I sat down on my bed and started going through the pictures Sophie took. Oh my God. These were...a lot. Was this really what my kiss thief wanted? There was no bashful nipple, but all the photos were quite revealing. My robe had even fallen when I was jumping on the bed. I was just in bondage lingerie laughing like I did it every day.

My stomach twisted into knots.

This wasn’t me. I’d tried changing myself for Axel. I didn’t want to change for anyone else. I wanted someone to just like me for...me. And my kiss thief presumably knew me. So didn’t he just want a picture of me being me?

Before I could chicken out, I snapped a picture of me in my pajamas sitting on my bed. I texted it to my kiss thief.

And then I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

I groaned and fell backward on my bed.

He didn’t respond to my non-sexy photo. But he’d also never responded to me until nighttime. The earliest he’d ever texted me was during dinner. Probably because he was busy at football practice. Gah, I hated that we’d only narrowed it down to a baker’s dozen men.

I glanced at the time. It was almost dinner time now. Practice was over.

He clearly just didn’t like the picture.

I thought about how I’d dressed at the party last Friday. My gold sparkly dress was short and revealing. Whoever had stolen my first kiss probably thought I wasn’t so...what had Sophie said? Prude? I sighed.

“Pumpkin,” my dad said and knocked on my door.

“Yes?”

He opened the door. “I think dinner’s almost ready. I heard you and Sophie finished your project. What did you say you were researching again?”

“Nothing that exciting.” I pushed myself off my bed. “And the results were...inconclusive.”

He put his arm around my shoulders. “Anything else going on? I noticed that you’ve been wearing Axel’s varsity jacket all week. I know he gave it to you to help cover your inappropriate outfit.”

“Yeah, it’s probably time I gave that back.”

“Good,” he said.

Why did it seem like both my parents loved when I was miserable?

I sat down at the dinner table. “Anything fun happen at practice?” I asked Liam.

He shrugged. “No one was talking about you in the locker room, if that’s what you’re asking.”

My dad choked on the sip of water he’d just taken. “Why would your teammates be talking about Scarlett in the locker room?”

“Beats me,” Liam said.

Rude.

“But Pavel mentioned that he has a date with Sophie tomorrow.”

“Pavel?” my mom asked. “I haven’t heard you mention his name before. Is he a new friend of yours, Liam?”

Liam shrugged. “He’s just a guy on the team.”