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She refused to blush. “You’ve done that enough already.”
“It wouldn’t have been unexpected this time if you’d answered your phone.”
“I was sleeping,” she said.
“Last night at nine?”
She pulled out her phone to check for missed calls. “You didn’t call me at nine.”
“That’s when I texted you. I called at nine-thirty.”
Her screen showed nothing. Not even a missed call. “You must have the wrong number.”
“It’s the one Carson gave me.” He repeated the number. It was hers. She was about to comment on the oddity of his call and text not going through—and then she remembered. She’d blocked his number the summer after she graduated. She’d spent the first month hoping he would contact her, and when he hadn’t, she’d blocked him so she wouldn’t think about it anymore. And she hadn’t until now.
“Is it the right number?” he asked.
“Yeah. Oh, um…” She cleared her throat. “I see the missed call now…” She surreptitiously went to her settings to unblock his number. “I was busy last night weaving glow lights around garlands and wasn’t near my phone.”
He shot her a look as though he knew she was lying. “Well, you’re here now. That’s the important thing.”
She watched the road go by for a few moments. She was keenly aware of Kye sitting next to her. He and his blue eyes and stupidly attractive jawline. They’d have almost two hours to Bozeman. Two long hours to do nothing but talk. She wanted to ask what Lisa thought of the two of them going off on this excursion together, but on second thought, Elsie didn’t want to talk about Lisa. Elsie didn’t want to hear about how wonderful his girlfriend was or how long they’d been together.
“Why didn’t you get one of Olivia’s friends to come with you? Her father knows them better than me.” Elsie hoped, ridiculously, that he would say he wanted to spend time with her. Foolish, really. Was she still looking for validation from him?
“Olivia’s friends are helping her with wedding things. If any of them came with me, she’d notice their absence and ask where they were going. I’m hoping to be able to give her a happy surprise at the ceremony.”
“Oh.” He’d chosen her because she was more invisible. Funny how things never changed.
“Besides,” he said, “it’s been a long time since you’ve given me any book recommendations. You were always the one to tell me what I should read next. You must have a long list after three years.”
Books. A safe topic. She’d read so many that if she included reasons why she’d liked each, she could possibly stretch the topic out all the way to the Bozeman city limits. She told him about the latest ones she’d read and also some nonfiction books she knew he’d like. Ones about George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and the Wright brothers. When she’d read those books, she’d thought of Kye and felt a twinge of sadness that she’d never be able to talk to him about them. And now she was.
He’d already read the one about the Wright brothers—proof that she’d been right about him liking it and also proof that they had the same tastes in books; in a lot of things, really. They spent half an hour alone just talking about the trials the Wright Brothers had to overcome. At Kitty Hawk, the brothers were faced with swarms of mosquitos so thick, they nearly blocked out the sun.
That alone would’ve probably put an end to Elsie’s attempts to fly.
But maybe that had been one of her problems, not expecting things to be hard. A lot of goals were filled with sun-blocking mosquito swarms.
Kye talked about books he’d read and told her whether she would like them or not. Which meant he thought he knew her well enough to know which ones she’d like. She wasn’t sure whether that was touching or presumptuous. But it was probably accurate.
When they reached Bozeman, they were discussing fiction. “You’d like the Erasing Time series,” he said. “It’s got action, but not a lot of bloodshed or swearing. And it’s got romance. You were always a big fan of that.”
Did that sentence have more than one meaning? That was the problem with talking to Kye. Everything seemed like it could be hinting at something else. “I’m more realistic about my views on romance now,” she said.
“Good. Then a guy doesn’t have to be a billionaire, demi-god, or a mafia don to catch your interest?”
“That depends. Are we talking about in books or in real life?”
He laughed and shook his head. “College must have changed. There were very few demi-gods when I went.”
“Well, as you’ve pointed out in the past, you’re a lot older than me. Ancient, in fact.”
“I did point that out,” he said, unrepentant.
And there it was. The subject that was never far from the surface when they were together. And she’d been the one to bring it up this time. Well, maybe that was for the best. There was something she wanted to know. She turned to better see him. “Who did you tell about the… about what happened in the nurse’s office at the Mathematics Decathlon?” It was best to know whom to be mortified around.
“No one,” he said.
