“There are four photos on Fish,” I reminded him.
“I want close-ups.”
Hmm. I wasn’t really a selfie person. I always looked uncomfortable and never knew whether to smile with teeth or closed lips. Whichever I chose looked unnatural.
“Will you do it for me?” Daniel texted.
I got out of bed and looked at myself in the mirror. Not exactly camera ready, my hair was tousled, eyeliner faded, and lipstick nonexistent.
“I look like shit,” I told him.
“I doubt that. Send some.”
So I made funny faces, sticking out my tongue and scrunching up my face, sending him the silliest ones.
“You’re something else, Jess.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“That’s how it’s meant,” he said.
“Where were we in our conversation?”
“Do you wear sundresses or shorts?”
“Shorts and sneakers. Swimming or kayaking?” I was trying to come up with questions that might make me look somewhat athletic.
“Depends. Is it skinny dipping?”
Hm. I thought about that one. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d shed my clothes for a swim.
“Do you skinny dip?” I was too curious to pass up the chance to find out.
“All the time. My mother has a lake house and I go in after dark. It’s very quiet and secluded.”
“Alone?”
“Sometimes yes, other times no.”
I was oddly jealous of the women he’d taken a swim with, which made no sense, because I didn’t even know him.
And so, since we were both night people, we spent the next two hours texting. He told me about his idyllic childhood, raised with two sisters who argued over who would take care of him when his parents were out, how his dogs once ate an entire coconut cream pie, how much he’d missed his daughter when she moved out and went to Michigan for a job.
“Yeah, I’m really lucky to have both my kids around,” I texted. “Don’t know what I’d do without them.”
Turned out that both of us were language and grammar snobs. We compared notes on the worst offenses.
“I could care less,” I texted.
“Supposably,” he replied.
“I ain’t got none.”
“You don’t need to water it or nothing.”
“There, their, and they’re.”
“Your a good writter,” Daniel texted. “Im impressed by you’re spelling.”
“LOL. Your pretty amazing to.”
“We could do this all day,” he texted.
Soon we were debating whether it was lonely being single.
“I’m happy being alone,” Daniel texted. “I have a lot of things that keep me busy.”
“Such as?”
“I have a lot of projects going at my house, and I have a home gym and work out every day.”
Oh geez, I thought. Another fitness nut, probably in better shape than me. Probably? Definitely.
“Tell me something personal, Jess,” he texted next.
I came up blank. “You go first.”
“OK. I have Lyme Disease.”
“OMG, I’m so sorry. Was it a tick?”
“Yes. Eight years ago, after a hike. On my shoulder.”
“Did it stick on you a long time?”
“It dug right in. Then I took some bad advice and tried all the ways I shouldn’t have to get it out.”
“Like what?”
“Scratching at it with a credit card, rubbing alcohol, burning it. And all the time I was torturing it, it was seeping poison into my bloodstream. It was a mess by the time I went to the hospital.”
I wiped my sweaty forehead, feeling sick at the image. Fucking tick. “Did you get sick right away?”
“I had partial paralysis. For two months I couldn’t use that side of my body. I lost thirty pounds.”
OK, the weight loss doesn’t sound so bad, I thought, then I kicked myself for thinking that. Of course it was awful, and from his pictures, he looked slender to begin with.
“Are you all right now?”
“Comes and goes,” Daniel texted. “There are days I have trouble getting out of bed, but I push myself. I get tired a lot, but hate taking it easy. I never miss a day at the gym.”
Good for him, I thought. I was still trying to regain my fitness.
“I’m sorry,” I texted, not sure what else to say.
“Don’t be. It’s just something I deal with. Everyone has things going on that people can’t see. This is just my thing.”
“That’s true. I’m glad you’re OK.”
“Now it’s your turn,” he texted.
“My turn for what?”
“Something personal, Jess. Make it a good one.”
Geez. I couldn’t come up with anything. I had nothing.
“Come on,” Daniel texted. “Tell me what you like.”
“Chocolate. Wine spritzers. White pizza. Horror movies.”
I was embarrassed to see three of the four things I listed were food and drink. Couldn’t I have come up with something that made me seem athletic, or at least like I got off the couch on weekends?
“I’ll tell you what I like. I’m a very physical person. I love to explore.”
Now he had my full attention.
“I’m also very oral.” Daniel texted. “You?”
“Physical?”
“No, oral.”
“I think so,” I texted Daniel. “I’m not sure I know what you’re saying,” I lied.
“Do you like being licked?”
Well, there was a question. There it was. I read it three times. How to answer, how to answer?
“I’d love to lick you all over,” Daniel texted, sparing me an answer.
My stomach lurched and I knew, at that moment, I was in deep trouble. I’d wished for adventure, and sure enough, it had found me.
“Really? We haven’t even met in person yet.”
“I have a really good feeling about this.”
“Good night,” I texted.
“Good knight, deer one,” he texted back.
All that, and a sense of humor too. I was officially smitten.
70
Within a day, Daniel and I were texting constantly, Joe glowering at me and jamming more files into my inbox. This, while he spent about 6 ½ hours of his 8-hour workday shooting the shit with the Three Stooges.
But I had plenty of work to do, so I limited my texting to lunchtime and after work. The best texting was at night, when I stretched out on my bed and turned on quiet music, making him seem not so far away.
We had tentative plans to meet over the coming weekend, but it was only Tuesday.
“Tell me your dreams,” Daniel texted.
“You mean like flying, or all my teeth
