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“That’s not what I do with mine.”

“You make it sound like I sent you an unsolicited dick pic.”

“The dick pic would have been less shocking.”

I laughed.

“What if I’d been in the middle of something?” she asked.

“Then you wouldn’t have answered. Wild, I know.”

I could tell she was smiling.

“I’m working on something,” I said. “I can’t text right now.”

“Oh, yeah? What are you working on?”

“A chair.”

“You’re fixing it?”

“I’m making it.”

“Wooow,” she said. “You know how to do that?”

“I’m a carpenter,” I said. “The whole family is. All my cousins. Liz too. My grandpa taught us.”

“Cool. Do you have an Instagram for your woodworking? I’d love to follow it.”

I shook my head. “No. I don’t do social media.”

She paused. “Like, at all? Ever?”

“Nope. It’s a waste of time. I spend two hours on TikTok, and I lose two hours. I spend two hours in my workshop, and I have a chair. I prefer the chair.”

“But…how do you keep up with people if you don’t do social media?”

“I call them.”

She laughed.

That chemistry…it was like the second we reconnected, there we were.

I heard the sound of a door opening and closing.

“Where are you?” I asked, grabbing my measuring tape and getting back to my project.

“I’m sitting by the pool on a recliner.”

I arched an eyebrow. “You have a pool?” The only pool we had around here was the river.

“Yup. I just came home from a friend’s house.”

I liked this. If she was at a friend’s house and she remembered she never replied to my text, it was probably because they were talking about me.

“Which friend?” I asked.

“Eh, just one from across the street.”