Page 42 of Phillip

“We should celebrate,” he suggested.

“Yes!”

Though he didn’t have any ideas on how to celebrate yet. “How about—”

“Ice cream!”

He chuckled. “I was thinking about something a little more substantial.”

“Do you like ice cream?” she demanded with an odd worry to her tone.

“Yeah. Who doesn’t like—”

“In a cup or cone?”

He laughed again. “I didn’t realize this was such serious business.”

“Then why aren’t you answering, Phillip?”

“Can I say both?”

“No.”

“All right, all right. Um—”

“Tell me,” she interrupted, “what would you do if your ice cream cone started to melt?”

Has she lost her mind?“Ashley—”

“What’s the answer?”

“You’re serious,” he said, laughing.

“As a heart attack, Phillip.”

“If I had to choose between a world of only ice cream cones or ice cream cups, then I opt for a cone, not giving it a chance to melt. Though I do like it when it starts to melt in a cup, especially with toppings.” What the hell were they talking about? He didn’t care. He loved her laugh. “I’m going to laugh later when you blame this conversation on a sleeping pill.”

“You’re laughing now,” she corrected. “You get three options to handle melting ice cream on a cone, and you can only pick one. A, you lick it. B, you wipe the sides of your ice cream cone with a napkin. Or C, you throw it away.”

“B or C, obviously.”

She gasped. “What?”

“Ashley, calm down. I was kidding.” He let the cool sand wiggle between his toes. “Are you feeling okay?”

Phillip heard what sounded like Ashley throwing herself back into a heap of pillows. “Yeah, sorry,” she muttered. “My mother got in my head about something.”

“Say no more.” Agatha Cartwright was a ninja of manipulation. Somehow, he wasn’t surprised that her mother had warped something as simple as melting ice cream. “Are we still on for ice cream?”

“Yes. Do you want me to meet you at the Dairy Fairy?”

A better idea struck him like lightning to a tree, and he grinned. “I’ll pick you up.”

“Okay, sure.”

“How about at nine o’clock?”

She grumble-laughed. “I don’t know if I can wait that long to celebrate with ice cream.”

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