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Charlie is quiet for a second. Then she yells, “I’ll be back later!”
I wince. She’s clearly yelling to someone there with her in Autre, but she didn’t cover the phone.
Then she’s in my ear babbling. “Oh, my God, Abi! That’s amazing! Someone there in Sapphire Falls? Who is he? Are you dating or do you just like him? Have you gone out? Do you work with him? What’s he like? What’s his name?”
When she pauses for a breath, I say, “You know Ami will kill you if you get info before she does. Where is she?”
“I’m on my way to her right now,” Charlie says. “She might still be in bed. Do you realize it’s only eight a.m.?”
“She’s up before now usually, isn’t she?” I’m a morning person. For sure. Eight seems late to me.
“Yes, when school’s in, but Andre’s off for the summer so they sleep in,” Charlie says of Ami’s twelve-year-old stepson. “Of course, Rosie might have them up.”
Rosie is my baby niece. Rosie is only a little over a month old. Ami and Michael had gotten married at the courthouse in New Orleans shortly after Ami found out she was pregnant. Then Rosie had been born in March and they’d had their big wedding ceremony and reception this past weekend. The order of things didn’t really matter. No one who had ever seen Ami and Michael together doubted that they were going to be together forever.
“Well, call me back after you’re with Ami and you guys are able to talk.” I pause and give my sister something that will make her entire day…maybe her whole week. “I need some advice about this guy.”
Charlie squeals. Actually squeals in my ear. I hang up laughing.
Then try to get some work done.
But I’m so distracted.
I want to text Torin.
But I want to talk to my sisters first. This is all happening really fast with him. We just met.
Sure, we met two years ago at Charlie’s wedding technically, but I didn’t really know him then. I’d totally written him off, in fact.
You should still be writing him off, the voice in my head tells me. He’s still a prince.
Yeah. He is. All of the reasons I can’t be involved with him are still there.
But it doesn’t feel the same now. Now that I know him better. Now that he knows me better.
Charlie and Ami call me back only ten minutes later. And it’s a video call.
I take my gloves off to answer and prop the phone against the boot box. “Hey,” I answer.
“You met someone?” Ami squeals. “Oh my God, Abi! That’s amazing!”
I laugh and shake my head. “Why do you both act like I just won a Pulitzer? He’s a guy. There are literally hundreds walking around here. Meeting them isn’t hard at all.”
Charlie laughs. She’s got a cup of coffee in both hands, and I can tell she’s sitting on the floor in front of Ami’s couch. Ami is on the cushion behind her so they both fit in the frame. There’s a baby blanket draped over the back of the couch, and a swing in the background. Ami clearly just woke up, and she looks a little sleepy, but happy.
“You winning a Pulitzer is way more believable than you meeting a guy you want to call and talk to us about,” Charlie says.
I shake my head again. They say stuff like this a lot. And it’s supportive and really nice in many ways. But my family actually has no idea what I do.
Abi’s just always in her own world.
Oh, Abi is just so smart, we can’t even keep up with her.
She’s going to do amazing things, and we just need to stay out of her way.
I have no doubt they’re proud. But they figure that whatever I’m doing must be so advanced and amazing that they’ll never be able to understand it anyway, so they don’t really ask much about it.
“Well, surprise,” I say. “He’s real. And I need advice.”
