Page 66 of Fighting a Riot

Excellent.

I pulled up my text thread with him and tapped out a quick question.

Whatcha up to?

The little symbols appeared under my text indicating it had been delivered. What didn’t appear were the trailing dots indicating a forthcoming response from him.

I slept too much today after my second session. Now I can’t sleep. Wanna play twenty questions?

I sent that and thought better of it.

Then I decided to stick to my guns.

I’ll go easy on you… for a little bit.

After what felt like a month, he texted me.

Watching a movie. Some other time, Princess.

My lips pursed and I was a stone’s throw away from tossing my phone to the side. Then I forced myself to keep at him.

What are you watching? My guess is I haven’t seen it. An Uber will have me there in three seconds flat.

The dots flowed in their wavy pattern, stopped, started up again, and then stopped again.

Finally, my phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Have you lost your mind?”

I bit back my smile. “No. You’re the one who won’t answer questions. If you’re watching a horror flick, I’m out. But you know, classics like The Godfather or The Maltese Falcon and I’m in. Or anything with Jimmy Stewart.”

From the garbled sound, I suspected he fought against a choke. “You’re kidding. Jimmy Stewart?”

I smiled. “He is everything, Yak. He can be dramatic, but when he’s in a comedic role, it can’t be beat because he’s so damned subtle.” A lot like you, I didn’t say because Yak didn’t have a role to play. But my gut said he had all those qualities and then some.

“You and my mom would have gotten along then,” he murmured.

“I take it she liked Jimmy Stewart.”

“Harvey was her favorite.”

I smiled. “An invisible bunny. What’s not to love?”

“Yep,” he whispered.

“So, what are you watching?”

“Nora, you don’t need to traipse over here to watch a movie with me,” he said in a resigned tone.

I wondered why I was bothering with him, but I wanted company. However, a girl had to know when to stop. “You’re right. I’ll let you get back to your undisclosed movie. Eat some popcorn for me, will you? Goodnight, Yak.”

I ended the call before he could respond.

After I brushed my teeth, I curled up in bed. Seemed my second wind was short-lived and I fell straight to sleep.

Chapter 11

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