Page 46 of Line Change

“Give me the phone.”

“Absolutely not.”

The host starts the next question, and Micah reluctantly looks away. I should answer Pope and put the phone down. Instead, I scroll up.

The last two weeks are all there. He sent me a clip of a goalie losing his stick into the crowd during warmups. I sent him a GIF of a golden retriever running into a glass door after he missed me on a backdoor pass. Most of the rest is hockey or Bobby’s latest attempt to make everybody play some terrible phone game. Pope has also sent three restaurants he thinks I need to try because he disapproves of my diet.

He texts me from the stall opposite mine sometimes. At lunch yesterday, he sent a picture of Bobby stealing fries off Caleb’s plate while Bobby was sitting right beside me. I laughed, looked up, and found Pope watching me over his own phone. He went back to eating before I could say anything.

Nothing in the thread would get us in trouble. We haven’t even sexted, which feels like a failure of imagination considering what he did with his mouth last night.

The number of messages is the problem. We see each other at the rink nearly every day, and somehow we still have this much to say when we leave.

Whatever. I made a friend. An orgasm friend is still a friend.

Micah is still trying to come up with the smallest species of penguin. The line on our answer sheet is blank, and I want to answer Pope before he decides I’m busy.

“Little penguin,” I say.

Tessa takes the pen from Micah. “Is that real?”

“That’s my guess.”

She writes LITTLE PENGUIN with the kind of pressure that might tear the paper. “We’re going to lose because you were making eyes at your phone.”

“I wasn’t making eyes at anything.”

I send Pope the address for Marlowe’s, then add, Pick me up in thirty.

His reply comes before I can lock the screen.

Okay.

He doesn’t ask why I’m at a bar in Capitol Hill on a weeknight or complain about being ordered across town. He just says okay.

I put the phone facedown.

Micah watches me do it. “Thirty minutes?”

“You were reading over my shoulder.” He doesn’t even have the decency to look guilty.

“I was looking in that direction.”

I point at the chair he’s half out of. “With your whole body?”

“Thirty minutes is enough to finish the round,” Tessa says. “You’re staying for the music questions.”

I was planning to. Now I want to leave just to be difficult.

Micah wants to know whether my mystery person has a car, which isn’t subtle. Tessa asks whether we’re dating, then acts like she’s only clarifying the rules when I tell her no. Neither of them gets a name. Giving them Pope would answer too many questions I don’t want them to ask.

By the time the host calls pens down, they’re guessing professions.

“Dentist,” Micah says.

“Why would I date a dentist?”

“You’re not dating them. Keep up.” Micah gestures for Tessa to give him the pen, and she ignores him.