The Accidental Text

by Becky Monson

  “Well, the cat’s out of the bag,” he says.

  “I hate that saying. Who puts a cat in a bag?”

  “Fine, the pig is in the poke?”

  “Try again.”

  He lets out a breath. “You can’t take it back. It’s out there.”

  “I could find a witch and have her cast a spell?”

  “Excellent idea.”

  I sigh. “I swear my dad looked at me differently afterward.”

  I caught my dad giving me sad smiles while we were eating pie. Or maybe I was just being overly sensitive about it. Devon was okay with it, or at least he seemed to be. After having taken so long to put the pieces together, I thought for sure he’d be annoyed with me, especially for lying to him like I did. But he seemed fine.

  Later, when we were cleaning up and Chelsea pried me with more questions, Devon even came to my rescue, telling her it wasn’t a big deal and to leave me alone. I doubt that will keep Chelsea away. If only.

  “Why do you think he looked at you differently?”

  “He probably thinks I need therapy.”

  Chase chuckles again. “At least he cares. I’ve barely said two words to my dad since the funeral.”

  I turn my head to the side and tilt it upward to see him looking at my ceiling. It’s the first time he’s said much of anything about his dad.

  “Why do you think that is?” I ask.

  I feel his shrug. “He’s not really been talking to me or Kenzie. Not more than one- or two-word sentences.”

  “That … must be hard. How is Kenzie handling everything?”

  “I haven’t talked to her in a few days. She’s busy planning a wedding.”

  “Right,” I say. “How’s that going?”

  “It’s going,” he says.

  We fall into silence, only the sound of the cars on the street below my open window filling the quiet. I leave the conversation open for Chase to say more, wanting him to talk to me more about how he’s feeling. He seems so open when we talk about other things, but shuts down when we talk about his family.

  “There’s a heart on your ceiling,” Chase says, pointing toward the spot near my fan.

  “You see that?”

  “Totally. It’s a perfect-shaped one. A rare find on a ceiling,” he says. “I’ve found a pretty good Batman shape in my room.”

  I turn my head toward him again, feeling so much kinship with this man lying on my bed, his hand now rubbing lazy patterns on my arm. It’s a dumb thing, really. How many millions of people look for shapes in clouds? Certainly a ceiling with accidental patterns from a texture gun is not much different.

  “There’s two-thirds of a shamrock on my bathroom wall,” I say.

  Another chuckle. “I’m pretty sure I can see my grandpa’s profile in my kitchen. I sometimes say hi to it.”

  This time it’s my turn to giggle. “I think I might miss you when you go to London.”

  He gives my arm a squeeze. “Might?” he says.

  “Well, I’ll for sure miss Oscar.”

  “He’ll miss you,” Chase says. “And I’ll probably miss you. Maybe.”

  “What’s going on in here?”

  We both look over to see Hannah standing just inside the door of my room, taking in the sight of Chase and me on my bed. His arm around me, my body semi-snuggled up to his. We probably do look a little cozy.

  “Hey, Han,” I say, using a very casual tone as if to say, Do not read into this.

  She’s apparently too tired to care, because she suddenly drops her purse on the floor, in dramatic Hannah fashion, and then comes over to the bed. “Scoot,” she instructs.

  Chase and I comply, and now I’m in between the two of them. It’s odd how right this feels. Like we’ve been doing this for years.

  “How’s work?” Chase asks.

  Hannah lets out a grunt. “Let’s not talk about it.”

  “Mags told her family about me tonight,” Chase says.

  “Chase,” I say, my voice a reprimand. I reach over and pinch his arm, and he wiggles it away from me.

  “Wait, what?” Hannah asks. “You told them what about Chase?”

  “The whole thing,” Chase says.

  “I can speak for myself, you noob,” I say.

  “No way. What happened? Why did you tell them?”

  “Well, my dad and June are dating,” I say.

  “So you thought to up the ante by telling them the truth about your texting lover?”

  I pinch her arm this time. “Not lovers,” I say.

