Chapter Four
Across the water, Frank was fast asleep, but when he eventually did wake up, at around 11am local time, he picked up his phone immediately and saw that Sammie had accepted the friend request he’d sent through last night. He checked the time difference; having already set up a UK clock on his phone so he could easily know what time it was where she lived. It was just after 5pm so he figured she’d be finishing work soon and heading home to start on her art and get herself something to eat. He might message her slightly earlier tonight. It was hard waiting until so late, although he wanted to give her some space to get on with her life and not to make it seem like he was desperate, pushy or overly keen.
Whilst he was waiting, he got up, made himself some coffee and breakfast, and had a scroll through her Facebook account, doing the exact same thing Sammie had done to him some hours earlier. He looked at all her pictures, read through her posts, looked at who some of her friends were and had a good old snoop. Her account was much older than his and went back several years, so obviously he didn’t get through it all, although he did look at most of the pictures, smiling to himself at how stunning she was with her long deep auburn colored hair down to her shoulders, pale skin and beautiful deep brown eyes. He couldn’t wait to meet her in person. He hoped they got that far and that she didn’t lose interest in him or find someone better on the site.
Eventually, he could wait no longer, and so he opened up Messenger and typed out a message. It was only just after 7pm Sammie’s time when he sent it.
“Had a nice day?”
“x”
He added the kiss as an afterthought. He hadn’t done that before.
The message was seen almost immediately, then she began to type.
Unlike on the website chat, with Messenger, one can actually see when others are typing. It made the whole thing much more exciting for Frank – and nerve-wracking.
“Yes thanks! Have you? Well, so far, I mean!”
He smiled and immediately started typing back:
“Yeah, I’ve just finished breakfast and I’m sitting on the couch watching TV and chilling.”
“Chilling is basically all you ever do haha!”
He smiled some more. “I know. You’re such a hard worker, it puts me to shame! Are you doing some work on your paintings tonight?”
“I’ve just finished eating my dinner, and I will be doing, yeah, but we can chat for a bit if you like!”
“What about these voice clips then?” And with that, he sent her the winking emoji.
***
Sammie was sat on the couch too, with the remains of her meal on the coffee table in front of her – just a couple of potatoes she couldn’t quite manage. It was times like this she wished she had a dog, or maybe just another person she could share food with. She always made herself slightly too much.
She kicked off her shoes and smiled at her phone, lifting her legs up onto the couch and tucking them to her knees, already blushing and squirming slightly at the thought of what they were about to do. It was like they were taking everything that slightly one step further by speaking to one another. It was less daunting than talking on the phone though. All she needed to do was hit record and say something, then send it. Then it was optional whether she did another one. If she found it too embarrassing or awkward they could just stop. She didn’t feel pressured by Frank into doing it or anything, and she wanted to hear his voice too.
“You go first!” she typed back and hit send.
It came up that he was typing a response, so she waited. And waited.
Then he stopped typing.
Then started again.
She was staring at her screen with anticipation wondering what the hell was going on. Then, when a message did come through, it wasn’t a message at all, it was an audio clip.
Sammie felt a rush of excitement and her heart fluttering in her chest as she went to click it.
There was a pause, a rustle, then a clearing of a throat, before Frank began to quietly speak in his low, American rumble.
“Uh…hey Sammie…this is Frank. Well…you already know that…” He gave a nervous chuckle. “So, uh…this is what I sound like, I guess. God, I don’t really know what to say now. This is harder than I thought...” Another nervous chuckle followed by some more rustling. “So uhhh…yeah. That’s it, I think. Your turn! Byeeeee.”
A click.
And he was gone.
Sammie’s cheeks were heated up, all red and flushed, and she was grinning from ear to ear so hard that it was starting to ache her jaw.
That was probably one of the cutest messages anyone had ever sent to her. How the hell was she going to compete with that. Now she was even more nervous.
“Well?” He typed.
“That was so cute!” She sent back.
