“I’m not clumsy.” I laughed, grabbing the remote and turning on the TV. “Why would you say that?”
“You just have that I could fall over anything look about you.”
“Lovely,” I said, shaking my head. “Thank you.”
“I don’t mean it in a bad way,” he said, his deep voice teasing over the phone line.
“How could that ever be said in a good way?” I quipped.
“I just meant that with your skinny legs and big feet, you sometimes remind me of a puppy.”
“Oh my God.” I laughed. “This just keeps getting better and better.”
“What?” he said with a smile in his voice. “Puppies are cute. Puppies are adorable. People loooooove puppies.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, clicking into Netflix.
“Did I annoy you enough to make the nerves about Colorado go away?” he asked.
I leaned back against my pillow. “I can’t believe you’re going with me. It’s a little surreal, to be honest.”
Wildly, absurdly, overwhelmingly surreal.
“I know. I’m excited for Colorado, but I’m not sure about road-tripping with you.”
“What?” I found You’ve Got Mail under Romantic Comedies and clicked it on. “Why? I’m a dreamboat road-tripper.”
“I’ve traveled with you before, remember?”
Of course I did. He knew it. I knew it. Even if it felt like a lifetime ago.
I said, “Which is why I’m dreading this. Me, though—I’m a fantastic traveler.”
“Come on, Glasses,” he chided, and I could almost see his teasing smirk. “I bet you have every stop timed out, snacks packed in little baggies, and playlists created specifically for where you are on the map.”
It was a little jarring, how well he knew me.
And ugh. I liked it.
He knew all of my neuroses and hang-ups, and not once did I feel that he was disappointed or turned off.
I liked when he teased me about them because it made me amused by them too. Comfortable with them. It felt good to laugh at myself instead of being embarrassed for once.
“The stops are merely suggestions,” I said, “you’re wrong about the snacks”—he wasn’t—“and I think it’s amazing to have a musical accompaniment for every leg of your journey.”
“You sound like an insane person. Also, since I’m driving, I control the music.”
I couldn’t even imagine what Charlie listened to. Bo Burnham, but rap. “That’s not fair.”
“Neither is the fact that I’m driving,” he said, trying to land his point.
“I can take a turn,” I replied, even though I didn’t want to.
“And let you threaten the sanctity of the bond between me and my vehicle?” he asked. “I don’t think so.”
I chuckled quietly, watching on the TV as Tom Hanks navigated New York in the fall, and asked, “What are you doing right now?”
“Watching Lawrence Welk and touching myself.”
“First of all, ewwwwww,” I said, laughing in spite of myself. “Second of all, Lawrence Welk?”
“Stroking my beard, you pervert—get your mind out of the gutter.” He sounded like he was smiling when he said, “And I lost the remote, if you must know, and my TV always goes back to public television when I turn it on.”
“So you’re seriously lying there, watching an ancient show where a bunch of people stand around singing, because you’re too lazy to look for the controller?”
“Pretty much.”
“So when you say ‘stroking your beard,’ you actually mean that you’re touching your pathetic little chin hairs, right?”
“Now, come on, Bay, no need to get nasty,” he said, and I liked the way his voice sounded when I could tell he was smiling. “Those hairs are concrete evidence of an impending beard.”
“Doubtful,” I teased.
“Evidence of my manliness,” he replied.
“Facial hair is not evidence of manliness,” I corrected, “not that what you have on your chin even qualifies as such.”
“I cannot believe you’re so hateful about my beard,” he said, feigning outrage but failing because I heard the laugh that slipped out.
“I cannot believe you’re doubling down on calling that a beard.”
He asked, “Do you want me to shave it before tomorrow?”
That surprised me. “It’s your face, and you can do whatever you want.”
“But your vote is…?” he asked, and I wondered if he actually cared what my opinion was.
“Shave it,” I said, picturing his face. “It’s not that the hair is offensive, per se, but you have a nice face and the beard hides that.”
Silence and then… “Oh my God, you’re so in love with my face.”
“Shut up and stop making me queasy.” I leaned back against my headboard and said, “Objectively, you have a very nice face that other people probably enjoy.”
I heard him laugh again. “But not you.”
“God, no.” I actually thought it was funny that I was friends with someone so objectively attractive but so whatever to me. “Sometimes I squeeze my eyes shut when we’re together, just so I don’t have to see your eyes and cheeks and that atrocious nose.”
He laughed again. “Okay—confession.”
“Ugh—I hate those.”
“I know,” he said. “The worst.”
“Go ahead, though,” I pressed.
“Okay. So. When I saw you at the movies last year, before you opened your mouth and reminded me of what a pain in the ass you are, I thought you were hot.”
I coughed out a laugh. “Did you seriously just say that you thought I was hot until you remembered my personality? Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
“Come on, Bay, you know what I mean.” His voice was a little crackly when he said, “I looked up, thought, Damn, she’s pretty, and then I was like, Oh, holy shit, it’s the whackjob from the plane but with normal hair.”
I did know what he meant. I’d felt the same way when I’d seen him. “Awwww—thank you, Charlie.”
“So…?”
Oh my God, he wanted me to return it. I admitted, “Okay. When we saw the promposal, I thought you looked kind of cute and kind of jacked. But only until you looked at me. Then I was like, Oh shit, oh shit, I need to run because I hate that guy.”
He chuckled, a deep, scratchy thing that made me want to make him laugh more often. “Oh, Glasses, you never hated me.”
I rolled onto my side and snuggled into my blanket. “Trust me, on that flight, I hated you with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns.”
“For which you would’ve requested special sunscreen that was half-organic, half-regular.”
“Whatever.” I looked over at my suitcase and said, “So what are you doing when we get off the phone?”
“Laundry and packing,” he said. “Are you leaving your car at work while we’re gone?”
“No—Theo’s going to give Nekesa and me a ride in the morning.”
“Really,” he said, sounding smug.
“Shut it, they’re friends,” I defended, even as I knew they were getting too close.
“Sure they are,” he said. “I’m sure you saw the adorable winky faces she used when addressing Theo in the group chat.”
“I send winky faces to my mother,” I replied, even though the winky faces had totally been red flags to me. “Doesn’t mean anything.”
“Sure it doesn’t.”
“Are you going to be this annoying on the drive to the mountains?” I asked.
“Probably?”