  “Yeah,” Chase says. “Bummer.”

  I look over at him and see a smile on his face, his eyes on the ceiling. He’s teasing, obviously. So why do I feel a warm sensation starting to swirl in my belly?

  “Shut up,” I say, to him and my stomach.

  I turn my head toward Hannah and give her most of the details but not everything, my need to vent gone now that I already did that with Chase.

  “Wow,” she says. “That wasn’t well thought out, was it?”

  Chase laughs. “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Stop ganging up on me.”

  “It’s really easy to fix this,” says Hannah.

  “Really?” I turn my head toward her.

  “Just do something even crazier … like rob a bank or something.”

  “Helpful,” I say.

  “If there’s one thing I know,” she says, after yawning loudly, “it’s that the Coopers get over stuff. It’s one of your talents. I wish that was a thing with my family. Halmoni still lectures me about the one time I came home past curfew when I was seventeen.”

  I snort laugh and Chase chuckles next to me.

  We’re silent for a bit and I stare up at the heart on my ceiling, feeling so grateful for it right now.

  Chapter 24

  The following Monday I’m in my office, working on some new hire paperwork. Chad has officially been replaced. I guess Dawson and I will have to find something new to talk about. Like the weather. Or even worse, politics. Gross.

  Chad’s replacement was interviewed and hired last week, and today is his first day. I have a lovely stack of papers for him to fill out. Cooper’s is still old school when it comes to employee paperwork. Someday we’ll get with the times.

  The new hire’s name is Mateo, and he’s got very dreamy eyes. I obviously didn’t tell him that when I interviewed him, because that wouldn’t be very HR of me. But I thought it in my head. They’re the darkest brown, like chocolate. And his eyelashes are every girl’s fantasy—for themselves, of course. It’s such a shame when men have beautiful, lush eyelashes. They don’t even appreciate them.

  I’m feeling a little tired today since I spent the entire weekend with Chase. On Saturday we went indoor skydiving to help Chase prep for his big jump. That’s what he said anyway. I warned him that it’s not really like jumping out of a plane. Like, hardly at all. He didn’t seem to care. He loved it and it was another check mark on his adventure list.

  Sunday, Chase invited me over to spend the afternoon at the park with my new boyfriend, Oscar. He didn’t actually call Oscar my boyfriend, and he did get slightly irritated when he threw out a Frisbee for Oscar to catch and Oscar kept bringing it back to me.

  I so badly want to take him while Chase is in London, but his sister, Kenzie, has already volunteered for the job. My third-story apartment wouldn’t be all that fun for a big dog anyway.

  “Mags,” I hear someone say from the doorway, and look up to see Chelsea standing there. She looks a little haggard—not like someone who just got back from vacation. If you can call visiting her in-laws in Fresno with two young children in tow a vacation.

  “Hey, Chels,” I say, and give her a smile.

  We haven’t talked—not since the Sunday before, when I told everyone who Chase really was. I’d thought maybe since she was leaving the next day that she’d take a week to forget or at least get over it.

  But by the look on her face, I can tell she’s anxious to talk to me
. Which means none of that happened. What probably did happen is that she thought about it a lot, got worked up, and is now here to lecture me. Can’t wait.

  “How was your trip?” I ask, deciding that stalling is my best tactic.

  “It was … okay,” she says. She walks into my office and takes a seat in the black mesh chair across from me.

  “That fun, huh?” I say.

  “Well, you know. It’s … Fresno.”

  I chuckle. “Right.”

  “How was your week?”

  “It was good,” I say. “We hired someone to replace Chad.”

  “Finally,” she says. “Do you know that he tried to wrap my car?”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, one time Dawson told him to go get the next car from the lot and start on the door, and when Dawson came back my minivan was in the shop, and the driver’s side door was wrapped in hot pink.”

  I snort laugh at that. It’s possible I might end up missing dear old Chad. At least he gave me something to laugh about—and something to talk with Dawson about.

