Page 36 of We Met Like This
“Nobody. I’m just practicing phone etiquette.”
She threw a throw pillow straight at my head and it actually connected.
“Ouch!” I snatched it up, ready to fling it back.
She held up her hands in defense. “Don’t lie to me. And don’t fake your voice for your boyfriend. There’s no way you can keep that up. Just be yourself, dork.”
“You have a boyfriend?” Miles asked. “Since when?”
“They’re three years strong,” Sloane said.
“You’re the worst.” I threw the pillow, which completelymissed her, then shut myself back in my room. “I donothave a boyfriend.” I just had someone I needed to make hot and bothered for sport.
“Hello,” I practiced again, trying to be normal. “Hello.” I walked over to my window and watched a man in the parking lot disconnecting the battery in his car, a new one waiting on the sidewalk behind him. “Hi.”
As though the man could hear me, he looked over his shoulder. I stepped back quickly, then closed my blinds.
I took a deep breath and messaged Oliver my phone number. My phone rang several minutes later.
“Hey,” I answered. My voice was definitely not sex-line operator. The lack of air in my lungs made it sound squeaky instead of sultry. “Hi,” I tried again. Better.
“Hello,” he said, like he was the audiobook narrator of a romance novel.
“You’re inviting a woman to a funeral for a first date?” I asked. “Probably a bad choice. Better to just bring your best friend or distant cousin for support. Also, are you okay? Who died?”
“No, not me. A woman invited me to a funeral. Not sure how to respond to that. It feels cruel to sayToo much, too fastor to just ignore her. She’s obviously grieving.”
I would probably feel the same way if someone invited me. I sat on my bed to answer. “I see your dilemma. But how would the rest of the family feel having a stranger at something so very personal?”
“True. That’s a great response. How come we haven’t been each other’s coaches for all these years?”
“Because we’ve been trying to wash the taste of our first date out of our mouths,” I said.
“I thought thetasteof our first date was the only good part,” he responded.
It was validating to hear I wasn’t the only one who thought the makeout was exceptional. “You’re right. We really should’ve just been each other’s booty calls for all these years.”
He strangled out a choking laugh.
“Too much?” I asked, laying back on my pile of pillows.
“From you? No.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It is,” he said. “What wasyourweirdest message from the apps this week? Does it beat my funeral one?”
I tried to remember any message I had gotten this week. The truth was, I hadn’t opened the apps in days. “Um…”
“You’re still on the apps, right?”
“Yes, of course,” came my defensive reply. “Pimple popping.”
“What?”
“Someone asked me if I watched pimple popping videos.” That was a message from last week, not this week, but it answered his question.
“Huge red flag,” he said.
