I ran my thumb over the blush creeping over her cheeks. “You can’t be shy after what we experienced with one another…”
This time, she laughed.
“By the way,” I said, yanking my phone off the coffee table, “can I have your number?”
She rattled the numbers off, and I darted to put them in my phone. I felt my dad looming somewhere, saying this was a bad idea. Resisting the urge to shake my head, I plugged in her contact.I need to hit balls, I require rest and sleep, and I’m not here for a relationship. But…that’s what my dad tells me.
“There you go, Birdie Bianchi,” I said, holding up my phone and showing her my contact for her.
“Birdie?” she asked with a smile…but I knew she didn’t understand.
“Yeah, it’s when you get the ball into the hole using one shot less than par. Par to me is average, and you’re way better than average. You really are an eagle—a hole in one or perfection—but Birdie is cuter, like you.” I touched my finger to her nose beforemoving it to my phone and hitting send. “And now you have my number,” I said as her phone started buzzing on the floor. “Let’s go,” I finally eked out. “I’m not going to behave for much longer, and you don’t seem like the type to not speak your mind when it comes to my transgressions.”
She followed, but I sensed it was begrudgingly. At least, I hoped. Although I was stopping short, it was against my will. I never wanted this evening to end, and I hoped to see Wren real soon.
Wren
It had been almost a week since the golf outing, and I hadn’t heard from Daniel since he texted the day after. He’d sent a short message, sayingFun meeting youwith a yellow birdie and clover emoji. That was all he wrote. Granted, I only replied withDittoand a golf tee or mound or whatever that thing was…and left it be.
I was considering deleting his contact when I walked out of my Latin class. It was an elective, but I was told it looked good on a medical school application, so here I was, leaving the small seminar on a dead language, making mental promises not to google Daniel, when a huge dog leaped on me.
Somehow my quick reflexes helped my hands push up and grab his or her paws, and then I was staring a familiar yellow dog in the eyes.
“Brutus,” an also familiar Scottish accent called out.
I looked up, my eyes meeting his.
“Hey there, Birdie,” he said as if he’d expected to meet up.
“Hi.” It was all I could get out. I shoved my bag farther up my shoulder while petting the dog.
“I just got back from a golf tournament, and was wondering if you knew what day of the week it was…”
“Ha! Very funny, you decided to make fun of me after not seeing me for a week. It’s Friday. Tomorrow is Saturday.” Like I said, my sarcasm always shined through.
“Sorry about that… My dad came to see me play. He’s intense and doesn’t leave much time for me to do anything other than work on my game.”
My hand loosened my hair out of my messy bun, allowing it to fall around my face. The sun was burning brightly, despite it being fall—it was the desert—but without humidity a chill slinked up my spine. “Sorry for the attitude,” I admitted.
“It’s cool. Anyway, I thought I might find you here…”
“Thought?”
“I may have DM’d your friend.”
“So you’re sliding into my friends’ DMs now?”
“It was all very G-rated.” He winked, looking confident in his endeavor to win me over.
“Nothing with Sella is G-rated.”
We walked along the quad, aiming for nowhere, Brutus moseying next to us.
“She may have urged me to go and grab her girl with a tiger emoji.”
Stopping, I looked at Daniel. His hair was messy, and he was wearing a polo shirt with a small whale on the chest, khaki shorts, and running shoes. He looked like a normal college guy, except he wasn’t. “Here you are, grabbing Sella’s girl,” I commented.
“Noted. Now that I’ve grabbed you, how about dinner later?”
