Page 30 of Love's a Glitch
My crumpled sheets gave off the appearance I’d had a randy good time in them, which only made the reality seem that much sadder. Now my thoughts were fully awake and whirring over the fact that I had a date with the poet tomorrow, and therefore shouldn’t be fantasizing about anyone, and that I also had to find a way to make Charles L. Davis happy to keep my job.
Talk about a buzzkill and a half.
“Ugh.”I fell, face-first into my pillows and sighed. Dottie leaped onto the bed and rushed over to cuddle, making sure to yawn in my face so I’d get a whiff of her tuna-fish breath. “Talk about fresh from the market. Or the food bowl, as it were.”
I curled my cat to me, rubbing her tummy in the way she loved, except for when she didn’t. “Kitty, you know that song by the Rolling Stones?I can’t get no sat-is-fac-tion,” I sang the lyrics, as if my off-key rendition would help my cat recognize the classic rock ditty.
Dottie neither confirmed nor denied.
“Well, that’s how I feel right now. And I have this sneaking suspicion that even if I’d finished, it’d never come close to being with Luke for real.”
If anything, all my fantasy had done was leave my body wanting his all the more.
15
Luke
“Is she implying I’m old?”
George Lucas looked up from the blocks he’d stacked on the coffee table. Yep, today it wasn’t just George, but George Lucas, as he’d recently learned we shared a middle name and insisted on both. It amused me to no end, as my brother and sister-in-law had somehow missed the Star Wars correlation and were miffed whenever anyone mentioned it. “I make a truck.”
“Put some wheels on, and you sure did,” I replied.
“It go without wheels.” George Lucas pushed it across the glass top to demonstrate. The top half of the cab fell off, but he didn’t seem concerned with that, either.
I pulled my laptop closer and skimmed through the second paragraph. “Strike that, she’s not implying it. She’sstraightforwardlysaying it. Although she manages to do it in such a curt yet professional way that if I showed it to people who hadn’t seen our other correspondences, they’d think I was reading more into it than there is. But I’m not.” Honestly, if I wasn’t so offended, I might be impressed.
“You agree with me, don’t you buddy?” George Lucas and I were hanging out while Mom and Laurel were out doing some shopping. My sister-in-law told me she didn’t think I was ready to fly solo when it came to babysitting both him and his sister, and I assured her she was one hundred percent correct. “I’m hip.”
“Hip!” Pride radiated from George Lucas as he pointed at his own hipbone. Considering I was consulting a three-year-old about proper slang, I wasn’t whatever the new word for “hip” was.
Ellie would know, but she was out with the poet, and more jealousy than I cared to admit to churned through my gut as I thought about her talking and laughing with him instead of me.
With a sigh, I opened the attached document that included facts and figures about the age range of people in southern California searching for and purchasing properties over the million-dollar range.
In the body of the email, Eloise mentioned that contrary to what the older generation tended to believe, the younger generation had found themselves in careers that, while unconventional, qualified them for properties listed with Coastal Luxury Realty. She’d mentioned YouTubers and influencers, among other things, several of which I’d needed to Google with my decrepit old man hands.
Stats could be skewed so easily, though. They took digging deeper to see if they were including the whole picture instead of a snapshot.
That was a subjectIspecialized in. “Guess it’s time to dig out that memory card I’ve been meaning to open up and see what gems are on there. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s taking pictures. My photos will prove I have a good eye.”
“Cheese.” George Lucas requested my phone, and since I needed to marinate on how to respond and felt bad for not giving him more attention, I handed it over. The first time he’d wanted it, I’d hesitated, afraid he’d break it, but the kid knew how to work the damn thing better than I did.
“We say cheese.” George Lucas climbed up on my lap, nudging aside my computer and using his chubby little hand to snap a selfie—that word was still around, according to Lucy—of the both of us.
My nephew scooted off my lap, and I picked my computer off the couch cushion and typed a scathing response that was all curtness, no professionalism. In the end, I simply smiled at the idea of the web designer who thought she knew so much opening it and gasping in offense.
A quick highlight and a tap of the delete key later, it was gone. Satisfying or not, a reply like that would be counterproductive.
“You get a text.” Evidently, George decided we should read it together, because he once again nudged my laptop aside and climbed up to show me.
My heart skipped a beat at the sight of Ellie’s name, way too eager to read whatever message she sent me. Okay, perhaps all of me was too eager, but I was going to blame it on the blood-circulating organ anyway.
Turned outI’dbeen the one doing the sending—or more accurately, George Lucas had been. Along with the picture of me and him, he’d sent about ten more of his face, up close and personal, the last one a blurry up-the-nose view.
“Guess this means I have no choice to text Ellie and explain. Good job, buddy.” I mussed his hair and then sat back, propping one foot up on the coffee table since Mom wasn’t here to scold me for it.
Me:I’m not sure whether to say sorry or you’re welcome for photo-bombing you. My nephew got a hold of my phone. How’s your date going?
