Page 4 of Love's a Glitch
Idly,I reached into the freezer for my ice cream, risking frostbite by tucking it under my arm to juggle the spoons to my other hand.
Me:You definitely sound like a charmer.
Luke:Just wait till you hear my voice.
2
Luke
Ipulled up the photo I shouldn’t keep looking at, as it wasn’t meant for me, and grinned. I’d been a bit grumbly about returning home to help run the family business, which makes it sound like some mom-and-pop store when our real estate brokerage firm, Coastal Luxury Realty, was more of a big bad conglomerate. They were the Pac Man of real estate in San Diego, going around the streets and eating up all the pellets until there weren’t any left.
In the beginning, it’d been modest homes and apartment complexes, but sometime around the 1970s we’d moved to mansions, condos, and office buildings.
Every year at the corporate yacht club party, during the speeches that mostly involved patting ourselves on the back, my grandfather would joke that we’d been in the real estate biz for so long that we’d sold our first property to Adam and Eve. When Dad took over, he’d incorporated the wisecrack, and regardless of how many times the investors and stockholders had heard it, they chuckled every damn time.
I shuddered at the idea of having to suffer through all that schmoozing and playing nice again.
Give me a sailboat and silence any day.
I’d happily insert myself into the sailboat with Ellie, right over the chump seated next to her in the picture—I’d taken to calling him Dildo for my amusement, because that was how hard up for entertainment I was.
With the sun highlighting her caramel strands and her big brown eyes, there was no denying Ellie was beautiful. But it was more than that. The pure, unadulterated joy on her face made me feel like she and I were in the middle of an adventure. Then there was the photo itself. Sunlight played across Ellie’s features, lighting the windblown strands of her hair in gold, and the bold purples, pinks, and oranges making up the backdrop was a photographer’s wet dream.
I’d know.
Candid photos were a favorite of mine, particularly when Mother Nature did most of the work and showed off the fact that she was the best artist of all.
Two weeks in the office, and I already felt suffocated by more than just the tie around my neck. The blank four walls and lack of vitamin D sucked at my restless soul. Sitting around had never suited me much either. Of all the tasks they could delegate to me, dealing with the in-progress website seemed like an odd choice. Still, I was glad they’d done so, because their original idea for it was messy and over the top.
I glared at the button-up shirts, the suits, and the ties hanging in my closet, most of them older than my three-year-old nephew, George.
Sunday meant family dinner, promptly at six, and naturally my mom would expect me to dress up. I’d placate her with a button up and do my best to ignore any mention of my missing tie, but I had a few hours of freedom before dealing with that. Not that I didn’t love my family and hadn’t missed them, but our interactions always came along with comments about their disappointment in me and my abandonment of the life plan they’d made for me.
The clock hit ten a.m., so I declared that late enough, although I wasn’t sure Ellie would agree. As I’d told her last night, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to use the cheesy phrase. Originally, I’d planned to use it as a way to inform her she had the wrong number, but intrigued by the photos and the message, I’d slipped into flirty territory and damned if she didn’t slip right back.
Guess we’ll have to have some more and see if that jolts my memory.She’dobviously been joking, but I’d promised I’d check on her and, judging from her messages and the placating look on Dildo’s face, she had enough experience with pricks who didn’t follow through.
Okay, fine, I was reaching.
Me:How’s the head this morning? Would you like me to make loud pterodactyl noises to check the severity of the hangover?
I watchedmy phone screen for longer than I wanted to admit. Finally, I decided to put on my swim trunks, grab my surfboard and wetsuit, and catch some waves. While I’d rejected the life plan my parents outlined for me before I was even born, there was no denying it had its perks. For instance, my family’s beachfront mansion in La Jolla. Since there were four empty bedrooms, there was no reason to rent a tiny apartment that’d leave me with a long commute.
My brother, Henry, on the other hand, followed the plan to the letter. College at Dad’s alma mater, a sales position at the company, a marriage to a woman of equal status, and a house purchased in the same old-money neighborhood.
After staying in huts in Mali during an African summer and spending a month of a Greenlandic winter in a house smaller than the bathroom adjacent to my childhood bedroom, this place felt even more enormous.
The chime of my phone jerked me out of memories of my past expeditions; the longing didn’t fade away so easily.
Ellie:While I do have a MINOR headache, I’m gonna call your bluff on the pterodactyl screech. Let’s hear it.
(If we’re gonna keep chatting, you should know I’m evil when it comes to taking people up on their weird offers.)
Luke:I was thinking of it as impressive more than weird. Don’t tell me I’m the first person to offer to make you dinosaur noises.
Ellie:Stop stalling.
I burst out laughing,the sound startling myself. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d full-out laughed. My thumb hovered over the voice memo button for a few seconds before I went for it and did my best impression of a pterodactyl. Honestly, it sounded more like a strangled pigeon. Not that I knew for certain what that sounded like, either.
