“Why are you staring at your salad?” Thomas asks, pulling me out of the trance I had no idea I was in.
“Sorry,” I say, looking up at him. I don’t feel like telling him what I was just thinking about, so I point to the spot between his eyebrows and say, “Your elevens are getting deeper.” They’re not. I mean, at twenty-eight, he’s only a year older than me, and the two little wrinkles most people get in that spot from scowling are years away for us. But Thomas is vain and I enjoy razzing him.
This causes Thomas’s brows to shoot up, smoothing out the area. He reaches up and runs a finger over the skin above his nose. “How dare you,” he says.
“Nothing a little Botox won’t help,” I say, adding a smirk for emphasis.
“I don’t need Botox.”
“You will if you keep pulling that face.”
He keeps rubbing the spot as if he can massage away the Ghost of Wrinkles Future.
“Well, at least I can do something about it. What can you do about your man hands?”
“I don’t have man hands,” I say louder than I mean to. The rest of the table, who were engrossed in their food, look over at us.
“And the voice of a banshee,” Thomas says.
I twist my mouth to the side, trying not to laugh. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.
“Should I send the text to Henry or what?”
“Stop trying to change the subject, and yes you should,” he says, abandoning the massage between his brows.
I grab my phone out of my purse, chuckling to myself.
“Everyone, stop what you’re doing—Quinn is about to send a very important text to the British gent,” Thomas says in a loud, terrible British accent.
“What should I say?” I set my phone down in front of me and stare at it. It’s opened to my messaging app, Henry’s name at the top of the screen.
Thomas rubs his jaw as he contemplates. “Hmm. How about, I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
“Gross,” Holly says. Bree snickers.
“What? Are you crazy?” I move the phone away from Thomas in case he has some grand idea of taking it out of my hands and texting Henry just that. Mortification runs through me at the thought. What would Henry think of me if he got a text like that? Worse, what if he thought that was a good idea and kicked it off with a picture of his junk. Oh, please no. I have a lot of possibilities riding on this imaginary relationship with him. I don’t need it ruined right from the start.
Thomas lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “Be boring, then.”
“Just tell him hi,” Holly says.
I force a breath out my mouth, letting my cheeks fill as I do. “Hi, Henry,” I say as I type the words into my phone.
“Boring,” Thomas says again.
“Well then, what do I say?”
Thomas contemplates with pointer finger on chin. “Ooh,” he says after a beat, his eyes wide. “Tell him that you’re covered completely in only powdered sugar and want him to come over.” He reaches for my phone in an attempt to take it from me.
“No way.”
“Come on, it’s making light of your meet-not-so-cute.”
“Shut up,” I say, but I’m half-giggling.
“Give me the phone.” Thomas tries to grab the phone again.
“Stop it, Thomas,” Holly says, now trying to keep him away.
“Grab him, Alex,” I say, but Alex’s hands are full of the buffalo chicken sandwich he’s eating. He gives me a quick shrug of his shoulders, wordlessly saying he can’t help.
I’m laughing and trying to turn away from Thomas while Holly attempts to swat him away. My grip on my phone tightens, which causes me to type “spnklvn thaiojt,” which autocorrect chooses to change to “spank that,” and before I can delete it, Thomas makes another attempt to pull the phone away from me, and in my haste to get it from him . . . I hit send.
“NOOOOOOOO!” I scream at Thomas. The few patrons left in the restaurant all turn toward me. I can’t even care. I look at my screen willing it to not be true. But staring at me in a blue bubble are the words, “Hey, Henry, spank that.”
“What happened?” Holly says, taking the phone from me. She stares at the screen, and then I see understanding dawn as her eyes go wide and she tucks her lips between her teeth to keep from laughing. She passes the phone to Bree, who does the same thing with her lips. She passes it to Alex, who just covers his mouth, and Alex then gives it to Thomas. Thomas doesn’t even try to cover up a laugh. His guffaw can probably be heard from two counties away.
“Give me back my phone; I have to do damage control,” I say, ripping the phone out of his hand.
The whole table—my group of friends, the people that are closest to me in life—are now all laughing hysterically. Holly’s got tears pouring down her face.
“It’s not funny!” I say, my voice going into a super high-pitched screeching sound.
Thomas wipes his eyes with his napkin, still choking on laughter. “Don’t worry, don’t worry. I can fix it.”
“Can you really?” I feel hope burgeoning in my chest. Maybe this can be fixed. Maybe I won’t say “spank that” to my future husband, the father of my blue-eyed babies. Thank you, dear sweet baby Jesus, for Thomas.
He holds his hand out and I pass him the phone. He pushes a few buttons and then hands the phone back to me, the text now gone.
“I’m so paying for your dinner,” I say, giving him a side hug.
My phone beeps.
Henry: I’m sorry?
I feel my eyebrows shoot up to my hairline. “Thomas!” I thrust my phone into his face. “It didn’t work!”
Thomas can’t even look confused about this. He reaches up and scratches his jaw and then says, “Yeah, I wasn’t sure that would work. Guess it doesn’t.” He lifts his shoulders briefly.
I can’t help myself. I kick him. Hard. In the shin.
“Ouch!” he yells, reaching down and rubbing the spot where I got him. “You psycho!”
“Help me fix this,” I say, trying to take on a calm tone.
“Just tell him your cat did it,” Bree offers.
“I don’t have a cat,” I say, feeling the panic race through me once again.
“Well then, you better get one,” says Thomas, still rubbing his leg.
I huff out a breath, closing my eyes briefly.
“Here’s a crazy idea,” Alex says, his voice carrying a tiny bit of sarcasm. “How about you tell him the truth.”
The truth. The truth . . . Yes, I can do that. What actually happened isn’t so bad. It’s not like I texted him some big old long sentence. It was just a few simple words, an easy mistake. He should understand. I’d understand if the tables were turned. I look down at my phone, nervously chewing on the inside of my cheeks, and then I type.
Me: So sorry! Autocorrect fail.
I add one of those emojis with the woman doing a facepalm and hit send.
The three little dots show up and then disappear. And then show up again.
“What’s he saying?” Thomas says, leaning over to see my phone.
“Nothing yet,” I say just as my phone beeps, causing me to jump.