  She gets a serious look on her face. “Listen, Maggie, I’ve been thinking a lot this past week while I was gone and realized something.” She pauses to take a deep breath. “I don’t think I’ve been here for you enough. Since … since Mom died.”

  My face falls. “Chels—”

  She holds up a hand. “I was caught up in my own life, in my own grief, and I feel like I neglected you.”

  “No way,” I say shaking my head. “Chelsea, making sure I’m fine is not your job.” Typical oldest sibling.

  “I know that. I guess I just thought that since you felt the need to send those texts to Mom’s phone, maybe … I could have been more supportive. I wasn’t here for you enough, and I’m sorry.”

  I’m at a loss for words. This wasn’t what I was expecting at all when she came in here. I was expecting a lecture or some sort of nudge toward therapy.

  “Chels, I’ve never felt like you weren’t here for me,” I say. I let out a breath before continuing … before explaining. “Texting Mom’s phone was my thing. It wasn’t some outlet because I wasn’t getting what I needed from you or Dad or Devon. It was just … me working through my feelings. That’s all it was.”

  She looks to the side, toward my wall of pictures. “Just so you know, I’m here. You can talk or text or whatever you need.”

  I pull my lips upward. “I never once thought I couldn’t.”

  She takes a big inhale and then gives me a few quick nods of her head. “Okay,” she says. “That makes me feel better. I just kept thinking about everything and I was … worried about you.”

  I smile. “And I love you for it. I’m sorry if it ruined your trip.”

  “No.” She waves my words away with her hand. “Mark’s mom had that job.”

  “That bad?”

  She blows air out of her cheeks and lets her head hang down slightly. “Worse than bad.”

  “Tell me,” I say.

  “I can’t right now, but I promise I will later. I have so much work to catch up on,” she says, standing up from the chair.

  She says goodbye, looking much lighter than she did when she first came in, and walks out the door.

  Thirty seconds later there’s a knock on the wall outside my door and I lift my head up, expecting to see Chelsea back again. But then I remember Chelsea never knocks.

  Instead, Dawson is in my doorway, in black coveralls, his dark-blond hair styled just perfectly. He looks rather delicious, even if my heart doesn’t speed up all that much in his presence. My pits seem completely dry right now too. My palms are slightly sweaty, though. I may never not have a reaction to him.

  “Hey there,” I say, feeling the words roll off my tongue. I haven’t felt tongue-tied around Dawson in a while. Maybe it’s because I haven’t even tried to make a move in a long time. It doesn’t feel like something I want to do right now. I’m not saying it’s off the table completely, but I’ve set that thought on the back burner.

  “Hey,” he says in response. “You got that paperwork for Mateo?”

  “Yep, right here,” I say, tapping on the neat stack of papers on my desk. I grab a manila folder from the bottom drawer and place the paperwork inside of it.

  “May I?” he asks, gesturing toward the folder.

  It’s funny, now that I’m not so caught up in making my feelings known to him, I’m noticing new things about Dawson. Like how sort of shy he is. Especially around me. His cheeks turn a light shade of pink, just on the apples, nearly every time we have a conversation. I don’t know if this is a new development or I’m just noticing now because I can take note of such things without the distraction of my erratically beating heart and my sweaty palms and pits.

  I give him a nod and he walks up to grab the paperwork. I push the folder toward the other side of my desk to make it easy for him to grab, and maybe I pushed too far, or Dawson didn’t get a good hold on the folder, because somehow it ends up falling off my desk and all of the papers fall out and fly around, landing in all directions on the floor.

  Dawson swears under his breath.

  “So sorry,” I say, and stand up from my chair. I move around to the other side of my desk where Dawson is already on hands and knees trying to gather up all the paperwork. I get down on the ground and help him.

  “No, I’m the one that’s sorry,” he says as he’s trying to gather everything. There are probably only about twenty sheets, but they’re spread out around us and hard to pick up off the epoxy flooring. There’s no give between the paper and the floor, making it hard to get a finger underneath.

