Page 37 of Sounds Like Love

I bit the inside of my cheek, because I didn’t think what he did for work was boring at all. After he left for Boston, he joined a small gaming company where he now worked as a software programmer. He always liked video games, so it felt like a natural progression. I’d even tried to play one of the platformers he worked on a few years ago, but I was awful at those sorts of Metroidvaniastyle games.

“Oooh, is this that guy again?”Sasha asked curiously.“Do you have a small little cruuuush?”

Ireallywished there was an eject button in my head.

Clearing my throat, I pointed to the bag under Van’s arm. “Boring work’s certainly not stopping you from enjoying the little things.”

He laughed, holding up the greasy bag of doughnuts. “Guilty as charged. Sometimes you just got a craving, you know?”

“You always did have a sweet tooth,” I replied, remembering all the late-night drives for slushies and ice cream. “Did you see the new ice cream place down by the pier?”

His eyes lit up. “I hear they havebaconice cream.”

I scrunched my nose. “Gross.”

“It might be good!”

“We’ll see.”

“Are you still flirting? Get a room already.”

I bent my head down and whispered, “Will youstopit?”

“Hmm?” Van asked, pulling out his phone.

I smiled at him. “Nothing! Nothing. There was—um—an annoying fly buzzing me.”

“Wow, as soon as another guy comes around, I’m afly. I’m hurt, bird.”

If there was a way to mentally choke a man out, I was envisioning it.

Van said, “Well, can you give me your number? And you can text me if you ever want to go check it out?”

“You’re not going to convince me that bacon ice cream is good.”

“Challenge accepted,” he replied with a grin.

I should have said no. I should have told him that this ship had sailed, and he’d sunk it when he left me on the beach with a broken heart years ago. But … I wasn’t very good at self-preservation, and there were so many questions I had for him.I wanted to know how he was, if he liked his job, whether he’d completed his Terry Pratchett collection yet. And it wasn’t like I would make the same mistake twice. We were both almost a decade older than those kids on the beach. We had history, and that history didn’t just go away.

And, I mean, he was stillreallysuper attractive.

Besides, what if it helped spark something in me? What if it filled the well? Cured me of burnout? I hadn’t triedthisyet. Maybe …

Sasha said, sounding sincere,“You only live once, bird.”

I …

“C’mon, give him your number.”

So I did. I put it into his phone, and he looked happy with himself as he sent off a text to me. But really, my putting my number into his phone meant that he’d lost it at some point. My phone vibrated in my back pocket with his new number. “And now we can meet for bacon ice cream, yeah?”

“I’d like that,” I replied. Because I really would.

“Good. You know, not everyone can say they might get ice cream with the great Joni Lark.” He raised an eyebrow playfully.

“Joni Lark isn’t that great. She’s tired mostly.”

“Well, you don’t look tired. And my parents still talk about how great you are.”

---