Hooked Read Online Free Page B

wiped the crumbs from the table, allowing Boomer to
leap up on the wooden table to lick the stick away. His dark eyes were on me
the whole time, as if he was also centered in on helping me, working to make me
less of a sad-sack and more of a real, sexual person. I imagined him speaking
to me, “Come on, you sad sack. Pull yourself together, and get out there!” I whipped
my blonde hair over my shoulder, noting the way I looked in the mirror. Good.
Good. I was in the prime of my life! I needed to start living!
    I went to bed after gazing at the Netflix queue, my
mind in a rushing haze. I couldn’t concentrate on anything but Drew; the cut of
his jaw, the way he smiled at me when I made a joke. I felt such an air of anticipation, I couldn’t even hear the dialogue, the music
in any of the episodes I watched. Finally, bringing Boomer up to my chest, I
fell instantly asleep, looking forward to a full day of daydreaming the next
day—when the girls didn’t come to the studio and I could be safe in my head,
worrying and re-working what would happen during Drew and I’s date on the
following Saturday.

 
    CHAPTER FOUR
    The vibrations started at five in the morning. I
felt them through my pillowcase. With my eyes closed, I started tapping my hand
around the bedspread, searching. I felt Boomer, who growled at me in his sleep,
certain that I was an attack. My eyes fully opened now, I finally saw the
flashing light. I grabbed my phone and brought it up to my face. Without my
contacts in, I could hardly read it. The number was unknown.
    I answered it,
groggily, expecting the worst. “Hello?” My voice croaked.
    “Hey. Babe.” The voice was familiar, laid-back. Confident.
    I tried to parse through it, to make sense of it. I
rubbed at my forehead. “Um. Hi,” I said, trying to keep the conversation flowing.
    “So. I know we agreed to have a date on Saturday. But I’ve been up all night,
thinking. Talking. Drinking. Thinking about you, mostly. I wanted to know if you could go
to the Cubs game with me today. Wrigley Field, you know? I haven’t been since I
was a kid, and I’m a mad fan.” He was speaking quickly, as if he were hopped up
on many different drugs or constant cups of coffees.
    My heart was racing, realizing who it was. Drew. He
had called me at five in the morning. What was going on? Why was I smiling?
Boomer, annoyed with the commotion, hopped down from the bed and sauntered out
of the room. “The Cubs game, huh?” I said. I had never been to one either,
always too broke to toss the money over for a ticket. I looked outside, at the
darkness, imagining us beneath the sun in Wrigley Field. Sharing
a beer, a Chicago dog. I imagined the day I was meant to have stretched
before me, at least in the hours after my first few classes I was to teach in
the morning; the hours and hours of television, of bagel-eating, of thinking
about how my life hadn’t worked out the way I had planned. “That sounds fun,” I
murmured, thinking that I was saving myself FROM myself. I was doing the right
thing; carpe diem.
    “Great. Great. The game starts at three. I’ll pick you up at your
apartment; we can take the train?” Drew asked.
    I agreed without thinking, hearing the eagerness in
his voice. I shook my head back and forth, feeling the excitement begin to
build in my stomach, pulsing through my veins, through my arms, through my
legs. I felt like I could run ten miles then, in that moment, with all the
energy and joie de vivre that coursed through me. I had a date. That day. With the most handsome man I had ever seen. He had
actually called me back, without diverting down the normal path of forgetting,
of meeting someone else. Amazing. Incredible.
    I rolled from my bed, noting that the sun was just
now lurching from its stance over the lake. The greyness of the morning was
safe, like a shade. I padded to the kitchen, following the path of little
Boomer, and made a cup of coffee. I hummed as I poured a bit of extra sugar