Page 24 of The Emerson Effect
“Thank you. Thank you very much,” he says in a deep voice that I think is supposed to be an impression of Elvis.
“Don’t quit your day job,” I say with a laugh, and he grins back at me.
“Fine. Don’t name me Elvis in your phone. But you could change my name to something like…” He pauses like he’s thinking really hard, then snaps the same way he did before. “Hot Stuff.”
He says the two words so confidently, I can’t help but laugh. “No. No way.”
“Muffin. As in,StudMuffin,” he all but growls, and I laugh again as I shake my head.
“Sweet Cheeks? Cutie Pie? Hubba Bubba?”
“Hubba Bubba?” I cut in. “Where are you getting this stuff? No. Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. But I will ask, why do you need a nickname in my phone if we’re not sharing my side of the text messages until after we’re out and confirmed? Everyone will already know it’s you.”
“Because it’s rom-antic, Twila. You do want people to think our fake relationship is romantic, don’t you?”
“I guess,” I say, laughing at his overly passionate tone. “I’ll put some thought into it and find the perfect, most romantic nickname for you, Emerson. I promise.”
He chuckles at my fake earnestness and shakes his head. “Good. And I’ll come up with some ideas for our coconut video and post it tomorrow.”
“Sounds good,” I say.
He bites his bottom lip, then blows out a long breath. “I should probably let you go. That perfect nickname isn’t going to come up with itself.”
“Yeah,” I say, adopting both a serious tone and expression. “I need to focus on the task at hand, or this whole thing might fail.”
“Glad to see you’re finally taking it seriously,” he says with an adorable smirk.
Wait. Nope. Annoying. I meant annoying, not adorable.
Fuck. Who am I kidding It’sadorable.
“Bye, Emerson.”
“Good night, Twila.”
The call ends, and I tap on his name in my contact list. Letter by letter, I delete his name. I stare at the flashing cursor for a few moments, then my lips tug up, and I type in a new name.
There. Perfection.
FOURTEEN
Emerson
I stare at the blank screen for a moment, a soft smile curving my lips. Catching myself, I clear my throat and navigate to Twila’s contact page in my phone. Deleting her name, I think about it for a moment, then nod as I quickly type in the word “Daisy.”
“Perfect,” I murmur, pride at my own ingenuity zipping through me.
Not only did one of my videos include the flower, but “margarita” can also mean “daisy” in Spanish. It’s a coincidence I used those two items in my videos, of course, but if the viewers make the connection, they’ll think I’m a genius.
Okay, fine. Maybe not a genius, butcleverat the very least.
Twila and I should probably practice text-flirting. Besides this whole thing being fake, we don’t really know each other, so it might take a while to get into a sexy groove that’s believable. I open a thread with her and stare at the blank screen for a few beats before typing out my first message.
Me:Hey, there, Hot Stuff.
I snort at how cheesy it is, and Twila doesn’t disappoint with her reaction.
Daisy:Hot Stuff? Who is this? Danny Zuko?
