Page 12 of Last Night Was Fun

Beth let out a breezy breath and reached for her margarita. “Thank goodness for that.” She lifted it and tapped it against Emmy’s with a dull, plastic clunk before they both sipped. “So, who is it then?”

Emmy smacked her lips against the tart pucker of the citrusy tequila. The evening summertime air hung thick with the signature smells of the ballpark: hot dogs, beer, spicy tacos from the booth behind them. Laughter and conversation bubbled around them. The next batter’s walk-up song blared through the PA system, and fans cheered. Despite sitting in an enormous, wide-open space, the focused attention on her best friend’s face narrowed Emmy’s world to a private little bubble.

“Are you not going to tell me?” Beth asked with a flirty shake of her shoulders.

Emmy fidgeted and took another sip. “You’re going to think I’m weird.”

“Em, I’ve known you for over a decade. Iknowyou’re weird.”

A laugh popped from her lips. “Fine. So, the other night I gota text from an unknown number. It turned out to be this guy who someone had given a fake number to at a bar the night before. He thought I was her. I explained I wasn’t, and now we’ve been texting for the past five days.” Emmy buried the end of her sentence with another gulp of her drink.

Beth blinked wide. “Wait. Someone fake numbered this guy, and the number happened to be yours? What are the chances?”

“I know, right?”

She could see Beth trying to mentally calculate the literal chances of randomly landing on a ten-digit combination of numbers that happened to belong to a specific person. Emmy had tried it herself, and the answer was: astronomical.

“It’s weird, right?” Emmy said, embarrassed she’d finally confessed to someone. At least that someone was Beth. “It’s totally weird.”

“Not necessarily,” Beth said with an astute shake of her head. “Something like 80percent of relationships start online or via digital messaging these days.” She leaned in and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I should know, because I’m part of that statistic.” She winked.

Emmy gasped. “Does that mean you met someone?!”

“Shhh!” Beth said, and flapped her hands to quiet her. “Maybe. I don’t know yet. But we had a promising date last weekend.”

“Oh! Is this Mustache Guy?”

“Ugh.No. Mustache Guy didn’t get a callback. I’m on to Nose Ring Guy now. I wasn’t sure I was into it at first, but he’s got a whole Lenny Kravitz vibe going, and I don’t think there’s a soul on earth who’d kick Lenny out of bed for eating crackers.”

“Well then,” Emmy said with an approving nod.

Just then, the batter roped a single out into right field, and the crowd erupted, startling Emmy from their conversation. She joined in the clapping and eyed the scoreboard, knowing exactly how that hit would change his stats.

“Yay, sports!” Beth hollered from beside her. She threw her arms in the air and bounced around in her seat. The man sitting next to them eyed her tumbling hair and the tight outline of her dress. She might as well have been a blinking siren amid all the jeans and ballcaps and jerseys. Emmy knew her enthusiasm was genuine, despite Beth having told her on more than one occasion that she didn’t understand baseball, didn’t want Emmy to explain it to her, but was happy to cheer along.

The crowd continued cheering to the next batter’s walk-up song, riding the momentum. Davey Hollander, the center fielder. Emmy knew from studying his stats all season that chances were low he’d get on base. A sequence of numbers cascaded through her mind.She knew against a right-handed pitcher with a runner on and one out, he had a 60percent chance of striking out, and if he got a hit, it would most likely be a grounder straight into a 6–4–3 double play that would end the inning.

Still, she hoped against the odds.

“So, who is he?” Beth asked, drawing Emmy’s attention back to their conversation. “Text Message Guy.”

Emmy kept one eye on the field, lifting her shoulders in a shrug. “That’s the thing: I don’t know.”

“Is that safe? I mean, there are a lot of creepers out there.”

“I know there are, but I honestly don’t get that vibe from him. Like, at all. When I’m talking to him, it’s like I’m...” She trailed off and gazed out to the field below. It may have been the booze or the atmosphere or perhaps that her thoughts had strayed to Axe Murderer, but everything—the lights, the grass, even the dirt—looked twinkly and soft. Glowing.

“Like you’re what, Em?” Beth cut in, and Emmy had no idea how long she’d been staring in a daze.

She snapped back to focus, only narrowly pulling herself from the gauzy dream. She met her friend’s eyes and confessed something shehadn’t even admitted to herself. “It’s like I know him. Like Iwantto know him. I don’t know. I can’t really explain it, but I’ve never felt so comfortable talking to someone before. Is that strange? I mean, I don’t even know his name.” She sincerely looked to her friend for advice. Beth was the dating app expert; of the two of them, she knew most about text communication. The only reason Emmy hadn’t come to her earlier was because she wanted to keep Axe Murderer as her own little secret.

Beth shook her head. “I don’t think it’s strange. A connection is a connection, regardless of when or how.”

She should have known her best friend would understand.

“Unless he murders you, then I take it all back. And I will hunt him down and kill him.”

Emmy leaned in and whispered, “I saved his name as Axe Murderer in my phone, so if anything happens to me, that’s how you find him.”