed and then will call you when I get up to see where you stand on the whole dating thing? What do you say? I gotta warn you though, I don’t give up very easily.”
I tried to remind myself to breathe like those insane exercise instructors always say. I was suffering from a healthy mix of both anxiety and shock. “Ok, call me later. I’ll think about it.”
“Great. Have fun thinking about it.”
I hung up the phone and stared at it for a few seconds, fought back the hives that were threatening to engulf me and decided I would worry about what I was going to do about that phone call later. For now, I needed coffee. And lots of it!