Written in the Stars(47)
ELLE (4:33 P.M.): no
ELLE (4:33 P.M.): it actually took me a while to figure things out
ELLE (4:34 P.M.): i tried to heterotextualize my feelings for a while
ELLE (4:34 P.M.): in retrospect idk why
ELLE (4:35 P.M.): all part of the process i guess
DARCY (4:37 P.M.): You what?
It took her a second to figure out what had confused Darcy.
ELLE (4:39 P.M.): apply hetero context to a super not straight situation
ELLE (4:40 P.M.): hetero + contextualize = heterotextualize
DARCY (4:42 P.M.): Huh. New word. Thanks for broadening my horizons.
Elle bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.
ELLE (4:43 P.M.): i made it up
ELLE (4:43 P.M.): but you’re welcome
DARCY (4:45 P.M.): Of course.
DARCY (4:49 P.M.): So when’d you stop? Heterotextualizing?
Elle chuckled as she typed.
ELLE (4:50 P.M.): shortly after I tried to heterotextualize my friend going down on me at a theater cast party when I was in high school
ELLE (4:51 P.M.): just gals being pals
ELLE (4:52 P.M.): the mental leaps and bounds were like, acrobatic
DARCY (4:53 P.M.): You’re lucky you didn’t pull something.
Cheeky. Elle could be bold, too.
ELLE (4:55 P.M.): it was good head. I might’ve strained something. I can’t remember
A minute later, her phone rang. Stomach fluttering, Elle swiped at the screen as soon as she saw the Da— appear on the screen.
“I was kidding. I didn’t really pull a muscle when she went down on me, I just—”
“Elle?”
Elle cringed so hard she was going to need to see a chiropractor. “Mom?”
Margot recoiled in sympathy, sucking in a soft gasp through her teeth.
Mom cleared her throat awkwardly through the line. “I’m guessing you were expecting a different call.”
Sweet Saturn, Mary, and Joseph. Da— as in Dad and Mom, the house phone. Kill her now. “Um, can we pretend that didn’t happen?”
“Pretend what didn’t happen?” Mom asked.
“Right, good.” Elle coughed. “You rang.”
“I did. I hadn’t heard from you in a while.”
“I guess I didn’t have much worth reporting.” Aside from finalizing the deal with OTP. Nothing to write home about. But she could try. “Except—”
“I wanted to make sure you were still coming to Thanksgiving.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” It was Thanksgiving. Obviously, she’d be there.
“I wasn’t suggesting you wouldn’t come, Elle. It was a question.”
Arguing wasn’t worth it. “Right. I’ll be there.”
“Good. Lydia’s bringing Marcus over on Thursday and Jane and Gabe will obviously be there with Ryland. Daniel and Mike are getting in on Wednesday so that makes nine—”
“I’m bringing Darcy,” Elle blurted.
Mom paused. “Who?”
“You met her brother, Brendon? At breakfast a couple weeks ago?”
Several seconds ticked by before Mom made a hum of recognition. “Oh, right. The actuary?”
Mom had a terrible habit of reducing everyone to their professions. Jane, the pharmacologist. Daniel, the software engineer. Lydia, the dental student. She could only imagine what Mom referred to her as. Elle, the disappointment.
“Yeah, she’s an actuary.”
“You’re still seeing her?”
“I’m still seeing her.”
“It’s been a few weeks.”
“You sound surprised.”
“Honestly, Elle, can you blame me?”
Elle pressed her lips together, damming up the words inside her throat, none of them right.
Mom prattled on, oblivious to Elle’s plight. “Ten for dinner. I’ll need to come up with another side dish. I wish you would have told me you were bringing her sooner. But I guess you couldn’t have known, could you?”
After another two more minutes of back and forth, Elle managed to end the call.
Margot whistled through her teeth. “That sounded fun.”
“So much fun. Can’t you tell how overjoyed I am right now?”
Margot snorted.
Elle only hoped that phone call wasn’t a sign of what she had to look forward to at Thanksgiving.
Chapter Ten
Darcy sipped her coffee and stared at the check engine light on Elle’s dash, biting her tongue. When Elle forgot to flip off her blinker after merging onto I-90, Darcy couldn’t help herself. “Your turn signal’s on.”
Elle made a soft noise of acknowledgment and flipped it off. “Sorry. I’m a little out of it. Didn’t sleep much last night.”
Neither had Darcy.
She had been up until two studying. Trying to study. Between practice sets, her mind had drifted, thoughts occupied with Elle. How soft her lips had been when they’d kissed. How she’d tasted like strawberries and how she’d made a tiny sound, no more than a catch in the back of her throat when Darcy had bit down on her lip. The way Elle’s absurdly blue eyes lit up when she smiled. The bright peal of her laughter when Darcy made a truly awful joke. How she’d clutched the jacket Darcy had bought her—a purchase fueled by the desire to put another smile on Elle’s face—with the sort of reverence most people reserved for precious, priceless finds they planned on cherishing.