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“Robots, I guess.” William shrugged. “Can you tell my mom?”

  “Sure, buddy. I’ll tell her.” I ruffled his hair before I could stop myself. William suffered my touch and even gave me a grin that seemed much more like his normal self. “It’s all going to be okay.”

  19

  The Chinese Acrobats were amazing. Alex and Olivia’s tickets were Orchestra, three rows back. I’d never been to a show at the Hershey Theater before, but the art-deco architecture was beautiful, and they sold chocolate during intermission. You can’t beat that.

  “He’s cute,” Olivia told me in the bathroom during the break. “Alex says you guys met through your brother?”

  I’d washed my hands and now touched up my makeup in the mirror. “Is this lipstick too much?”

  She eyed me critically then shook her head. “No. It works on you. That red is great.”

  “I don’t want it to look like, you know.” I laughed, self-conscious. “Like I’m trying too hard. Like this is a date?”

  “Isn’t it?” She laughed and dried her hands.

  I shrugged. “He asked me out for Saturday night. I asked him to go tonight, but...I don’t know. I haven’t been on a date in forever, not the kind where the guy calls you up and asks you out.”

  “Why not?” Olivia smoothed the front of her dress and looked to me for unspoken affirmation that she was put together all right before we both headed out of the ladies’ room.

  “Haven’t met anyone. Haven’t tried,” I added. “At least not for the boyfriend-type thing.”

  She nodded. “Yeah. I get you.”

  When we got back to our seats, Niall had bought me a glass of wine. It made me laugh a little, because the theater rules stated you could take drinks into the theater, so long as the cup was covered. It was like drinking out of a toddler’s sippy cup. But still, it was good wine, and he’d bought chocolate, too.

  “My favorite,” I said about the rich milk chocolate and almonds. “Thank you.”

  “Not everyone likes nuts,” Niall said. “But you looked like you do.”

  Beside me, Alex started to laugh. Olivia, on his other side, punched him in the arm. I laughed, too, still channeling teenage boy, I guess, but I also got warm and tingly because he was right. I do like nuts in my chocolate. We were both still chortling when the lights flickered and dimmed, and as the theater got dark, Niall leaned close to me to murmur in my ear.

  “You have the best laugh I’ve ever heard.”

  I found it very hard to concentrate on the show’s second act.

  His knee brushed mine every so often. His pinky finger, splayed on his thigh, brushed mine, too. I waited, semi-breathless, for him to take my hand. He didn’t. But I wanted him to.

  Just before the end of the second act, my phone pinged. I scrambled for it, embarrassed that I’d forgotten to turn off the ringer. The music in the show was loud enough that I don’t think anyone heard it, at least not enough to be severely annoyed. I thumbed the screen to see a notification from my message app.

  New message from JohnSmith

  I didn’t read it, and I tucked my phone into the side pocket of my purse, but the blink, blink of it lighting up let me know he was sending me a lot of messages. The show ended, and the lights came up. While we waited our turn to exit, Niall gestured at my bag.

  “Do you need to check that?”

  “Not right now.”

  We let the crowd sweep us outside and into the parking lot, where we said goodbye to Alex and Olivia. Neither of us made a move to get into our cars. It was a repeat of the first night we’d hung out, though much warmer. I found myself wishing it was cold, so I’d have an excuse to borrow his jacket again.

  “So,” Niall began, his standard start to a conversation. His phone rang from his pocket. “Ah, hold on a second. It’s my mother.”

  While he chatted with her, I pulled out my phone to check the messages from Esteban. Close to twenty of them, increasingly graphic, and though he had to have seen that I wasn’t reading any of them, increasingly inquisitive, as well. The last one was the direct question:

  R U there?

  Sorry. Out right now, will catch you in a bit, I typed, hitting Send as Niall disconnected.

  “I told her I was going out tonight, but she forgot.” He shrugged. “Since my dad died, she’s been a little...needy.”

  “But you’re a good boy to take care of your mother,” I said lightly.

  He didn’t look thrilled. “Good boy, nice one. Thanks.”

  “I was teasing you. Good man?”

  “I’d rather be called a man,” he said, and looked at the phone in my hand, which was merrily lighting up every time a new message came in. “Everything okay?”

  “Oh. Yeah. That...is a friend.”

  “A pretty insistent friend, huh? One of the guys from the pictures?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  Weird, awkward silence. The parking lot had cleared out, and we were among the last people there. Security would probably kick us out soon.

  “So...” I laughed at how I’d picked up his pet phrase. “Do you want to go somewhere else, or...?”

  “It’s kind of late. Work in the morning.” Niall looked around the lot then back at me. “Unless you wanted to? I mean...”

  “No, it’s all right.” I waited to see if he’d lean in for a kiss. A handshake. An awkward shoulder punch. Something, anything, but all he did was take a few backward steps toward his car.

  “I’ll call you about Saturday,” he said.

  I nodded. “Sure. Talk to you later.”

  Feeling a little disgruntled, a little put off, I watched him drive away. In the front seat of my car, I looked over my phone again to find another few messages from Esteban.

  Where R U?

  What R U doing?

  There’d been plenty of times when I didn’t hear back from Esteban immediately. For him to be so adamant about a reply from me was irritating. I thought about simply deleting the texts, but that was a thing with me. I hated not being answered so fiercely that it had become sort of sadly pathological for me to never ignore a message.

  I was out.

  He read it and replied at once. Where?

  The problem with having a conversation via written messages on a tiny screen is that you can’t judge the other person’s tone of voice. Add the tiniest bit of a language barrier—Esteban’s English was impeccable, but he didn’t always get the idioms correct, for example—and I knew I should be careful about assuming he was grilling me versus merely being curious.

  I went to see a show with some friends.

  After that, he didn’t message again until I was walking in my front door.

  May I call you?

  Before I even had time to type an answer, my phone was ringing. “Hello?”

  “Hello,” he said in a low voice. “I’ve been missing you.”

  There are things that men say to women that should be flattering, but sometimes are not, depending on how and where and when and who. “You have great tits” whispered in a whiskey-soaked voice late at night in bed can make a woman moan; that same “compliment” shouted at her by a bunch of strangers as she crosses the street, not so much. Esteban had told me that he missed me before, but tonight it sounded more like an accusation.

  “I was out,” I said.

  “Was it a good show? What did you see?”

  I described the show to him as I undressed, an eye on the clock, thinking that the morning was going to come too early. “Listen, it’s late, and I’m tired.”

  “Who did you go with?”

  “Some friends.”

  “Was it a date?” he asked.

  We were more complicated than we were supposed to be, but I was not his girlfriend. He was not my boyfriend. We had an arrangement that had been carefully constructed and was still somewhat fragile in the aftermath of his abruptly breaking it off.

  “Yes, it was,” I said.

  Silence, then a sharp sigh. “I see.”