Page 250 of ClickBack

I laugh and pass her a napkin. She tells me he likes his science teacher and has already made friends with a boy Rae wishes would stop sending voice messages at six in the morning. Giselle plays one for me. They are arguing about whether something from a video could happen in real life. I tell her which one is wrong.

“You can explain that to him,” she says. “I have retired from the discussion.”

“I’ll send him something tomorrow.”

I open the calendar next. “While you have your phone out, look at October.”

She does. “What did you add?”

“Us.”

The dates I put in are tentative, fitted around games and travel and the deadlines she has already shared. Some weeks we can get dinner. Some weeks I will be looking at her through a screen again. I want the time there before everything starts asking for it.

She opens the first entry, then the next. “You did the season?”

“The regular season.”

“You have dinner here the day after you get back from the West Coast.”

“I still eat after road trips.”

“You also fall asleep.”

“Then you come over and make fun of me.”

She looks at the phone again. “This one needs to be later. I have a client meeting.”

“Change it.”

“And this could be breakfast.”

I watch her move the time. I had worried she might hear this as one more thing she was expected to keep up with. Instead she opens November and starts figuring out what she wants.

She stops at a week when I’m away. “Can we leave the day open here? I might go to Charlotte.”

“Yeah.”

“I could have dinner with you from Rae’s porch.”

“Put that in.”

She does, then sets the phone beside her plate. Her leg rests against mine beneath the table.

“I don’t want us forgetting to do this,” I tell her.

“Argue over an arcade game?”

“That, too. I like taking you out.”

She looks up at me. “I like going.”

I bend to kiss her, and she meets me. There is no phone between us now. I let it go on until she smiles against my mouth and reminds me the fries are getting cold.

We leave when the manager comes to check whether we need anything else. I thank him and get her bag. She glances at the basketball lanes as we pass, but lets me have the last win without starting another argument.

Outside, she takes my hand. The September air is still warm, and the lot is mostly empty. I recognize the row where her car was parked the day we met. She follows my gaze.

“I sat there so long,” she says.