“So…you’re not texting him, why?” Whitney said, giving my phone, abandoned on our coffee table, a meaningful glance.

“Because,” I grumped, endlessly scanning through our streaming services to find something on the TV. I wasn’t in the mood for romcoms or murder documentaries, so our current choices were quite limited.

Byron had said he’d text me to go out again, but he hadn’t yet. It’d been almost a week, which was precisely long enough for me to feel like the world’s biggest fool.

If I was angry at him for ghosting me—then that was like being angry at myself for bothering to get my hopes up over someone who was still possibly a murderer.

If he was out there on a murderous rampage because I hadn’t “caught” him yet—how, and with what part of me, TBD—then I was some kind of an asshole.

And if he was the kind of jerk who thought I was just waiting by the phone for him, and who wouldn’t make any other plans…well, he was a little bit right.

“Elle. It’s the new millennium. Just text him,” Whitney said.

“No—it’s his job, and he knows it’s his job,” I said, heaving a sigh. “And it doesn’t matter anyhow. I don’t need—”

My phone rattled against the coffee table’s wood, buzzing. Whitney lunged for it, getting it half a second before me. I went to grab it out of her hands and she laughed, holding it up like we were playing keep-away. “It’s your mom!” she protested, eyeballing my screen, before I tackled her against the couch to play wrestle for it.

She swung it over her head in a wide arc, while I complained, “Give me that,” and watched her eyes go even wider.

“Killer?” she asked, then looked at me. “Is he really that hot?”

I snatched my phone away from her while she kept grinning wildly. I’d put Byron’s name into my phone with his word, so I’d never, ever message him on accident—and now he was asking me out on Sunday.

I frowned at the screen, equal parts pissed that it’d taken him so long, and that I still wanted to say yes. “A Sunday brunch is like a grandma-date, isn’t it?” I complained, looking to Whitney for confirmation.

She shrugged, holding both hands up. “Depends on how hot he is, doesn’t it?”

**

I was ready early on Sunday, in a tight blue miniskirt and a cute slouchy t-shirt, and went outside to wait for him—there was no way Whitney wouldn’t say something if he came up to our door to pick me up. I couldn’t blame her. I wouldn’t be quiet either if our situations were reversed. Up to a third of our relationship was based on merciless teasing, but it worked for us.

So I was sitting on the edge of the fountain and playing with my phone when a sleek black Lexus with heavily tinted windows drove up. I ignored it, until the window rolled down and Byron grinned out at me. “Hungry?”

I blinked, and quickly stood. “Yeah.” It was hard not to smile back at him, but I was trying. He got out of the car and walked around it to open my door and everything. “See—this is how I know you’re not in college,” I said, feeling a little bit weird about him closing my door for me, especially when I hadn’t even done a lock-check.

But I could tell, with even a casual glance, that no one had ever been murdered in this car before: the whole interior was sexy-leather-pristine.

“What? Nobody’s chivalrous anymore?” Byron asked me, getting back inside.

“Were they ever?” I tucked my skirt around the edges of my thighs. “Did your uncle let you borrow the big-kids car?”

“Nah,” Byron said, putting the vehicle into gear. He was wearing jeans, and a dark green t-shirt, that showed off his biceps nicely. “This ride’s mine,” he said, and drove us off.

I bit my tongue when he told me where we were going, but I was glad I’d worn flats—there was no way we were getting into Ole’s for brunch, there was sure to be a line. After we parked, I saw that I was right, but Byron casually put out his hand for mine as we reached the end of the line.

I hesitated—I wasn’t sure we were at the “stand in line holding hands for three hours” stage of our relationship yet—but then he said, “C’mere,” and took it anyways, his warm hand grabbing mine, to start pulling me forward through the crowd.

We passed BOSS MAN, GAMER BOY, and JESUS LOVER and a sea of post-church families, up to an older woman at the front whose word said SWEETHEART. Her expression lived up to the name when she saw my date.

“Byron!” she exclaimed. “It’s been so long!”

“I know, Lizzy—I’m sorry,” he said, letting go of my hand to engulf her in a hug. I might never have been so envious of someone over sixty before. “This is Elle,” he said, looking back. “She’s with me. Can you hook us up?”

She jerked her chin, handing him a menu. “In the back.”

Byron took my hand again, without asking, and we threaded through the crowded tables, down a back hallway, and into…. “Is this a breakroom?” It was a tiny space, with purses hung on coat hooks on the walls, and a small table.

“It is. Don’t worry. Still full service—just friends only,” he said, handing the menu over.

Lizzy came in a minute later with a pot of coffee and two mugs, beaming at me as she poured, and then bent a hand down below the level of the table. “You know, I’ve known Byron since he was this big. He was so cute then,” she said, and then put that same hand up to her face, to hide her lips from him as she stage-whispered, “and he’s still cute now,” in a conspiratorial fashion, before leaving.

Byron winced a little. “This was a mistake.”

“No, no, everyone should absolutely have a gray-haired hype-woman,” I told him, and he laughed. I still wanted to be mad at him…but…

“Did your phone break?” I asked him, half-seriously.

“What? No—why?”

“I just assumed, when you didn’t text at all,” I said with a shrug. “Or that your fingers were broken.”

“Ahh,” he said, nodding deeply. “Then were your fingers broken?”

“Yes. But then they got better, just in time for this manicure,” I said, and showed him my nails. “Seriously, though, Byron—” I started, and he cut me off.

“I’m sorry, Sunshine. I didn’t want to make any plans with you until I knew what my weekend looked like.”

I inhaled deeply, suddenly remembering all the PLAYERs of my high school years—and the ones I saw around the quad on campus now. I let my lips twist to the side a little. “So I’m not your Friday night girl, or your Saturday night girl. I’m your Sunday afternoon girl. I see.”

He shook his head. “No, you’re the girl who’s going to learn shortly that I use enough syrup to put a diabetic in a coma.”

I didn’t know that I believed him, even though I wanted to. “Oh my gosh, so elite. Do me and all the other girls have a support group?”

His brown eyes pierced mine, and cut through my bullshit. “I take it you’d rather I texted more?”

Not that I wanted to admit it out loud. But as I held my hands together in my lap beneath the table, it was easy to remember him pulling me through the crowd. “It’s always nice to know if people are alive.”

He gave me a grin and that dimple threatened to come out. “Duly noted.”