Lorenzo just shook his head in dismay.
The men hunted around on the phone a bit, trying to figure out more about her.
“She exchanged text messages with some bloke named Rafaele,” Zander said. “Doesn’t sound like a boyfriend. Just sounds like she’s staying at his place.”
“Give me that thing,” his friend said. A few minutes later he pulled up a text. “This one seems to be her mother. Why don’t we send her a message?”
Zander grabbed the phone back. “Aww, her mum. Think her mum knows she’s toting naked Zander in her phone?” He gave a wink. “Let’s send her a message.”
“And the girl’s name appears to be Andi.”
“Andy, like the boy?”
“No, with an i,” Lorenzo said. “So that she could dot it with a heart no doubt. Girls love to do that.”
“You mean like a porn star?,” Zander laughed at his dumb joke. “Makes no difference, because trust me, that one is lacking heart. If she’s even got a hand-drawn one above her name, she might want to shove it into her chest...Andi, eh? Well, good on that. Andi it is. Now let me make her mother swoon.”
Dear Mum, he typed. Having a fun time. Wish you were here.
Lorenzo rolled his eyes. “Be serious. The goal here is to find the girl and give her back her phone.”
“Okay, okay,” Zander said.
Hello, Miss, he typed, saying out loud: You don’t know me, but my name is Alexander. Zander for short. Your daughter fell in the train station—
“Don’t tell her that her daughter fell,” Lorenzo said. “She’ll go mad with worry.”
“Fine,” Zander said. “How’s this:
Not to worry, your daughter is fine, but took a little spill in the train station and lost her phone. By the time we knew it she was gone. Trying to reach her, but to tell you the truth, she’s can be a mean one, that girl. Does she have man issues perhaps?
“Jesus, sometimes I wonder about you,” Lorenzo said.
“Joking, my friend.”
Lorenzo reclaimed the cell phone and typed a neutral message.
...So please if you wouldn’t mind having her reach out to me
“Who should she contact?” Lorenzo said. “If she’s going to be in Rome, it would make sense for it to be me. But if she’s going somewhere else, maybe it should be you. But then again, you haven’t done such a good job impressing this woman, despite your, er, girth, so maybe we should stick with me since I’m a neutral third party.”
“No way,” Zander said. “This is all mine. She’s got me too intrigued. I want to hear what she has to say. Plus I want to know how she got my picture. She and I have some unfinished business.”
“Like I was saying, perhaps it’s best to have a neutral third party.”
“I can promise you never once have I had fun at a neutral third party.” Zander said with a wink.
“I thought you never met a party you didn’t enjoy,” Lorenzo said as the waiter delivered the antipasti. “And in which you didn’t find your pick-up del giorno.”
“You must think I’m some sort of reckless party boy.”
Lorenzo laughed out loud. “Think? I know it for a fact.”
“But seriously, Lorenzo,” his friend said. “I’ve got this one. I’m too curious to let you have at it with her. We have to finish what we started. I mean what she started. Or maybe what I started when I got naked in front of her phone.”
With that he typed in his number and hit send.
~*~
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