  We end up sort of brushing them into a pile with our hands, which makes it easier to pick up. We’re also laughing at the ridiculousness of the whole thing: both of us on the floor, trying like mad to pick up all these papers.

  Once we get it all somewhat together, we’re both still chuckling, and we sit back on our heels, so close that I can feel his shoulder touching mine. I turn my head to find Dawson watching me, and something shifts in his expression. He’s not smiling anymore and his eyes have taken on a more serious look—almost like he’s determined to do something. Before I can think of what that might be, he leans his face in and presses his lips against mine.

  His lips are warm and full, and my eyes flutter shut at the contact. The kiss probably only lasts a few seconds before he pulls away. I keep my eyes closed, feeling so many things right now. So many thoughts running through my mind. When I open my eyes he’s looking at me, his cheeks red, his eyes curious.

  I touch my fingers to my lips, not entirely sure what just transpired.

  “Was that … did I …” he says, not completing a sentence.

  My body, working on its own, stands up from the floor. It’s an instinctive response, like a fight-or-flight thing.

  Dawson jumps up to his feet as well. He swipes a hand down his face. “I’m … so sorry, Maggie. Did I … did I get that wrong?”

  “What?”

  He closes his eyes for just a second and then opens them. “It seemed like … I thought that …” he stops himself, looking frustrated by his inability to form a full sentence.

  I let out a breath. “You didn’t get that wrong, Dawson,” I say, and he does a whole upper-body sagging thing, in relief.

  He then stands up straight and walks toward me, this time with a more definitive expression. A man on a mission.

  I hold out a hand to stop him. “You didn’t get that wrong, but … I’m not sure how I feel about it.”

  “Oh,” he says, his face falling a little.

  “It’s not that … I just …” I let out a breath, not sure what to say or how to say it. Maybe I should just go with the truth. If only I could pinpoint exactly what that is.

  “Is it that Chase guy?” Dawson asks.

  “What?” I feel my eyes widen. “No … Chase … I—”

  “Sorry,” he interrupts. “It just seemed like maybe something could be happening between you.”<
br />
  I look to the ground, my brain firing off again. Is my change in feelings toward Dawson because of … Chase? I try the thought on for a second but end up feeling even more confused.

  “So then … what?” he asks.

  I let out a breath. “If you had done that like … two weeks ago?” I say. “I would have been so thrilled. Like, jumping for joy, thrilled.”

  “Ah, okay. But … not now.”

  “Now,” I say, and then nibble on my bottom lip while I think. “Now, I’m just … not sure.”

  “Got it. I missed my chance.” He rubs a hand down his face again.

  “No,” I say. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Right,” he says. “So maybe think on it?”

  I smile. “I can do that.”

  “Okay.” He echoes my smile. “Then I can wait.”

  He comes closer to me and leans in, and for a second, I wonder if he understands the concept of waiting. But all he does is brush his lips on my cheek. And then, with a soft smile, he walks out of my office.

  Chapter 25

  “Has any of this been helping you?” Chase asks as we walk along the Bell Trail, the heat in the low nineties. We’re about two hours north of Tempe, not all that far from Sedona. It’s beautiful outside and the trail follows along a creek, which is pretty on its own, with trees lining each side of the slowly flowing water. There’s a distinct scent of dirt and brush as we walk.

  Today’s adventure includes a three-and-a-half-mile hike toward a watering hole called the Crack. That’s the actual name, and every time I say it, Chase snickers. We’re apparently trying out cliff diving. There’s not a lot of that around here, so this is the best we can do. I’ve been told—by Chase, of course—that the Crack boasts cliff dives as high as thirty feet, which isn’t too shabby. I did a fifty-foot one in Hawaii one time on vacation, and I don’t think I would go that high again.

  It’s not really a hike—at least not this first part. It’s more like a walk. The dirt trail is wide and mostly flat and sprawling. But it supposedly gets a little more difficult closer to the watering hole. Chase instructed me to wear sneakers and, of course, my bathing suit, which I’m wearing underneath some light-gray running shorts—that I’ve never actually used for running—and a light-blue tank top.