Folk Around and Find Out (Good Folk: Modern Folktales #2)(119)

CHAPTER 32





CHARLOTTE





“It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving, it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.”

THOMAS PAINE, THE AGE OF REASON





—One Month Later—





“Did he text?” Beau stood next to me on the front porch of the Winston house, scratching his beard. “He hasn’t texted me.”

“He did text me. He said he was running late.” I checked the screen of my phone again and mumbled, “He just didn’t say how late.”

Hank was very late. Over an hour late. This wouldn’t be a huge deal except he was late for our party, the one Sienna and I had been meticulously planning for the last month as a way to inure us all from the scorn of gossipmongers.

We’d been slinking around for weeks, hiding our relationship, meeting up in secret. It had been fun at first, making out like teenagers in Cooper’s Field, or renting a hotel room near the Parkway, but now I was just so over it. I wanted to walk down Walnut Street holding his hand without worrying Kimmy wouldn’t be invited to a birthday party. I wanted to kiss him under the mistletoe during Christmas and at midnight on New Year’s Eve. I wanted to go on a double date with Beau and Shelly, or Jethro and Sienna, or Jackson and Rae, to a restaurant. In public.

All the kids were inside wearing their Halloween costumes, all the Green Valley families had arrived, several of The Pony’s exotic dancers had brought their kids along for the fun. The stage was set. And Hank was late.

I didn’t want to fret, but I was close to fretting.

He wasn’t tired of us, and he wasn’t having second thoughts about us, of this I was certain. But a smoldering fear I’d been trying to ignore sparked within me.

He’s changed too much, too fast. I’ve asked for too much. I’ve expected too much. I’ve—

“Does he use words when you text him?” Beau bumped my elbow with his, yanking me out of my cascade of doubt.

Frowning, I turned my head to inspect him. “Pardon me?”

“When you text Hank, does he respond with words?” Beau gestured to my phone.

“Uh, yes, words.” What would he use other than words?

“That’s great.” Beau grinned his trademark sunny smile, eyes bright.

Confused, I asked, “It’s great?”

“Yeah. If he responds with an actual phone call, or a text message with words, that makes you his favorite person on the planet.”

I frowned, still confused. “Wait. What does that mean? He doesn’t use words when he texts you?”

“Only rarely,” he said, not looking upset about it. “Hank prefers to correspond via text message only, and only with text emojis.”

“Text emojis?” My nose scrunched. A gust of late autumn wind lifted my hair from my shoulders and blew it around my face. I reached up and tucked several strands back into place, looking out toward the long driveway leading up to the house. “Wait, you mean those old-school faces made out of text? Like in the early days of the internet?”

“Yep. Text emojis,” Beau said. “That’s what he uses when we text.”

“Huh.” I thought about that, twisting my hair and setting it behind my back. This information struck me as totally random, but not necessarily off-putting. Also, why did I not know this? Why had Hank never said anything to me about it?

Turning back to Beau, I allowed him to see my doubt. “Really? No words?”

“If I get actual words from him, then I know it’s serious. Otherwise, it’s all text emojis all the time.”

Okay . . .

Yeah, it was sort of immature, but so was Hank in a lot of ways. So was I. Still. How odd.

“Then I guess—” I bit my thumbnail and peered at my phone, suddenly determined. If text emojis were Hank’s love language, then I would learn to speak it. “I guess I’ll look some up, see if I can’t communicate what I want with just those.”

“Good luck.” Beau set his hands on his hips. “I gave up. I send him words, he responds with his emojis. I’ve gotten pretty good at figuring out what he means by now.”

Opening my phone’s browser, I scrolled through several sites, clicking on a link that looked promising. “Let’s see . . .”

Selecting one that was supposed to be a friendly version of hi, I copied it and pasted it into the text message screen.

Charlotte: ????つ”





Not ten seconds later, three dots appeared next to Hank’s name.

Hank: ??

Hank: Do you need me to pick something up? I promise I’m almost there

Hank: Sorry I’m so late





I made a soft sound of frustration. “He’s answering me in words.”

“That’s good, though.” Beau gave me an encouraging nod. “He only does that with people he really likes.”

My lips flattened. “No, I want to see if I can get him to use just text emojis, like he does with you.”

He didn’t try to hide how perplexing he found my statement. “But . . . why?”