Page 12 of Sebastian

I tried to give the coupon back, but Frankie shoved it into my hands.

“This is selfish. If you get laid, maybe you’ll stop whining so much. I’m saving my eardrums.”

He stuck his tongue out at me to show he was joking, not that I needed any reassurance. Frankie could be just as annoying as me when he wanted to be. It’s why we got along so well.

“Fine.” I ripped the coupon in half. “I’ll do it. But when he turns me down, I’m eating all the ice cream and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Frankie snorted. “You do that anyway.”

Then, he handed me my phone.

I stared at the screen, hoping it would suddenly burst into flames.

Why couldn’t it have broken when I dropped it the other day?

Then I’d have an excuse not to call.

My fingers were numb as I punched in the numbers. The phone rang, and I held it up to my ear as delicately as I could.

“Hello? Who’s this?”

I recognized the voice as soon as I heard it. That was definitely him. A shiver ran down my spine with a mixture of pleasure and shame that sat heavy in my belly.

“Hi. Um, this is Newton Clary. From the hospital.”

“Newton?”

I held the phone away from my ear and mimed hitting my head against something.

Why had I introduced myself with my full name?

I never used my full name. It sounded so pretentious.

“Newt,” I corrected myself. “We met when you came in to see the John Doe from the warehouse fire.”

“I remember.”

His words were sparse, with little inflection.

He remembered me, but did he remember me in a good way or a bad one?

I couldn’t tell, and it made me even more nervous.

“Right, so, the DNA test came in.”

A moment of silence passed. This was it. I needed to ask him out. My mouth moved, but no sound came out.

Beside me, Frankie waved me on, urging me to say something.

I could practically feel the confusion emanating from the other side of the phone.

“So, can you tell me the results?”

The way he phrased the question “can you” instead of “will you” sparked an idea in my brain. It was probably a stupid idea, but I had nothing else, so I ran with it.

“Well, unfortunately I can’t divulge information like this over an open line. Medical privacy, you know. So, I need to tell you face to face. There’s a coffee shop near the hospital where we could meet up. Or somewhere else, if that’s not convenient for you. It doesn’t even have to be a coffee shop. We can go anywhere you like.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Frankie gesturing across his own throat in a clear gesture to stop. I bit my tongue against the torrent of words that wanted to spill out of me. The more nervous I was, the faster I talked. It was a bad habit I’d had since childhood and had gotten me into trouble plenty of times.

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