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Chapter 3
Each time that a new chapter was posted, I recorded it and sent it to my online friend. I still refused to tell him where they were coming from, but that I hinted that he might be able to find out. I noticed that his female character had changed herself slightly to be more like my character. And as a consequence, more like me. Some of the situations that they were in began to sound familiar.
As my hair grew longer, I did more with it, sometimes adding curls, other times a ponytail or braids. Then I began to copy what she did with her hair. If a chapter had her with pigtails, so did I. Some of the other people at work commented on my hair and I liked their comments, but really enjoyed it when my co-worker said something about my appearance. Our coffee-dates became more frequent, and each time I sent my online friend a new recording, I got a copy from the guy at work. Some of the other people in the chatroom obtained copies as well, so I couldn’t be sure where my co-worker was getting them.
I decided that it was time to take a risk. The next time that a chapter was posted, I recorded it and kept it until our next coffee-date. At the last minute, I chickened out and sent it to my online friend just before the end of our shift. My co-worker stopped on the way out and said he was going to be a few minutes late and to get us our usual table if I could. He also said that he would pick up our coffees when he arrived.
After he had given me the first chapter of the audiobook, I had told him that I found it interesting and we had discussed some of the new chapters after I had a chance to listen to them. I hadn’t told him that I was changing my hairstyle to match the character in the story and he hadn’t mentioned it either, but I knew he had noticed it.
Each chapter was fairly short and didn’t take very long to listen to. When he arrived at our table, he was smiling a little and had more than just our coffee on the tray. In the latest chapter of the story, the female character had her hair braided with a red ribbon running through it and I had copied that before going to work. As he sat down, he said that he had received a copy of the latest chapter of the audiobook.
There was no way that he could have gotten that unless he received it from my online friend or was that friend. There was no way that I could have known to braid my hair with the red ribbon unless I had read the story or heard the audiobook. Since he was the one that always gave me the audiobook, I couldn’t have listened to it yet. I knew it was a risk to braid the ribbon into my hair, but I figured it was worth it. As we started to talk, I said, “I have to confess something to you. I have been reading the stories for a while already. I peeked at your tablet a long time ago and copied the website that you were on. You aren’t mad at me are you?”
I waited for him to process the information I had just dropped on him, not quite sure what was going to happen. He sipped at his coffee, his expression changing several times. Finally he smiled at me and said, “That explains how you knew to braid a ribbon into your hair. It’s very nice, by the way.” I was so relieved that I had gotten away with the ribbon, and that he wasn’t mad at me for invading his privacy the way that I had. He still transferred the audiobook to my phone as we were talking.
From time to time, he seemed to get distracted by his thoughts. Finally, he pushed the muffin in my direction and asked me, “Can I ask you something personal?” When I nod, he continues, “Do you think it would be okay if I asked you on a real date? I know that we have been having coffee together for quite a long time, but this isn’t really a date, is it?”
I did something that I had wanted to do for a long time but had hesitated to do. I placed my hand on top of his and wrapped my fingers around it. “‘Yes’ to your first question. You can ask me a personal question whenever you want to, but I might not answer it. ‘Yes’ to your second question. You can ask me out on a date anytime you want to. And as for your last almost question. I don’t know how to answer that. If two people go out for coffee and one pays for everything, wouldn’t that be a date?”
He nibbled on his muffin, then sipped at his coffee, thinking about what I had just said. “If you look at it that way, I guess it would be a date.” A big smile appeared on his face. “Wow, I’ve been dating a hot girl for quite a while. Wow.”
We sat there for a while, nibbling on the muffins and sipping our coffee. I wasn’t sure what to say. He called me hot, something that I was not prepared for. “How about I take you out for supper at a restaurant. Nothing expense, maybe pizza?” He waited for me to answer.
I smiled at him. “Sure, but can we wait a couple of days? I’m not quite ready for our relationship to change yet.” I noticed his eyes had shifted to my mouth. I was used to people’s eyes dropping to my chest, but not my mouth, especially when I have a couple of buttons undone. After a little more discussion, we agreed to wait a week before talking about our pizza-date.
By the time that I drove home and logged onto the chatroom, the latest audio version of the story was spreading through the group, thanks to one of the tech guys setting up a cloud-share account. One of the big topics of discussion was where the audio versions were coming from. Everyone knew who was writing the story and that the author was also one of the first to receive the audio copy, but he wasn’t telling, or didn’t know, who was making them. Just for the fun of it, I suggested that it was some old guy living in a basement somewhere, changing his voice to make it sound different. After I hit enter, I realized that much of it was actually not that far off from the truth. I wasn’t old and I didn’t live in a basement, but I was changing my voice to make it sound different.
One popular idea was that it was a couple who were making the audio copies. There were two voices and they were always the same two, so it made sense. There were other theories, some pretty wild. Just about everyone agreed that it was a human doing the recording, there was just too much emotion in it to be computer-generated.
I was too tired to stay awake, so I went to bed.
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