I had the shades down and the ID channel on (the better to freak myself out with all the deliciously creepy true crime stuff I was gonna watch that night).

In other words, I was settled in for an awesome evening.

I was hungry so I should be thinking about food.

But I did not have my eyes to the TV.

I also did not open up DoorDash and order food.

I had my knees to my chest, my feet in the cushion, my phone to my face, and what I was doing was scrolling through and rereading the weirdly long text string I’d accumulated in one day with Boone.

Now you have my number.

Program it.

And next time you’re kidnapped…

Use it.

 

Roger that.

You’re programmed and my first call

after my next abduction.

 

Not funny.

 

Kinda funny.

 

Hawk was taken once.

You can ask his wife Gwen how she felt when

she was texted the pic of him hanging from

a hook.

 

Eek!

 

Yeah.

 

Okay.

I give in.

Kidnappings are not funny.

 

She can be reasonable.

 

I try not to be. There’s no fun

in being reasonable.

 

Great.

 

I will point out, you joked about it first.

 

I was being serious.

 

Eek! X2.

 

What are you doing?

 

What?

Now?

 

No, in 2038 when the AI cyborgs take over the

earth.

Yeah, now.

 

He can be sarcastic.

 

This observation is not an answer to

my question.

 

I’m having lunch with my mother and

she’s giving me the evil eye for texting.

 

Sorry, let you go.

 

Thanks. Later.

Boone?

 

Yeah?

 

Done with lunch with Mom.

 

Let me guess. Your sister-in-law was the

main topic of convo.

 

They never got married. Just lived in sin.

But yeah. Angelica dominated discussion.

 

You tell your mom about her?

 

Yeah.

 

And?

 

She’s ticked.

 

Appropriate response.

 

This is kinda the worst.

 

I bet.

 

Brian called yesterday morning. He’s

backing Ang’s play of cutting me off

from the kids.

 

Fuck, Ryn.

 

Yeah. That phone chat was really

not fun.

 

I’m sorry. That sucks. But if you think

about it, it’s not unexpected.

 

I hear that. I guess you can be addicted to

alcohol *and* being a selfish bitch.

 

Dysfunction is hard to shake.

 

This is bumming me out.

 

Done, except they’ll figure it out, Ryn.

It won’t be easy losing you.

 

Thanks, Boone.

 

They’re cute.

 

What?

 

Your niece and nephew. Saw you walking

in the school with them. They’re cute.

 

They’re the best.

 

Names?

 

Portia and Jethro.

 

Jethro?

 

Shut up. It’s making a comeback.

 

Says the doting aunt.

 

Of course.

 

Gotta go. At the store.

 

Right. Later.

 

And that was it.

Though when he cut it off, I buried deep how disappointed I was that I was no longer engaged with him.

Connected to him.

It wasn’t like the texts came fast and furious. That exchange lasted hours.

But his last was definitely a shutdown.

And I wondered if he had plans with his other chick and didn’t want me texting while he was with her. If, say, he was at the store and buying the ingredients to make her dinner, or she’d sent him a list for her to make dinner for him.

Yeah, he’d told me he was taking me out that night.

But I’d again shot him down, so it would not surprise me he made alternate plans.

He was clearly all in for this friends thing.

And I was not.

But I had zero willpower to stop myself replying to him.

And right then, it could not be denied, I was scrolling through my phone, reliving our sharing, at the same time kinda hoping another text would come through.

I nearly dropped my phone when I jumped so bad because there was a knock at my door.

I stretched in order to arch over the arm of my couch to look through the doorway toward my front door, which had an oval of glass in it, a filmy curtain over it, and Boone’s long body could be seen through the curtain.

“What the hell?” I whispered, my heart beginning to rap a hard tattoo in my chest, my palms feeling funny, my skin feeling shivery.

I uncurled, put my feet to the floor and moved to the door.

I unlocked it, opened it and was assaulted with the one-two punch of deliciousness that was the sight of Boone free of a filmy curtain and the smell of fried chicken.

“What are you—?”

“I said we’re havin’ dinner,” he cut me off to announce. “So I brought dinner.”

And then I was shuffling back because he was prowling in.

I stood with one hand on the door, staring at the doorway to my living room, through which he’d disappeared.

“Lock it,” his voice ordered from the vicinity, my guess, of my kitchen.

I shut the door, locked it and hustled toward the kitchen.

Through the space, I saw he was indeed in the kitchen, standing at the counter that jutted out, facing the dining room.

I stopped on the other side.

“Uh…Boone—”

“Fried chicken, macaroni salad, potato salad, ambrosia salad, and don’t give me any shit about that, I dig the stuff. And a happy birthday cookie because whoever had the idea to put frosting on a huge-ass cookie is a saint.”

He was unearthing all of this from King Soopers bags.

And I was processing the fact zero-body-fat Boone dug ambrosia salad and huge-ass cookies with frosting on them (and seriously in danger of having the biggest orgasm he’d ever made me in danger of having in receiving this knowledge).

As ever, I managed to control this reaction, shifted my gaze from the smorgasbord of goodness he was spreading out on my counter and looked to him.

“Boone, I—” I began quietly.

His head came up and being confronted with all that green when his eyes captured mine shut my mouth, but his opened to speak.

“I ended it with her yesterday.”

I put both hands to the counter.

“It’s all you,” he finished.

It was all me.

Ohmigod.

Ohmigod!

“Boone,” I whispered.

“Baby, I want you,” he whispered back. “And if the happy birthday cookie doesn’t win you, I’ll find something that does. So tear down the walls, Ryn, I want in, I’m getting in and we’re gonna see where this goes.”