“Haha really? Well, thanks, I guess. No one’s ever accused me of being cute before.”
“My turn. Just give me a minute.”
“OK!”
She took a deep breath, trying to think of something good to say, all the ideas flying out of her head as soon as she hit the record button.
“Hi Frank, this is me, Sammie…this is how I speak…” She giggled. “It’s nothing really very special, just a normal, standard British accent, I guess. I don’t have uh…I don’t have a regional accent particularly. Maybe slightly Northern, but not much. I like the sound of yours though. It’s kind of…New York mixed with Texan…” She blushed and hesitated mid-sentence as she realized she’d now probably given away the fact that she’d looked on his Facebook profile and found out he was from New York originally. “So uhhh…yeah, that’s about it.” She quickly ended the message and hit send, before tossing the phone on the couch and hiding her face in her hands, her cheeks burning. Oh God, that was so embarrassing.
***
Frank also felt a charge of excitement when the voice message came through from Sammie, and although she was insisting that her accent was nothing special, he completely disagreed. To him it was beautiful and fascinating and he could have listened to her speak for hours. Hopefully, one day, he would get to. He laughed at the bit about New York and raised his eyebrows. So, she’d done the same as him and looked at his Facebook profile. Well, it was to be expected really; that was just the standard thing to do when you added someone as a friend on Facebook – have a bit of a snoop. That was fine; she obviously didn’t mind that he wasn’t a pure-bred Texan, and it gave them something else to talk about anyway. New York was a cool place; he didn’t mind talking about his past – a little bit, although obviously not too much.
He typed into his phone: “I’m glad you liked it. Your accent is amazing!”
“Omg, no it’s not,” she replied after a couple of minutes. “But thank you.”
“Shall we send some more?”
He decided not to mention the New York thing for now, assuming she might be embarrassed about it (and assuming correctly).
“Yeah, OK! Shall we decide on something specific to say this time though? Like, choose a topic or something.”
He thought about it for a moment. That was definitely a good idea, but there was still something false about sending these voice notes that wasn’t like a real conversation. It was as though you were recording yourself speaking on a certain topic rather than directly conversing with someone else. What could they choose?
After a while, he typed: “OK, tell me about the meal you just had for your dinner.”
It was a pretty boring topic, he realized straight away, but at least it was something, and it would give him a chance to hear more of her accent. Maybe it would help loosen them up a bit too; he could tell they were both still nervous.
“Haha, OK!” she sent back, then went silent again as she began to record, sending through the voice note a couple of minutes later.
“Well…tonight I cooked myself a small piece of chicken. I fried it up on the pan with some oil and like a…like a spicy barbeque type sauce to give it some flavor, and I served it with roasted potatoes, honey glazed carrots and peas.”
She spoke fairly eloquently when she described the meal, with less pauses and um’s and ah’s than before, so he deemed that a good start. Just like before, it was beautiful and amazing to hear her speak, and he found himself smiling throughout.
Now, it was his turn.
He hit record and told her all about his breakfast.
“That sounds really tasty! Mine wasn’t half as interesting. I basically made myself a couple of slices of toast…I fried up some bacon, and an egg, and I put them all together in a sandwich with some ketchup. It was pretty damn nice though.”
***
Sammie loved listening to Frank speak; especially when he said words like “damn”. That just made the whole thing even more hot. She wondered how erotic it would be to hear him actually swear. Did she have a kink for swearing Americans? Oh God.
Her cheeks felt even hotter than before.
Now it was her turn to think of a topic. She felt as if they’d got into the flow of things now. She wasn’t as nervous about speaking in front of him anymore. This was just fun; and her recording her part was just a way of getting him to record his. She wasn’t really thinking or worrying about what she said, or whether she sounded stupid, she was just focusing on him and her excitement over getting to hear him speak.
“Tell me about what you watched on TV recently,” she typed. “A new show you’ve been watching or have got really into, or would recommend to me that I might not have seen.”
“Ooh, okay, that’s a good one!”
