I laughed.
“Does Daniel have more than one plate? Because I feel like he’s a more than one plate kind of guy.”
I grinned at the shelves. “He has lots of plates. Nice ones, actually. Antiques.”
“I bet he folds towels the right way too. A mythical creature.”
I laughed. “Did you sleep with him? The twenty-six-year-old?”
“No. I refuse to have sex with someone who doesn’t have a headboard. I’m not that desperate—yet. My vagina has officially been closed so long I’m afraid a Spirit Halloween is going to move in.”
I laughed so hard I started to choke on my spit.
She grabbed a box and tapped a finger on it. “Take some SAM Splints in case you get a broken bone. Burn sheets. Do you have a pulse ox? Blood pressure cuff?”
“No.”
“I’ll get you one. And get a nitroglycerin case. You’re gonna need some aspirin, Benadryl, anti-nausea pills, epinephrine, atropine—this is fun! It’s like apocalypse prepping.”
I laughed. “They don’t have a clinic out there. From what Daniel tells me they don’t drive into town until something is literally falling off their body.”
“No wonder they’re hitting you up when you’re over there.”
I nodded my head at the shelves. “Yeah. I just figure if it’s going to keep happening, I should probably have stuff in the car.”
“So you’re still going down there, huh?”
I shrugged, looking at the gauze. “Yeah.”
My cell phone vibrated, and I pulled it out of my pocket. Daniel. A picture of a duck and the caption Duck Norris. I laughed. He must be at Doug’s.
“Was that him?” she asked.
I smiled up at her. “Yeah.”
“What’s he texting you?”
I gave a one-shoulder shrug. Then my phone pinged again, and a selfie of him holding Chloe came through.
My heart melted.
His hazel eyes were twinkling. He had on a gray T-shirt and a radiant smile. Chloe was nibbling his beard. I had to clutch a hand over my chest.
I could almost smell his fresh scent through the screen. I could picture wrapping my arms around him and nuzzling his Adam’s apple, and he’d hug me in that warm, easy way he had. Heat dropped to my core just thinking about it.
I saved the photo to an album called Daniel, and I had the most peculiar urge to make the picture my screensaver.
“What?” she asked, watching me.
“Nothing,” I said, smiling.
Bri shook her head at me. “Oh, my God…you’re falling for him.”
My head jerked up at her. “What? No.”
She crossed her arms. “You so are.”
“No. No, it’s just a fling.” I waved her off.
“Like hell it is.”
I put my phone to my chest. “I am not falling for him. It is a sex thing.”
“A sex thing is a sex thing. You don’t text him and smile all giddy over your phone. You have the sex and you leave and then you don’t text him again until you need to see if his penis is available. What’s he sending you? Is it a dick pic? Because if it isn’t a dick pic, then you’re off topic.”
“What, we can’t talk about anything else that isn’t sex related?”
She put her hand out. “Let me see your phone.”
“What? No!”
“Alexis, let me see your phone.”
We had a silent standoff. Then I smacked it into her hand. She stood there, looking at it. She arched an eyebrow at me. “This is him?”
“Yeah.”
She groaned. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
I started chewing my thumb. “What?”
She glanced at me. “He’s cute,” she said, like this was a disappointment.
“Yeah. So.”
“So cute isn’t good. You get attached to cute.”
She scrolled on and then looked up and pinned me with a stare. “This is a duck pic.”
“And?”
“Where are the dick pics?”
I crossed my arms. “He doesn’t send me those. And if he did, I wouldn’t let you see them.”
She thumbed to my call log, and her eyes narrowed at my screen. “You talked to him for three hours last night? On the phone?!”
I snatched my cell. “Give me that back.”
She put her hands on her hips. “You like him. You are dating him.”
“It takes two hours to get to Wakan,” I said defensively. “When I go down there, we have to do other stuff. It can’t just be all sex.”