Back to the phone. Since she had no contacts to enter, she started moving through the various apps, deleting all the stupid games she’d never use. Going into the app store, she located her bank, and downloaded their app. She couldn’t log in until she had her laptop back and could look up her account and password, but at least it was a start. After browsing a bit, she came across something called the Forest app, apparently for people trying to focus on a task. It came with cute trees and bushes, though, and looked amusing, plus it was free, so she installed that. Looking up the bed and breakfast on Google, she gave it 5 stars and wrote up a fabulous review.
What else? She scrolled through her phone. Facebook, Twitter… those would all have to wait until she could find her logins and password. Oh! Music! Definitely, she wanted music. She went to the app store looking for something free. The first thing she found was Spotify. That would do. She created an account, and started hunting some of her favorite songs. Before she knew it, she had a half dozen playlists created, and was having a marvelous time.
She was deep into searching out more music, while happily singing along to her new Golden Oldies playlist, when an odd chiming interrupted the song that was playing. It took her a minute, blinking at her phone in puzzlement, before realizing she had a call coming in. Oh! It was Katerina! She swiped the screen quickly.
“Hello?”
“Hello to you, too,” came Katerina’s cheerful voice. “Hey, we’re downstairs, can you come down?”
Downstairs? Startled, she looked at the time. It was past one! She checked again, just to be sure. Yep. She’d spent four hours on the phone, and hadn’t even noticed the time going by. Maybe she should have used that Forest app to have kept better track. Not that she had anywhere she had to be. Oh, right, Katerina.
“Yes, sure,” she said quickly. “I’ll be right down.”
Coming down the stairs, the first person she saw was Liam, waiting for her at the doorway to the lounge. She was aware of a surge of relief that he was there, the only person she felt like she really knew amongst all these strangers.
He scanned her with a friendly gaze, and nodded. “You look lots better this morning.”
Naomi chuckled as she came down the last steps to stand beside him. “That’s what Angus said, too, when I came down this morning. I slept all night, then woke up and had a wonderful breakfast.” She waved her phone at him. “I’ve been on my phone ever since, figuring it out and picking music,” she admitted. “I lost track of time.”
He laughed. “That’ll happen, every time. Come on in.”
He stood aside, letting her go before him into the lounge. She stepped inside, then froze as what seemed like dozens of faces turned to her. She gulped, and subdued a craven urge to flee. Okay, really, it was only three people. Besides Troy, who’d driven the van bringing her here, there was Jacinth and Katerina, so she’d met all of them yesterday, however briefly.
She was aware of color creeping into her cheeks.
“I’m so sorry about yesterday,” she apologized.
Katerina waved a careless hand. “It’s okay, you’ve been through a lot. Sleep is part of the body’s way of healing.”
“So is food.” Jacinth’s voice held a hopeful note. “Maybe we can call out for pizza?”
Katerina rolled her eyes.
“What? We can’t call out for pizza in Qaf,” the pretty Djinn defended.
“What’s Qaf?” Naomi inquired of Liam in low voice.
“The Djinn homeland. It’s a mystical place only Djinn can get to. She’ll tell you about it if you ask.”
“Or even if you don’t.” Katerina winked at her. “Okay, if we’re ordering pizza, let’s hear some preferences.”
“Give her a minute, ladies.” Liam slid his hand under Naomi’s elbow, guiding her over to the buffet. “What would you like to drink?”
“Hot chocolate,” she said longingly. Her gaze assessed the baked offerings, and she reached for a plate. “Wow, are these cookies home-made, too?”
“They are! Renee loves baking, and believe me, when you try any of her baked goods, you can tell!”
She eyed the cookies greedily. She loved chocolate chip, but she was having hot chocolate to drink, so she grabbed a couple Snickerdoodles. “This should get me through til pizza gets here.”
“What kind of pizza?” Katerina had her phone out and was tapping away as they came to the lounge. Liam took a seat on one side of a loveseat, and pulled Naomi down beside him.
“Oh… anything with meat, no veggies.” Naomi grinned at Katerina. “Me car-nee-vore.”
Katerina grinned right back, and leaned over to high-five her. “Carnivores rule!” Her gaze slid to Liam, and she snickered. “And dogs drool.”
Jacinth gave a dramatic groan. “I cannot believe you said that!”
Liam just laughed.
