Oddly enough, Sherrie and Glenn shot each other relieved looks. Funny to think they might actually have an opinion about her love life.
The door jangled then. Sherrie and Glenn turned in tandem to the sound. Glory had her calling, and the Misty Cat was theirs.
“You can say you knew us when, hon.” Sherrie patted her arm, one step toward the day’s first customer already.
“And the sooner I say that, the better, right?” Glory teased.
Both Sherrie and Glenn laughed a little too loudly at that.
Glory got home around four p.m, to find Gary Shaw and her mom were sitting at the kitchen table, absorbed in some paperwork and each other. She could practicallyseethe little insular bubble of happiness surrounding them.
Glory sneaked past them, scooped up their old beige landline phone from the hallway, dragged it into her bedroom and shut the door. Just like when she was a teenager burbling on about God knows what—she couldn’t remember now—to Mick Macklemore.
She picked up the receiver, raised her hand to punch buttons and froze.
It only just occurred to her that she didn’t have Eli’s cell phone number.
But her fingers knew the number pattern of his landline the way they knew where to go on her guitar strings when she was playing a familiar song.
She was pretty sure he wouldn’t be home. But she wanted to hear his voice.
The greeting was typically minimalist:
“Leave a message for Eli.” BEEEEEP.
Her heart gave a pleasant stab as his baritone washed over her.
She hung up quickly, lest she sound like a perv breathing into the line.
For privacy reasons, he didn’t have a Facebook page. She knew a lot of law enforcement personnel didn’t. She didn’t know his e-mail address, either.
She supposed the two of them had... always just actually talked to each other, mostly. Like a couple of Luddites. Had always taken for granted that they’d see each other.
So she called his office. The cop shop was pretty small in Hellcat Canyon, so odds were pretty good one of the deputies would answer the phone when someone called the main number rather than 911, especially if the receptionist on duty was in the bathroom.
She exhaled, realizing her heart was hammering like a fourteen-year-old calling her first crush.
That wasn’t far from the truth, actually.
“May I speak to Deputy Barlow, please?”
“Oh, Eli is out of the office for a few days, Glory,” Deputy Owen Haggerty told her over the phone.
Crap! He’d recognized her voice!
“He’s in court all day today and he’s going up to county tomorrow morning. Something I can do for you?”
“Er—No, thank you, Owen. No message! Everything’s great!”
Click.
Her heart was hammering. For heaven’s sake, she needed to get a grip.
She put the phone gently down in its cradle. And mulled.
It was just that it still wouldn’t feel entirely real until she told him. And when she did tell him, this remarkable, miraculous thing would become even better. And a million things could happen between now and seven a.m. Tomorrow. From now until then, until she actually saw Wyatt Congdon in person, it would feel like that dream she’d had once where she was trying to cross Main Street downtown, but the street just kept getting wider and wider as she walked and no matter how fast she walked she could never get across until she woke up, sweating.
And yet telling Eli about Congdon would mean telling him about what had transpired between her and Franco, and that would be part of a conversation that could well determine the rest of her life. And though she knew Eli was likely losing sleep waiting to hear from her, she didn’t want to have that conversation over the phone.