Friend Is a Four Letter Word by Steph Campbell Page B

through the list before stopping on CARTER.
    It’s earlier in the West Coast. It wouldn’t be impolite to call at this hour there.
    I’ve called him a few times… mostly when it’s so damn late I’m half out of my mind with sleepiness and he’s home from work. We tell each other stupid stories about our days or talk about funny things that happened at school or work. We talk about what we miss from our childhoods and what we hope for in our futures. Our talks are deep but careful, entangled but guarded.
    But our texts? Our texts are on fire. We turn into sexier, braver people when we communicate with words on a screen.
    We’ve been texting for the last several months and many of our messages are innocent—some of them are just quick ‘hellos’, some have to do with peanut cravings… but just as many have gone into darker, hotter territory, the kind of delicious stuff that we started but never finished on Christmas Eve. And some those texts are us telling each other exactly what we’d do to the other if they were there.
    It’s a game. An innocent flirtation. We’ve never talked like that on the phone, though. My fingers tap on the screen, circling his name, wishing I had a picture of him to use as my contact. But all I have is his sexy-as-hell voice and the strange back and forth of our relationship.
    I should do this.
    I need a minute. Some courage. A sign.
    I glance out the window and then look down at the sill. There’s a smattering of glitter and, when I follow it with my finger, I see that there’s a card wedged between my bed and the wall. I pluck it out and it’s a simple, ridiculous card from my Gramp, a man I love and who has always loved me for being a ‘spitfire.’ I look at the front of the card, which features a polar bear in a Santa hat surfing. My Gramp scrawled a note inside: ‘Merriest Christmas, honey bear! Never stop being your crazy, amazing self, kid! Lots of love, Gramps’.
    Surfing and my Gramps telling me to go for it? It’s a sign enough for me.
    I take the last sip from the clear, glass bottle and press CALL.
    I’m already too lit to care that this may be a bad idea. That he may be sleeping—getting his rest for work tomorrow. That he may have a girlfriend he hasn’t mentioned and she may be balancing on top of him at this very moment. Instead I just tap my foot casually and wait for him to answer.
    “Shayna?” he says. “Are you okay?”
    It isn’t what I expect him to say. “Okay?” I repeat.
    “It’s just… earlier than you usually call,” he says, and some of the magic that weaves around us when I call late at night is sapped, missing.
    I regret calling, and search my brain for a possible excuse that doesn’t make me sound like a total lunatic. “Right. Sorry. Look, are you busy? I understand if you are. It wasn’t importa—”
    “I’m not busy,” he reassures me. “Never too busy if you need me.”
    “Right,” I say, feeling my cheeks light on fire. “But it was so, so stupid.”
    “Really?” he drawls. “Stupider than an urgent message about boiled peanuts?” I hear his keys or loose change hitting a table. I hear a muffled scuffling and imagine him taking off his jacket and tie. When he sounds settled he says, “You never did answer me back, by the way.”
    “I’m sorry.” I curl my legs under myself and drag my finger through the last little sprinkling of glitter left on the sill, like it’s magic. Fairy dust or something from my childhood, now so long gone and far away. “I wanted to, but I was out.”
    His laugh is deep and full. “Don’t apologize. I just wanted you to remember nothing you could be calling for could be more ridiculous than the reason I was bothering you.”
    “You were really missing boiled peanuts?” I ask, smiling a real smile for the first time in I don’t know how long. “My grandmother has the most amazing recipe ever.”
    “Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to taste them myself someday. I think Quinn and I are