Page 47 of The Friend Game

Shoot. That sounds desperate.

This time Holly is more prepared for my squeal, so rather than howling insurprise she gives me a deeply affronted look, then waddles out of the room presumably to find a quieter sleeping location.

I’m figuring out a suitable reply when my phone starts ringing. It’s him.

I answer the call, my voice embarrassingly breathless. “Hello.”

“Hey.” His deep voice traveling down the phone line makes my stomach flip. “So I messed this whole thing up,” he says ruefully. “I had this plan to strike up a nice friendly text message exchange, then I go ahead and turn it into this whole,” he pauses, searching for his next words, “forbidden romance text exchange,” he finally comes up with.

“Forbidden romance text exchange,” I muse. “I see it’s Belinda you’ve been hanging out with instead of me.”

Luke chuckles. “No way. I’m avoiding her too. That woman is like my own personal shoulder devil. Every time I see her she’s on me about you.” He imitates her voice, “Contract-shmontract, Pastor Abbott, go get your woman.”

I laugh. “I swear I didn’t put her up to that.”

“I know,” he replies, then clears his throat. “The thing is, Hannah, I don’t like staying away from you.” He sighs heavily. “But I also seem to completely forget about my contract every time I’m with you.”

“Wow,” I breathe, “did you do your dissertation on the Song of Solomon or something because those are some very romantic words for a pastor.”

He huffs out a laugh. “That right there is my very favorite thing about you, Hannah Garza. You make me laugh like nobody else.”

“Is this the part where I admit I wasn’t even trying to be funny?”

Another chuckle. “Can we do this more?” he asks.

“Talk about Song of Solomon?” I tease.

“Talk period,” he replies. “On the phone, I mean.”

I smile into my phone, glad he can’t see my dopey expression. “I’d like that.”

“Good.” Without seeing him I can’t be sure, but I think he might have a dopey smile on his face too.

“So what’s this I hear about someone giving the church nativity set a Hawaiian makeover?” I ask as I settle back against my pillows, ready for some pillow talk—of the just friends variety, of course.

Chapter 18

“YOU’RE JOKING!” I howl with laughter.

“I really wish I was,” Luke says with mock solemnity on the other end of the phone.

“So what did you do?” I ask as I rest my head on Holly’s stomach and she lets out a long sigh.

“Well I had no choice,” he tells me and I can hear the smile in his voice. “I had to call Mary’s mom and tell her that we couldn’t have Mary sneaking in a kiss with the little drummer boy when she’s supposed to be pondering the marvels surrounding the birth of her son Jesus.”

I snort out a laugh. “Oh my. And how did Mrs. Howard take the news?”

“Quite well, thankfully. Her immediate embarrassment quickly faded to amusement when I told her the story of my own elementary school nativity play during which I forgot my main line, so instead of offering good tidings to the shepherds I told them I had brought them some Tide laundrydetergent so they could clean themselves up and go see baby Jesus.”

Much to Holly’s dismay I bust out laughing. She wiggles out from under me, clearly affronted. Good thing she doesn’t know who’s on the other end of the phone call or she might start to hold these late night pillow talk sessions against him. It’s been nearly two weeks since that first phone call and while we haven’t seen much of each other in person, we’ve talked every night. Perhaps I should be concerned about how quickly it’s become the highlight of my day, but I’m too happy to worry about things like worrying.

“I know. I thought it was pretty good improv, but my mom was dead embarrassed. Thankfully, since he was the principal even back then, my dad got on stage at the end of the performance to thank the community, then got everyone laughing when he suggested we send a tape of the play to Tide to see if they wanted to use it for a festive marketing campaign.”

I laugh again, picturing a little Luke on stage in his angel outfit.

“I bet you were an adorable angel,” I tell him.

“Eh,” he makes a noise of dissent. “More like adorably disgruntled. I wanted to be one of the wisemen so I could ride one of the fake camels, but our class was really boy-heavy that year, so my mom volunteered me to be an angel since wealready had the costume from when Amy had done the role the year before.”

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