Page 38 of Sounds Like Love

Larry and Esther. I still had a cheap casserole recipe that Larry gave me one Thanksgiving. I couldn’t remember how many weeks I subsisted off it in LA when money got tight and I only had some ground chuck in the fridge and almost-sprouted potatoes in the pantry.

“Yeah,” I said awkwardly.

Van cleared his throat. “Well, guess I should get these home before I decide to just eat them all here,” he said, patting the bag of doughnuts.“See you soon?” he added, though it must have been my imagination that it was hopeful.

“Soon,” I promised.

He waved an awkward goodbye as he stepped around me and dug his keys out of his pocket and pressed a button on the fob. An old Ford truck parked just down from the Revelry flashed its lights as it unlocked, and he climbed into it, and with one last short wave, he pulled a U-turn and drove away.

Bacon ice cream. Not very romantic. My phone began to vibrate, and when I checked the caller ID—it said a Santa Ana area code. No, hecouldn’thave …

So, I answered it with a cautious “Hello?”

“Wow, you gave him your actual number,” Sasha replied.

My mouth dropped open. “You copied it down?”

“To be fair, you thought it aloud when you put it in.”

I massaged the bridge of my nose as I started down the street toward the beach. There wasn’t a reason why I chose that direction. My body just pulled that way, a comfort embedded deep in my bones. “Of course I gave him my actual number. He’s a good guy.”

“Who you clearly have baggage with.”

“It’s … more like carry-on.”

“Huh.”

I rolled my eyes. “I thought you said you couldn’t chat on the phone, champ?”

“I figured out a way. Besides, like I was saying before we got interrupted by your crush—”

“He’s not a crush—”

“—I think we should meet.”

I almost tripped as I stepped off the curb and crossed the street. “In person?”

“In person,” he echoed. “I think it might make this whole …thingeasier to figure out.”

Maybe …I chewed on my bottom lip.

Theoretically, itwouldbe a lot easier to figure out this whole telepathic thing in person—or at least we could concentrate on it rather than just wait for the whims of whatever connected us to dry up. But then why did it make me so nervous? Living with him in my head was one thing, but with him here?Physically?What if …

“We wouldn’t be strangers, then,” I pointed out.

“No,” he agreed. “But …”

“I don’t think we’re strangers now, either,”he said in my head.

And he was right, we really weren’t. The longer I spoke with him, the more I imagined what he looked like, how he moved, his mannerisms. Did his face match his voice? Over the last few days, I’d started to construct this image of him in my head: tall, dark hair, a bit of stubble across his cheeks, and slate-colored eyes to match his gravelly voice. I imagined that he dressed in sleek dark colors, and that he walked with his hands in his pockets, and the tips of his fingers were covered in calluses from guitar strings. I’d imagined the kind of man who would call mebirdaround a perpetual grin, and tell me that my voice was lovely and—

And what if the real him was nothing like the man in my head at all?

I made it to the beach finally, and sat down on one of the dunes, watching a family fly a dragon-shaped kite in the breeze. It looped around and around, much like all the what-ifs in my head.

“Okay,” I finally agreed.Let’s meet.

Chapter16Closer (I Am) to Fine

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