“Phone?” He scowled. “What is a . . . phone?”

I opened my mouth then shut it. “Shit. Um . . . a modern invention that allows people to communicate with other people who are not near them. So, like if you were in Paris and I was in Greece, I would use my phone to talk to you.”

His eyes widened. “That is . . . wow. Do . . . do I have one of these in the future?”

“Come here, let me show you something.” It was probably not allowed, but I couldn’t help myself. I pulled up my text thread with him, the one with his name written at the top. “This is how you and I have communicated in the past. See your name?”

His eyes went even wider and got a little glassy. “Those are . . . those my words to you? My communications?”

“It’s like a . . . uh . . . like a fire message?” I started to scroll up to show him. “This device holds all the words.”

He nodded then grabbed my hand and lifted the phone higher to his face. His nostrils flared. “What is this attire called?”

“Attire?” I frowned then it hit me. I’d sent him a selfie of me in that sexy lavender dress for the spring ball. My face flushed. “Um . . . that’s a dress.”

“Society allows women to dress so . . . bare?”

My face was on fire now. “Um, yes. Even more bare than that⁠—”

His gaze swung to me then slid up and down my body. “I am not sure how I feel about seeing you in this dress in public.”

That made me snort-laugh. “Yeah. That’s basically the reaction I got out of you when I wore it, too. In fact, you’ll see your message here informs me that that is not a dress.”

He nodded. “Good.”

“You hate it?”

“I do not.” He grinned and handed my phone back to me. “I do not think I should be seeing things from the future⁠—”

“That’s my bad. I just wanted to take a picture of these.” I held my phone up and snapped pictures of the paintings. Then I spun slowly, taking a video of our room until I landed on him. The confused expression on his face was one I had never seen on him before. He looked genuinely alarmed. I giggled. “Do not be afraid of this. You have many centuries before photography is invented. I just want to make sure I have our home on video just in case it no longer looks like this when I get here again.”

He scratched the back of his head. “I admit, I have not felt this level of confusion in quite some time.”

“I’m sorry—wait a second. Did you say clean clothes?” I scowled down at myself. Sure, my white peasant dress was splattered in blood and charred in places, but it wasn’t that bad. “Am I that dirty?”