Page 6 of The Emerson Effect
“Oh, shit, did she actually clap back?” he asks when I don’t respond.
“No. Of course, not.”
“Good. Nothing to worry about, then. Forgive me?”
He leans closer, flutters his eyelashes at me, and purses his lips like he’s asking for a smooch. I can’t hold in my laugh as I shove him away from me. He chuckles and settles back against the couch before grabbing the remote and turning on the television.
I look back down at my phone and resume scrolling BingBang, looking for videos to tack or duo. My heart’s not in it, though, and my mind is a million miles away. Or, more like ahundredmiles, actually.
Twila is from the San Diego area, which is only a couple of hours’ drive away from me. She’s filmed videos near a few landmarks I recognize like the Coronado Bridge and the kissing sailor statue at Navy Pier, near the USS Midway. But the majority of her videos that aren’t inside her house show a town that looks more like a suburb than San Diego proper, so I think she must live somewhere in the area known to locals as “North County.”
I close my eyes and breathe deep. Why am I obsessing over Twila Greene right now? I’m supposed to be working. But after our little message exchange this morning, if you can even call it that, I can’t stop thinking about her.
She grudgingly told me she was drunk on margaritas when she messaged me last night. And yes, I could read her grumpy tone in that single word. And honestly, that tracks. Tequila is the worst kind of instigator for doing things you know you shouldn’t. I know that from experience.
When I saw that she’d read my message this morning and hadn’t responded, I imagined her stressing over what to say that would keep me from calling her out publicly. Of course, I don’t know for sure if that’s what she was doing, but I assumed it, and I felt compelled to put her at ease. I’m not the kind of guy wholikes to needlessly torture people with psychological warfare. I’m a pleaser in every sense of the word.
A puppy dog.
A teddy bear.
And when I did assure her I would pretend the message never happened, she responded immediately and thanked me for not being a total douchebag. My words, not hers. But true, nonetheless.
The green dot next to her handle disappeared after that, telling me she’d closed the app, so I didn’t respond. It doesn’t matter. It’s over. She’ll probably never contact me directly, again.
So, why do I have a pit in my stomach at the thought? I don’t know Twila, and she doesn’t know me. We’ve never connected directly like that, and it’s never bothered me before. It’s like her message unlocked something inside me I never expected. Like finding out the influencer I’ve been indirectly interacting with on BingBang suddenly became a real person. A woman with anxieties and fear who just needs reassurance that everything is going to be okay.
She’s not just a pretty persona on my phone’s screen anymore.
I’m intrigued. And I wonder if I can get her to talk to me again.
An idea forms, and I turn toward Stone. “Do we have any margarita mix in the house?”
“Bruh, it’s eleven a.m.”
I chuckle at the disgust in his voice. “I don’t need the tequila. Just the mix. It’s for an idea I have for a video.”
“Oh, okay. Yeah, I think there’s a bottle in the pantry.”
Perfect. My lips curve up into a Cheshire Cat grin. Let’s see if she can ignore this one.
Hopping up, I find an unopened bottle of margarita mix in the pantry, just where Stone said it would be. Setting it onto the counter, I leave the kitchen and skip up the stairs two at a time before knocking on Ritchie’s bedroom door.
“What’s up?” he asks when he pulls it open.
“Hey, you still have that tux you bought for the prom-themed party you went to last year?”
He found the jacket, pants, cummerbund, and bow tie at a thrift shop for a steal when some friends of his threw a “Flashback to Prom Night” party on New Year’s Eve. We’re about the same size, so I’m hoping he still has it and it will fit. Or fit well enough for what I have planned, at least.
“Yeah, it’s in my closet,” he says, opening the door wider and stepping aside so I can enter. “You going to the opera, or something?”
“BingBang video,” I say noncommittally as I sift through his closet.
Yes.Found it. And I have a white dress shirt that will work. This is going to be great.
“Thanks, man,” I say, hurrying out and into my room, closing the door behind me before he can ask any more questions.
I agreed to pay an extra fifty dollars per month toward the rent so I could score one of the two main bedrooms when we moved into this place, so I have a an en suite. Ritchie has the other, and the twins share the extra bathroom between their two rooms.