And that was how they continued for most of the evening; with the two of them taking turns to come up with topics and then happily passing the voice notes back and forth. Each time they took a turn, they became more confident and animated in their recordings, the notes gradually becoming longer too as they spoke at length on certain topics they were more passionate about.
After a couple of hours, Frank insisted that they stop, so that Sammie could do some of her painting.
She glanced at the time. It was half nine; roughly the time that they’d normally start speaking rather than end it. She was sad to stop, but Frank was very encouraging and told her they could talk again before bed. She agreed to work until 11pm, then they could chat some more.
By the time 11 rolled around, she had got some work done, but was rather distracted by thought of Frank, so was glad of the break and the promise of more conversation. She grabbed herself a beer and got out of her painting overalls, sitting down again on the couch and picking up her phone.
“Hi…” She typed into their Facebook chat.
This time, they didn’t bother with voice notes, just talking to each other for another hour or so before it was Sammie’s bedtime.
He asked her how she’d got on with the painting and she sent her a sneak preview picture of it, much to his amazement and encouragement. It was a good feeling to get praise and feedback from him. Not being in touch with any friends, she’d never actually had someone to send pictures of her work to before, only really her grandmother.
All in all, it had been a really fun evening, and she was already looking forward to doing more of the same the following night, as well as perhaps being able to chat to Frank during her lunchbreak at work if he was actually awake by then. She mentioned it to him as a possibility and he promised he would set his alarm to make sure he was up – it would be good for him to start waking before midday anyway, he said.
***
True to his word, Frank did set his alarm, and it went off at 7am sharp the very next day. It was a stark change to his normal lazy routine, but he told himself it would be worth it so he could speak to Sammie on her lunchbreak, and besides, he could always go back to bed again afterwards.
With bleary, half opened eyes, he reached for the phone off the bed stand, barely able to see as he brought up Messenger and slowly typed into it.
“Morning”
Almost as soon as he sent it, he realized what a stupid message it was; because of course, for her, it wasn’t morning, it was after 1pm.
“Afternoon!” she messaged back.
He smiled and rubbed his eyes. It was far too early to be able to think.
Luckily, she was the one who sent the next message:
“I can’t believe you actually woke up! It must be early there.”
“It is,” he replied. “I think I’m still asleep. Are you on lunch now?”
“Yeah, I’ve got about half an hour.”
“Cool. How was your morning? How did it go?”
“Very well, thanks! Kind of boring actually, not many people, but at least I didn’t have to do very much!”
They chatted like that for the next half an hour or so, pretty much making small talk, although Frank did tell her about a couple of things he’d done the previous evening after Sammie had gone to bed; stuff that he’d watched on TV and a couple of records he’d listened to. That led them to talk about music for a while, before Sammie reluctantly told him that she had to go back to work.
The entire time, Frank had failed to move from his bed and hadn’t even bothered sitting up, although now he realized he needed the bathroom.
He did contemplate getting up and staying up, but once he’d said goodbye to Sammie and subsequently relieved himself, he flopped right back into bed again and fell asleep, not waking up until after midday. So much for making the most of his day!
He yawned and stretched out lazily in bed, once again reaching for his phone, pleased to discover there were a couple of messages off Sammie, telling him that she’d finished work for the day and was on her way home, and another asking if he was still awake and what he was up to.
He smiled and messaged her back: “Sorry, I didn’t see these until now – I fell back asleep!”
“I gathered!”
“I’m hopeless!”
“You are! But still very cute!”
They had been low-key flirting in such a way from the outset, and although they had never spoke about relationships or sex the entire time they’d been speaking, they had still managed to make it clear to one another that there was some mutual physical attraction there, mostly by using innocent words like ‘cute’. The flirting had definitely been there, but it hadn’t been intense or overbearing. Frank liked it that way, and he got the impression Sammie did too. It was nice to be able to just get to know the other person and have fun talking to them before moving on to all that other stuff, although he guessed they would get there eventually.