Page 12 of The Flirtation
“Okay. Travel safe, let me know when you’re there. And don’t forget—if he talks about ‘soccer’ he really means ‘football.’ Or is it the other wayaround?”
“You’rethe other way around. Loveyou.”
“Love you back…Hey,Ave?”
“Yeah.”
“This has been the longest phone conversation we’ve had in years and it was about Sir Flirty McFlirtson—think about what that means--love you bye.” She stuck her face up into the camera and made googly eyes as she ended thecall.
I reached into the back of the drawer, and pulled out the lacy La Perla slip that I’d purchased two years ago for some future hypothetical special occasion. It had lived at the back of the drawer ever since.Well, if being with Luke in a villa on the beach at the Bahamas isn’t a hypothetical special occasion then I don’t know what is. Wearing it will not indicate the intention to have sexual relations with him, any more than him sending me jars of marmalade meant that he intended to have sexual relations with me. I should at least put my best “face” forward, and this item of lingerie will make my face lookhot.
My phone vibrated while I was attaching it to the charger that’s always plugged in by my bed. It was a text, fromLuke:
See you in the Bahamas?...Something I never thought I’d be saying toyou…
I couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across my face anymore than I could stop my fingers from immediately typing:Not if I see youfirst! ;-)
I instantly regretted hitting “send.”Maybe that doesn’t read as flirtatious. Maybe he’ll take it as obnoxious. That’s a perfectly professional winky face,right?
He wrote back:Not if I kill myself two hours into the flight because I can’t check myemail. :-/
Yikes. Dark. Was he not looking forward to seeing me inperson?
I got another text from him:Will be nice to finally meet you in person,though…
Dear God. Death by ellipses. If it weren’t for those three dots, that would have been a perfectly innocent sentence,but…
Again, my fingers worked faster than my brain:Indeed…And don’t worry, I promise not to email you while you’re on the plane so you won’t miss anythingimportant. ;-)
Gah!Again with the winky face! I never use winky faces in texts—I hate winky faces! I am an emoticon-free texter. Maybe I was suffering from anticipatory jet lag. No wait, it’s the same timezone.
There was a very long, unfunny, excruciating, not at all flirtatious pause, which was at last followed by:Hah! Very good—see you later,then.
Aaaaand goodnight.
I gazed over at the bedside table drawer, where Mr. Potter lived, and then remembered to remove him from my bag and put him back there.Why can’t it just be you andme?
I didn’t expect to be able to sleep that night, because tomorrow I’d be seeing Luke Mason, face-to-face. But I slept. I slept so well, I suppose, because on some level I knew that meeting Luke in person would finally wake meup.
