Page 3 of Nothing to You
“You know you don’t have to remember everything ever.”
Smug satisfaction bled from his words.“You’re lucky to have me as a friend.”
“Talking to you is part of my private research into the less fortunate,” she said because teasing was their way.“Are you on tomorrow?”
“Same time every day.You’re away this weekend?”
“Well remembered,” she said, because her work weekend hadn’t come up for like a month.“Thursday through Tuesday, but I’ll try to be on at our usual time.”
“You could stay home.”
She smiled.“Could I?”
After talking to each other basically every day for over a year, the missed days were significant.Neither of them would admit it, but without their daily vent, their playtime, other areas of their lives suffered.
“Stay home and we’ll moderate: do snitches really get stitches?”
“Not bad,” she said, returning to her couch and the drink.“You know when we moderate no one gets a word in.”
“You haven’t noticed no one gets a word in anyway?No one else worth listening to.”
“Who are you kidding?You don’t listen to anyone.Haven’t you noticed you’re always the one in the wrong?”
“Oh, am I?”
“Yes,” she asserted, her lips curling again.“You’re a chauvinistic bigot.”
“You’re a dandelion snowflake.”
“You don’t know how to be in the world.”
“My world’s just fine, sweetheart.Yours is the one with the problem.”
“Only when men like you open their mouths.”
“You’re too sensitive, Babycakes.You need a man looking after you.A real man.”
Gritting her teeth, she didn’t know whether to laugh or throttle him.“So not you then.”
“Baby, there are not enough hours in the day for me to treat you like you deserve.”
Ah, triumph.“Couldn’t have said it better.”
“Didn’t mean that as a compliment,” he said.
“You never do, Hotshot.God forbid you say something nice.”
“I like you better when you’re drinking.”
“I know you do,” she said, picking up the TV remote control.“Want to watch a movie?”
After a user reached level twenty, Huddle allowed one-on-one chat.Even then, the line would drop out after an hour.They knew to wait the required seven minutes, then whoever didn’t make the first call would call the other back.
“Something gory?”he asked.
“You hate horror movies.”
“Yeah, but I like it when you get scared.You know, weak and in need of my protection.”
