Page 23 of Not Just Gal Pals

Damn autocorrect, I meant pick. Pick you up.

I laughed, and George raised her eyebrows. “Who are you texting with?”

“Jenny.”

“I knew it! Are you two arranging another date?” She leaned in, waggling her eyebrows suggestively.

I glared at her, suppressing a chuckle. “No, you fool. I’m just going to help her with the wedding favors tonight.”

“Uh-huh. That doesn’t sound particularly funny.” She narrowed her eyes.

I slid my phone across the table.

George picked it up and snort-laughed. “She wants to lick you up? That’s definitely a Freudian slip. And then she goes on to say she wants to pick you up. I don’t think her intentions could be any clearer.”

“Ha ha, very funny. We might be getting along well, but we’re not getting along that well.” The image of Jenny sitting on a hay bale, the soft afternoon sun lighting her face as she enjoyed the hay ride, appeared for a split second.

“You should respond, ‘You can lick me anytime.’” I rolled my eyes. “But if you don’t mind me giving you some unsolicited advice, you need to work on your text-messaging game. ‘OK’? You sound like a teenage boy.”

George slumped back in her seat and let her face fall slack. “‘OK.’ ‘Fine.’ ‘Yes,’” she grunted in her best sullen-teenager impression. “She’s going to think you don’t want to hang out. I’m used to your texts now, so I know not to take them personally, but she won’t know that.”

I snatched my phone back. “I just like efficiency. Why type out five words, one exclamation mark, and two emojis when you could use a single word?”

“Because you might unintentionally offend someone or come across as standoffish?” George retorted.

I sighed. It wasn’t the first time I’d received that feedback. After Amanda thought I didn’t want to come to her viewing of Sense and Sensibility a couple of months ago because of my short messages (which was, to be honest, partially true, but I hadn’t meant to be that obvious), she’d gently suggested a few extra words or some emojis or exclamation marks might help convey my tone more accurately. It had also been a source of frustration for my exes. But texting didn't come naturally to me. Short, efficient, no-frill messages did.

I typed out

Sounds good

and let my finger hover over the exclamation mark. Urgh. I pressed it, scrunching my face, and sent the message.

“Done. I used two words instead of one and included an exclamation mark. I hope you’re happy.”

George grinned. “Very.” She downed her coffee and stood up. “I’d better get back to it.”

“Me too.” I sighed, glancing at all the unread emails on my laptop screen. I needed to buckle down to finish all my work before seven p.m.

* * *

Jenny pulled up outside the gorgeous old red barn where Amanda and Peter would be married on Saturday. Not that you could tell it was a gorgeous old red barn in the pitch-black night, but I’d seen it enough times to know exactly what it looked like. We pulled out our phones, turning on the flashlight function to help guide us over to the barn door.

Metal clanged on metal, and I realized Jenny was fumbling with a handful of keys. “Sweet Jesus, how many doors can one barn have?” she muttered, her hair falling over her face. I shone the phone light on the lock so she could see what she was doing.

We finally got in, and I turned on a light switch next to the door. Strings of fairy lights appeared, crisscrossing the barn’s rafters and dimly lighting the barn. We searched for the switch for the other, more powerful, lights attached to the rafters, but we couldn’t find it.

“I guess we’re stuck with mood lighting.” Jenny shrugged, smiling.

Since we’d given up on trying to find the light switch, I looked around with interest. I’d driven past the barn since I was a kid, but I’d never been inside. It was now a popular wedding venue—a particular favorite with New York City couples who fancied a rustic vibe. We were standing on what would presumably be the dance floor. The barn was huge with a high, A-shaped, beamed ceiling with wooden rafters. White sheets were draped over tables that covered most of its wooden floor. I was sure when all the lights were on, the tables were set, and the barn was filled with guests, it would be different, but it currently felt extremely eerie.

As if she’d read my mind, Jenny said, “This feels kinda…spooky. It would be the perfect venue for a Halloween party.”

It really would be. I didn’t have much interest in party-throwing, but George held an annual Halloween party at Novel Gossip, a venue that was too warm and cozy to give off true horror vibes. I made a mental note to keep this barn in mind in case she ever wanted a bigger, scarier venue.

Jenny nodded her head at a stack of boxes in a corner of the barn. “They must have the wedding favors in them. Miriam, the wedding planner, said they’d been delivered here.” We opened them and found that they were, indeed, the wedding favors. One of the boxes had small brown paper gift bags, another had heart-shaped chocolates, and the last one had small packets of flower seeds.

“Roooooooooooooooh.” A loud, high-pitched noise outside made us both jump.