"Well, hi there," Annie said, picking up on, like, the end of the first ring since she was literally looking at her phone when it started ringing. She sounded a little shy but also maybe a touch amused, since she had maybe sent that last text as a deliberate means of trying to make herself a little more obvious.

It had been a little optimistic to think that he might remember a months-old conversation about what middle-of-the-night questions about whether one was awake might mean, but hopefully that had cleared things up a bit.