Dreaming of His Pen Pal's Kiss - Jessie Gussman Page 0,48
That’s your play?”
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said, and it sounded like “something.”
“So...” She’d watched a popular movie about a football player less than a year ago... She tried to think of how they called the plays. She cleared her throat and said in a falsely male voice, “Fifty-five, belly up, nine, five, two, Jack down, pie corner one.” She spit in her hand, tapped her nose, stroked her ear, slapped her thigh, and then put both of her hands out toward him one on top of the other. “Let’s go!” she said in her best imitation-football-breaking-the-huddle voice.
The corners of his lips twitched, although he tried to keep a stern look on his face.
He pursed his lips a little and looked away as though getting a hold of himself before he looked back at her. “I think you were mocking me.”
“No.” She opened innocent eyes wide. “Not at all. I was calling a play.”
“Oh. You were calling a play?” He nodded, his hands on his hips, looking away again, getting the quick twitching of his lips under control. “That’s what that was?”
“Yeah. I thought it was fairly obvious.”
“Okay. So,” he drew the word out, his eyes shifting to the pig. He’d been looking at her like she was just as crazy as she felt, in a humorous kind of way that made her feel like they were sharing a joke.
He looked back at her. “What exactly are we doing?”
“We’re going to catch the pig.”
He pressed his lips together, nodding. “Right.”
She grinned at him and walked forward, her eyes on the hog. “I think you better catch him, because you’ve got the good hands.”
“I have good hands? Who told you that?”
“You did. Didn’t you say you never drop the football?”
“I think you’ve been checking up on me. Because I never said that.”
“Then it’s true?”
“Yeah. Pretty much.” His look was sheepish, like he didn’t want to brag about his record, but she was pretty sure she’d heard someone say that. She really hadn’t looked him up. Although, it wasn’t a bad idea.
“Good. I’ll chase him; you catch him.” They both walked toward the corner and the piglet, who eyed them with a little more trepidation than he had the first time.
“I think he’s wising up,” Dante said softly.
“I was getting that impression, too,” Journee said. “We’d better catch him the first time, otherwise he’ll be even smarter the next time we get him cornered.”
“You speaking from experience? Or are you just making this up on the fly?”
“Don’t you improvise plays in the middle?”
“Coach gets a little upset when we do that.”
“Not if it works out.”
“Actually, sometimes we take flak even when it works out.”
“Well, let’s stick to the play, but if things go sideways in the middle, we’ll improvise. And the coach won’t be giving you any flak.”
“So now you’re the coach?” he asked as they crept forward another foot.
“I thought that’s why I was calling the play?”
“That makes you the quarterback. Or whatever the pig-catching equivalent is of a quarterback.”
“I don’t think there is an equivalent. I’m pretty sure there’s no comparison between football and catching a hog. I could be wrong.”
“We’ll have to Google it.”
She laughed. “I don’t have a computer.”
Chapter 18
Dante stopped, and Journee took his shocked look to be because she didn’t have a computer.
Typical.
She held a hand up, careful not to scare the hog with any quick movements. “I know. I know. Totally unusual in today’s day and age, but I do have a smartphone, and I know how to use it.”
He jerked his head, looking back at the pig, focused again on their task.
She could kick herself. Normal people had computers. Of course, she knew people thought she was weird when she admitted that she didn’t. She should have known better.
“Sorry. Now I feel awkward. Like you think I’m a freak.”
“No,” he said, way too quickly. “I don’t.”
“Right. That definitely sounded like a ‘you’re a total nutjob, and I want to get as far away from you as possible.’ It’s okay. You don’t have to deny it. I’m kinda used to it.”
“Why don’t you have a computer?” he asked instead. Not denying anything that she’d said, and she kind of felt like he agreed with it but didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
“I don’t know. I guess I just want to be different.”
“Try again.”
“Time suck?”
“I believe that. What else?”
“I don’t need one. I don’t want one. And I don’t want to be bothered with one. I’m happy with what I am, and I don’t need to go online to