Page 38 of I'll Be the One

I give Rebecca’s arm a grateful squeeze. She always knows the right thing to say.

We’re about to leave the ice cream shop when my phone starts ringing. I do a double take when I see the screen. It says, “No Caller ID.”

Clarissa grabs my arm so abruptly that my phone almost goes flying out of my hand.

“Oh my gosh! I bet it’s Henry Cho! He’s calling you. He’sactuallycalling you!”

“Shhh!” I say. “Everyone be quiet so I can talk to him. Clarissa, calm down. I don’t want to scare him.”

Clarissa rolls her eyes at me, but silently nods.

I accept the call.

Put him on speaker!Rebecca mouths at me.

I nod and tap the speaker button. “Hello?”

“Skye?” Henry’s voice is so sharp that it catches me off guard. I’ve only heard him sound like this when he was telling off Bobby. “Are you okay? Sorry I was MIA all day. I just got out of a photo shoot. Portia got your number from the competition committee. Hope it’s okay that I’m calling you right now. I just wanted to make sure you’re all right.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I am now. Thanks. And I appreciate you getting in touch with me.”

Even his voice is hot!mouths Clarissa.

Rebecca face-palms.

“Sorry,” Henry says again. “I didn’t realize that something like this could happen. That people would react this way.”

“It’s fine. You didn’t know.”

Rebecca elbows me in the gut, knocking the air out of my lungs.

“Ow!” I hiss.

“It wasnotfine,” Rebecca blurts out. “He’s a celebrity. He should have been more responsible!”

Oh. My. God.

We all freeze. Clarissa looks like she’s about to scream again, this time in pure horror. I want to scream too. My face heats up, even though Henry is nowhere nearby. Even Rebecca seems shocked at her own outburst.

There’s nothing but silence on the other end of the line. At first, I think Henry hung up on me. But then he slowly says, “Oh, am I on speaker?”

“Um... yeah, sorry. I was hanging out with my friends and—”

“We wanted to make sure you’re not a creep!” Rebecca cuts in.

I love Rebecca, I really do. But right now, she’s giving me serious Asian-mom vibes. Then again, I guess it’s mainly my fault. I really shouldn’t have put my phone on speaker.

I walk a few steps away from my friends and take my phone off speaker. “Sorry about that. You’re not on speaker anymore.”

“It’s fine,” Henry says. “I get it. It’s great that your friendsare looking out for you like that. And the one that spoke up—she’s right. Ishouldhave been more careful. Sorry, I won’t bother you anymore. Hope you have a good rest of the day.”

The call ends before I can say anything. Baffled, I stare at my phone for a good long moment.

“Did hehang upon you?” Rebecca gasps. “After everything that happened today? Wow, he’s trash.”

I expect Clarissa to defend Henry, but even she’s pursing her lips.

“I mean, he apologized,” I say. “I don’t know. He sounded really weird. He wasn’t like this before.”

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