I got this sinking feeling…. “What? Did you think I was going to sound like MinnieMouse?”
His “Uh” didn’t even take a second. I burst out laughing, forgetting I was out of breath and that I’d been nervous all of tensecondsago.
“Youdid?”
He started chuckling, like he was trying his best not to and failing. “I don’t know! I thought you were going to soundyounger,not—”
“You’re wounding me, Aaron. You’re wounding my pride here.” I snorted into my cell as I plopped down on the edge of my messy full-sized bed, feeling tooatease.
It was his turn to laugh again, louder than his chuckle, the sound fuller and from the belly. “You don’t sound like you’re twenty-four,” he tried to argue, his words getting broken up by his steadylaugh.
“That’s not what you mean. You thought I was going to sound like a fifteen-year-old cheerleader from the Valley or something. Didn’t you?” There was no response, just a hint of a sound that was suspiciously distant… like he was laughing with his face away from the receiver… That was it, wasn’t it? “I cannotbelieveyou.”
“I’m sorry!” he tried to say, but he started laughing harder, that time directly into the phone, the sound making me smile so wide, I was glad no one was around to see it, otherwise they’d ask questions I didn’t want toanswer.
“It’s because I told you about the cosplay,isn’tit?”
There was a pause by the man I’d been e-mailing for overyear. “No—”
“You’realiar.”
Aaron’s laughter suddenly got lower in volume, and I knew he’d pulled the phone away from his face again, for sure. My best friend did the same thing when she was laughing as hard as shecould.
“And the no-boyfriend thing,” Iadded.
Even with the phone not being close to his mouth, I could tell he’d started cracking up all over again. I shouldn’t have loved the sound as much as I did, but…guilty.
“I can’tbelieveyou.”
“You sound like you work for those phone sex lines,” he finally managed to get out, sometime ten minuteslater.
What? “No I don’t.” Had he not ever listened to his own voicebefore?
“Have you heard yourself? I was watching TV last night after I messaged you and the commercials for those chat lines came on. You sound just like those girls….” He trailed off for a moment, his voice changing. “Areyousick?”
I had no right to smile as wide as I was, but I did it anyway. “No, I’m not sick anymore. This is my normal voice,thanks.”
There was another pause over the line and then, “Are youreallyRuby?”
“What do you think?” I snorted. “Do I need to ask about your butthole for you tobelieveme?”
Aaron choked. I didn’t need to see him to know he’d done it. He didn’t try to hide it or pull the phone away from his mouth. “Now I know it’s youforsure.”
I was a fool, and it didn’t matter. “Are you sure? Because I can,” I offered him before I could shutmyselfup.
“I’msure.”
“If you changeyourmind…”
Aaron shot out another laugh. “No, I know it’s you. We’ve been on the phone… four minutes and you’ve got me laughing more than I have in weeks. It couldn’t be anybody else butyou,Ru.”
I couldn’t count the number of times he’d said something to me like that in written word, but just like every other time he had, I felt like… I felt like I’d done something amazing. And I needed to get it together and control myself. I needed to act normal.Normal,Ruby.
“You could’ve warned me before I called,” he said quietly before I could get my normal game together, but somehow I could tell he was smiling as he said thesentence.
Plopping down on the edge of my bed, I pulled my knees up toward my chest, heels on the mattress side by side. I tried not to wonder what he was doing right then, what he looked like, what he was thinking… and I failed. Like usual. “What would you need a warning for?” I asked, almost hesitantly but definitely a littledistracted.
There was another soft chuckle. “For that voice. Jesus, Ru. You told me you were worried I wasn’t going to like you, so I had this plan in my head for how I’d get you to talk to me in case things got awkward. And you start giving me shit thirty seconds in,” he argued. “You threw mygameoff.”
