Emergency Contact(14)

“Just don’t invent an app that invents apps,” Penny piped up. “The job market’s bad enough without you taking robot jobs from the robots.”

Sam laughed.

Sam had resting bitch face until he laughed. Penny had never wanted anything as bad as to make him do it again.

“God, the app singularity is the worst thing I can imagine,” he said after a moment.

Penny was thrilled—Sam either read science fiction or knew enough about it to know what to call it when computers got smarter than humans and started to phase them out.

“Social media would be a mess,” she said, smiling. “Who’s catfishing the catfisher?”

“Do Android phones dream of electric sheep?” he asked.

They both groaned, but a dad joke with a Philip K. Dick reference was Penny’s sweet spot. Dad jokes were Penny’s favorite. (You didn’t need to be Freud to figure that one out.) His hotness was making eye contact unbearable, and her cheeks tingled pleasurably.

“Anyway,” sang Mallory impatiently.

Penny cleared her throat.

Sam cracked his knuckles in a super-attractive, kinda menacing way. With his arms in front of his chest, she could see more hints of tattoos at his throat. The French word for throat is “gorge.” And, Christ, his was indeed.

Mallory said something dumb about empathy and the value of the human spirit. Penny wasn’t listening.

Sam had somehow found the Perfect Shirt with the Perfect Collar, which was stretched out just enough to create this enticing peekaboo effect.

Penny thought again about Mark. Mark, who wore polo shirts on dates and only read self-help books that you could buy at the airport, from The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People to Who Moved My Cheese? And the old standby The 4-Hour Workweek.

Good Mark.

Uncomplicated Mark.

Mark whose calls she’d sent to voicemail twice today.

Sam absentmindedly patted his cowlick down, showing a flash of white above his armpit.

Even Sam’s armpit was hot.

“Do you want to have dinner with us?” Jude asked him.

“Can’t,” he said, and stood up suddenly. “Work.”

Jude nodded, her disappointment apparent. “Maybe next time?”

“Sure,” he said distractedly as he excused himself.

? ? ?

“Daaaaaamn,” whispered Mallory, ogling Sam as he left.

Daaaaaamn, thought Penny.

“I didn’t know Uncle Sam was such an intellectual,” Mallory breathed, fanning herself dramatically with her hand.

“Ew, stop.” Jude swatted her best friend’s leg. “That’s literally my father’s brother.”

“Former stepbrother, by marriage, for, like, five minutes,” corrected Mallory. “And he’s not old.”

“He’s twenty-one,” said Jude.

“First cousins marry,” said Mallory.

“Wow . . . ,” said Jude, shaking her head.

“What?” shot Mallory. “Seriously, what’s the deal? He’s so hot. Dark, but hot. And you.” Mallory turned to Penny. “What’s with your awkward bullshit and then pulling out your flirtation A game?”

“Yeah, you guys seemed to get along,” said Jude. Both pairs of eyes studied Penny with new interest.

“I’m being neighborly,” Penny demurred. She turned to Mallory. “I can be friendly as long as strangers don’t go rummaging through my personal effects.”

“Ha,” Mallory said. “Whatever, what’s his type?”

“Mal,” warned Jude.

“What?” Mallory blinked innocently.

“Mallory, you are not allowed to go for my uncle,” said Jude.

“Allowed?” said Mallory. “But what if he goes for me? Uncles love me.”

“Don’t.” Jude turned to face her friend. “I mean it. You know I don’t need any more drama with my family right now. I’m invoking an ironclad friendship ask.”

“Family?” retorted Mallory. “I’m about as related to Sam as you are at this point.”

“You know the rules. Ironclad asks don’t have to make sense,” said Jude, waving her hand dismissively. Her mouth was a firm thin line. Penny knew that face. It was when you were so mad you had to train everything to keep still or you’d cry.

“Whoa,” said Mallory. “Jude Louisa Lange. Do you have sexual feelings for your former uncle by marriage?”

“Stop!” hissed Jude back.

“It’s the only explanation,” countered Mallory.

“Ew. No. That’s not it at all. . . .” Jude sucked down the last of her coffee. “Friends hooking up with family makes things awkward and complicated. So can you not?”

“Aw, babe,” said Mallory, finally wrapping her arms around Jude. “Okay. Ironclad friendship ask invoked. You can’t fault a girl for wanting to be your best friend and your aunt.”

Jude laughed.

Penny eyed the two girls. Either Jude did have a crush on Sam and wasn’t admitting it, or something was up with her family for real. She couldn’t imagine Mallory backing down easily otherwise. Penny recorded the information in a new folder in her head.

“Besides,” continued Jude. “I think he had a rough summer too.”