Page 26 of Love, Morgan

Someone knocked at my door.

Food.Thank God.

That was what I needed right now—the closest thing I could get to doughnuts. Doughnuts had always been there for me, and they’d be there for me now as I figured out how to act like a human around someone I was attracted to but determined to stay away from. I didn’t know how to handle a crush, and I had even less idea how to handle being someone with a crush on a celebrity I was unexpectedly neighbors with. Beignets were the clear answer.

And they really helped.

I sank down in the bed, wrapped up under the covers, eating my beignets, and thinking about how Alicia and Harlow would complain about crumbs in the bed. As if that was any of their business. It wasn’t their bed, and I wasn’t inviting them to sleep in it. What I did and did not eat in it was none of their business.

Ripley had given up caring what I did in bed years ago. Though, if Iona…

I stuffed another beignet in my mouth, focusing on the rush of sugar, and dragged my laptop towards me.

Ordinarily, in this kind of mood, I put Iona on, but I didn’t think that was going to help, so, instead, I scrolled mindlessly through a host of movies, settled on something I’d seen a million times, and hit play. I turned the volume up slightly too loud in some weird attempt to drown out my own thoughts, and I stared at the screen, eating my beignets and mindlessly drifting until I fell asleep.

???

I awoke with a start. My phone was ringing. The kind of ringing that had sound. When was the last time I’d even heard that ringtone? When was the last time someone had called me enough times in a row to get through to actual ringing?

The laptop beside me in bed had long since been idle, now just a black screen staring at me, dark to match the sky outside. I must have been out for hours.

And the phone kept ringing.

I fished around in the blankets, following the annoying tune. I was changing my ringtone after this. I didn’t care if I almost never heard the thing, it was too infuriatingly annoying to keep.

Ripley’s face smiled up at me when I finally located the infernal device, too bright and aggressive in the otherwise dark room.

“Why are you calling me in the middle of the night?” I asked after connecting the call.

She laughed. “Oh, it’s okay for you to wake me up in the middle of the night to scream about Iona, but it’s not okay for me to do the same to you?”

“You’re calling me to scream about Iona?” I asked, my voice somewhere between excited and doubtful. I blamed the lingering sleepiness for the excitement.

“Interestingly, I am not,” she replied, confirming my suspicions. “But wouldn’t it be nice if I were?”

“What do you want?”

She laughed again and I heard the moment she switched me to speaker phone. “We’re all just having dinner and thought we’d call you.”

“We’re clearly notallhaving dinner if I’m not there.”

“The rest of us are, though.”

“Hello, Morgan,” Alicia called.

“Hey,” Harlow said at the same time Briar giggled and cooed. I assumed that was her form of a greeting.

“I cannot believe you’re all having dinner without me. The audacity,” I said, no real malice in my voice.

“Hey, we can’t all be off on fancy island vacations,” Alicia laughed.

“With hot YouTubers in the next room,” Harlow added, and I could hear the delight and intent in her tone.

“Don’t get any ideas,” I replied, rolling my eyes.

“Why not? She’s right there, you love her, and you’re a catch.”

“Damn right I am.” No comment on the other accusation.

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