Audrey| Oh yeah? So what other skills are you hiding under that mask?
Theo| Plenty.
Theo| What are you doing tonight?
Oh. She wrinkled her nose at the pile of books and notes she had stacked by her laptop next to her on the couch.
Audrey| Homework, unfortunately.
Audrey| Midterms are coming up and I’m buried.
Audrey| Plus, my capstone project isn’t going well and I have to open the café tomorrow.
Audrey| Early night for me, I’m afraid.
It took him a minute to respond.
Theo| Ah. I thought you might be working today.
Theo| didn’t want to bother you.
“You’re not bothering me, Theo,” she mumbled as she typed the words onto the screen. “You can text me whenever you want. I spent all day hoping you would.”
Theo| You did?
She shook her head. Still so unsure.
Audrey| Yeah, you dummy.
Audrey| I told you I had fun yesterday, and now I miss you.
Audrey| Look at what you did—it’s all your fault, making me think about you all day and not texting me.
Dots, no dots, dots again—then they were gone.
There it was, the hesitation she’d been expecting. She could feel him sputtering on the other end of their messages.
God, it was so refreshing.
God, how she’d missed him.
His response finally arrived.
Theo| Then you’ll have to let me make it up to you, Miss Adams.
That got her to raise an eyebrow.
That was flirtier than she was expecting. Maybe he wasn’t as flustered as she thought he was.
Audrey| Oh yeah? What do you propose, Mr.Sullivan?
She waited. But he didn’t respond, or at least nowhere near as fast as he had been texting her today. And when not even any dancing dots appeared on her screen, her stomach dropped and her nerves came crashing back with a vengeance. Was she too forward? Did she scare him off? She typed another message.
Audrey| Are you coming to the café tomorrow?
Audrey| Seeing you during my shift would be a great start.
She tapped her pen against a textbook while she waited.
