Mike’s smooth voice makes my eyes shut tight. “Hey. Um, is this Mike?”
“Who’s asking?”
Is it too late to say wrong number? It’s probably too late to say wrong number. . . . right?
“This is Danica’s cousin. We met last Saturday?”
“Hailey?” he says, and my heart stumbles at the sound of my own name. “Hey, I was just thinking about you.”
My lip gets clamped tightly between my fingers again before I ask, “You were?”
Why is Danica’s boyfriend thinking about me? Why is Danica’s boyfriend thinking about me?!
“Yeah. Kyle the PussySlayer asked about you.”
The laughter that bursts out of me is probably louder than it should be, the product of unfounded nervousness and a long, wet day. “Did you tell him I was busy sleeping with his mom?”
“Better,” Mike promises, and I hear the grin in his voice. I collapse back against my mattress, feeling the tension escape my body as my smile shines up at the pale green stars on my ceiling. “I told him that you were so good, they recruited you to beta test Deadzone Six.”
“There’s a Deadzone Six already?” I ask, and Mike laughs.
“Nope.”
My soft chuckle rasps against the phone. “But he believed you?”
“Yep. You should’ve heard him freak out. You know that scream he does—”
“The one that sounds like a meerkat with its nuts in a clamp?”
Mike barks out a laugh before I hear him half choking on his end of the line. “You made me spit out my beer!”
My cheeks ache from smiling so wide, and I poke at one with my fingers. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he says, but it doesn’t matter, because I wasn’t anyway. “Hey,” he asks after neither of us says anything for a while, “how’d you get my number?”
I stop poking at my cheek. “Dee gave it to me. I hope that’s okay. Rowan gave me back my hoodie today, and I just wanted to say thanks.”
“I’m glad you got it. That stuff you got on the sleeve was hard as hell to get out.”
I’m holding the edge of the sleeve against my nose, breathing in the freshly laundered scent and forcing myself not to correct Mike. I want to tell him that his girlfriend was the one who got the stain on the sleeve, not me, but instead I simply ask, “How’d you manage it?”
“I called my mom,” Mike says with a little laugh, and a warmth pools beneath my cheeks.
“You called your mom?”
“She worked as a housekeeper for a few years when I was a kid. I figured she might know how. I called Shawn first, but he said he already tried, so—”
“Mike . . .” I interrupt, overwhelmed by his kindness. “You didn’t have to go through all that trouble.”
“It’s nothing—” he starts, but I cut him off.
“No.” I stretch my arm above my head and admire my rescued hoodie. It almost looks newer than it did when I first got it. “It’s something.”
“Well,” he says, his voice softening, “you’re welcome then.”
With no idea what to say next, I say nothing. I let the silence stretch and stretch until I’m rushing to find anything to fill it. “I’ll go ahead and let you get back to your game,” I stammer. “I really just called to—”
“Hey, do you want to play?” Mike interrupts.
“I don’t have Deadzone Five . . .”
“What about Deadzone Four?” he counters. “I’m getting tired of this one anyway.”
My lip is in a U again as nervous little butterflies attempt to take flight in my belly. I curse the three-day-old leftover Chinese I ate for dinner, shaking my head and saying, “I can’t . . . I have a gaming date with my little brother.”
“The one who plays Deadzone?”
Last Saturday, Mike and I had a lot of time to pass. We talked about drums, games, jobs we’ve had, and most of all, I talked about Luke. “Yeah,” I say about the twelve-year-old I miss so much, it hurts. “But tonight he wants to play this weird role-playing game he’s getting into.”
“Which one?”
“Dragon something? I can’t remember. It’s some fairy tale game or something.”
I expect Mike to laugh and jokingly tell me to have fun, but instead, he asks, “Can I play with you?”
“You want to play?”
“Yeah, why not?”
“Because you’ll probably have to play as a fairy princess or something?”
“Are you worried I’ll look better than you in a dress?”
My face cracks into a big smile as Mike and I fall into the easy banter we had last Saturday. “It’s not my fault I have stubby little legs.”
“Whatever you say, Stubs.”
The laugh that comes out of me sounds more like a giggle, and I smother myself with the baggy sleeve of my hoodie to prevent another one from breaking free.
“Now are you going to let me play with you,” Mike asks, “or do I have to cry myself to sleep?”
I attempt to sound angry when I say, “Let me ask my brother, Princess.” But by the way Mike chuckles, I fail.
Ten minutes later, in a three-way chat, Mike and Luke make easy introductions. Luke takes it upon himself to explain the game to Mike in typical Luke-fashion, leaving absolutely no detail out. He explains things I’m sure Mike already knows—like which keys to use on the keyboard, and how to change the way he chats—and as he talks, and talks, and talks, Mike listens, and asks questions, and engages him in a way that melts my heart. I become a third wheel except for when Mike brings me into the conversation, and by the time midnight rolls around and I order Luke to go to bed—for what has to be the tenth time—I am thankful to Mike for more than just my hoodie.