“Actually,” I said. “Could I borrow your phone? To make an international call? It’ll be quick, I promise, and I…well, I don’t know how I’ll pay you back for any charges, but I’ll definitely try my best.”
He slid his phone out of his pocket and handed it to me. “It’s no bother.”
He stepped a few feet away, presumably to give me some privacy, which I did appreciate. I was glad I knew Mari’s number by heart—there weren’t many people I could say that about, just Mari and my parents and work and the local Chinese place where I ordered takeout more often than I should probably admit.
I forgot to input the country code and had to go back and start over, but once I was sure I’d typed all the numberscorrectly, I held the phone to my ear and tried to think what I would even say.Do you remember after I hung up last night? Well, you’re never going to believe this, but…Or maybe I just cut right to the chase.I think I might be in Ireland right now. I know, I know, but I need your help…
But all I got was a weird static sound—not a ringtone, or a message that the person you were trying to reach was out of range, or anything. Just this strange, unsettling noise, and then the call hung up. I tried again, then tried my mother, then even tried the law firm where I worked and the Chinese restaurant with no regard for what time it was over there. I just wanted to hear a human voice come over the phone even if it was an outgoing voicemail message.
Finally, I hung up, holding the phone out to the mechanic but snatching it back before he could take it from me. “Sorry,” I said, swiping to delete the numbers I’d called from his phone log. “I don’t want to clutter up your call history.”
I knew it was irrational, that there was no reason he’d have to try redialing or even looking up any of the numbers I’d called, but suddenly I was terrified he’d find out that one of the four places I’d been trying to reach was my local China Star. When I was done, I handed his phone back to him.
“I couldn’t get through,” I said. “Maybe you don’t have international calling on your plan or something.”
He frowned down at his phone, like he could see right there on the screen whether it had international calling or not. Without his eyes to distract me, I couldn’t help but notice that he had insane cheekbones, and a soft, full mouth. It was a pretty face, somehow more so for its contrast with the rest of him, thoseworkingman’s hands. My impression of him back at the garage had been that he was younger than me, but not by much—late twenties, early thirties maybe. But now, something about him standing in that soft sweater, looking down at his phone like it had wronged him, he seemed younger still. I wondered suddenly if he’d followed me to the bus stop, and whether I should feel touched or creeped out that he’d made the gesture.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll figure it out. You didn’t have to follow me here to check on me.”
“Follow you?”
The way his brows knit together, my stomach dropped.
“I mean, I appreciate it. If that’s what you were doing. Even though, for the record, I didn’t ask you to—I do know how to catch a bus. I know I’m not exactly selling it at the moment, but in general I’m perfectly capable.”
“I didn’t follow you.”
“Okay,” I said, but something in my voice must’ve given away that I didn’t fully believe him, because he made an impatient sound in the back of his throat.
“I was picking up my lunch,” he said.
Who needed a coat when your cheeks could burn enough to heat you from the inside out. “Oh.”
“I saw you waiting for the bus, then I got my sandwich and saw youstillwaiting for the bus…”
“Right,” I said, not wanting him to say another word. Of course. That made so much more sense, and I felt foolish for even assuming he would’ve followed me on purpose. He’d just seen me, no doubt looking sad and pathetic all by myself, and he’d stopped.
“Right,” he said. “Well.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, squinting over at the bus stop again, like he was still trying to figure out why I wasn’t on a bus yet. But he obviously decided it wasn’t his problem, because he lifted his hand in a halfhearted salute. “Best of luck,” he said.
“You, too,” I said automatically, cringing inwardly at myself as he turned to cross the street. He was nice to watch walk away—those Dickies-style pants, his hands shoved deep in the pockets, pulling the fabric tighter over his butt. He had a really nice butt. It was probably wrong to have these thoughts, even in a dream, or maybe that was exactly where you were meant to have them.
I tilted my head back, wrinkling my nose up at the sky. There was no reason to objectify the man, just because I’d felt that tug low in my belly even from the way he’d said that opening line.The bus not come?I liked the way his accent made that last word curl in on itself.
Maybe Mari had the right idea with her vibrator dates.
My brain was so far in the clouds—or in the gutter, more like—that I was truly shocked when I looked back down and saw the object of my thoughts stalking back across the street like he was almost angry. Uh-oh. Had he somehow read my mind?
“Here,” he said, dropping a brown paper bag next to me on the wall so forcefully it nearly tipped over and fell off the other side. “You take that.”
It was so abrupt, my first instinct was that I wanted nothing to do with whatever was in the brown paper bag. Who justthrew a bag at someone? Notatme, to be fair, but still. Close enough.
“No thank you,” I said, picking it up to hand it back to him.
“Takeit,” he insisted. “I’ll get another one.”
“I don’t want it.”
