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“Shit,” I muttered.
Her name appeared on the screen, and for a second I simply stared.
I tapped the button to answer. “Charlotte?”
“Did you want me to send you pictures?” she asked. She was whispering. Sort of. Her voice was breathy and short, like she’d just been running.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “No.” I winced. “I mean ... my sister is the one who sent that text.”
She was quiet.
“Oh.” Then she emitted a flustered laugh. “Right.”
My chest ached when I thought about the embarrassment I’d felt shifting over to her. “I wouldn’t mind seeing some of you, though,” I said quietly.
She drew in a breath.“Oh.”
I closed my eyes. I sucked at this.
I was so rusty at anything approaching this, I might as well have been trying to speak a different language.
So I did what Charlotte and I did best.
“Let me guess—it took you that long to respond because you lost your phone.”
She laughed. “No. Well, not really. I set it on top of the fridge when I was looking for something earlier, and then I forgot that I left it there.”
“What were you looking for?”
“Light bulbs.”
“Above the fridge? Now I know you’re full of shit. No one keeps them there.”
“They’re right by the kitchen light. It makes total sense.”
I shook my head but found myself smiling all the same. With just a little bit of beer loosening my inhibitions, I was surprised at how easily I could admit that I’d missed this.
Missed teasing her.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
She hummed. “Watching TV.”
“Let me guess ...”
Charlotte laughed. “It’ssoothing. I don’t have to think when I watch this show. Only British baking shows provide even close to this kind of mental comfort.”
I stared at the screen, a horrific emerald necklace in the shape of a snake covering the screen. “You’d see shit like that necklace in anIndiana Jonesmovie, and it would be haunted by some ancient demon that would possess your soul.”
Silence descended like a bomb, and in that instant, I realized my mistake.
“Holy shit,” she said. “Iknewit.”
I slicked my tongue over my teeth and cursed really badly in my head. “Knew what?”
“You’re totally watching it.”
“You can’t know that.”
