“Stevenson is a very big company with deep pockets. You could be one of those video AI people. I don’t know!” A product of generative AI having pulled every single handsome man in the world and made this one, specific, perfect specimen just for me.
He’s quiet for a moment, processing. Maybe the chip where his mainframe is located is shorting because someone’s finally found him out. Or maybe he doesn’t even know he’s an AI bot. Maybe we’re in the middle of a Cylon type of situation. He can’t be real.
“Bridge.” His voice is soft, imploring. “Look at me, please.”
It takes me a couple of seconds, but I manage to turn my face back to the screen, tears stinging behind my eyes.
“What part of this doesn’t feel real?” he asks. Sad, wary eyes stare back, and it kills me.
The simple fact that, so far, this relationship has been a texting one, for one.
“Last night could’ve ruined everything,” I whisper. One of us had to bring it up, rip off the Band-Aid. “What we did…” I shake my head. “It’s dumb, but since meeting you I’ve realized that the people in my life I thought were my ride or dies… aren’t. My life has never been without drama, and though they understand it’s never been as a consequence of my own actions, I can see the way people pull away, not wanting to be dragged into my problems. And I guess it’s my fault for picking the wrong type of people as friends—I see that now—but somehow the universe led me to you and… You have made me feel so safe, so heard and seen even when we didn’t even know what we looked or sounded like… And just…” A tear runs down my cheek, making me hate myself a little. “I don’t want to lose whatever weird thing this is.” I finish my rant with a sniff and another damn tear, waiting anxiously for his response.
It doesn’t come for a few minutes. In fact, I wait so long I begin to wonder whether he is an AI bot after all and he’s having connectivity issues—or maybe his creators never thought to program him to deal with a psychotic woman like myself. Until…
“It’s definitely unconventional, this thing we have. We’ve talked about it at length. And last night…” He blows out a breath. “I’m not gonna deny I didn’t enjoy it, Bridge. Because I fucking did. I don’t want to make you feel more uncomfortable than you already do, but in the spirit of honesty, I got off to the memory of it this morning, too. It washot.”
Not as hot as my cheeks are now, I think.
“But I’m not gonna lie, the longer you went without texting back, the more and more I thought about how what we did might’ve made you run away from me, the less I thought it was worth it. This might sound super fucking weird—believe me, I know—but I… care about you. And like you said, we’re friends.Humanfriends, by the way—I’m definitely not an AI robot. So how about we agree to never do what we did again? And just… continue to be there for each other? Because, Bridge, having you pop in my life the way you did… It’s what I needed. You’re who I needed. I was… not well. And now I am. Because of you.”
I nod, sniffling. If I’m honest, I’m a little upset he didn’t fight me on it a bit more. Clearly, he isn’t as into me romantically as I am him. Getting off to the memory of sexting someone is not the same. From what I gather, he probably did share my crush, but one look at me was enough to kick him of the habit.
“I needed you, too, Will. More than you know.”
WILL
At least he knows what she looks like now.
Unfortunately, it also means he knows what she looks like.
9
LEARNING HOW TO #GIRLBOSS IS HARD
“This proposal looks really good,” Lena says, a small smile on her lips as she reviews the contents of the folder (manilla) in her hands. “Not sure how you did this research, but if all the facts are right, it could save us a lot of money. I wonder why the factories hadn’t considered this yet?” she muses.
“My guess is that they’re not getting paid to do that small extra leg work, so they wouldn’t, even though they were my first source when doing this research. Also, they don’t really care about increasing the efficiency of an arguably already efficient process just so we can sell back usable scraps of material to other companies.”
She looks up suddenly, a frown on her face. “You emailed the factory reps?”
My stomach drops. “Was I not allowed to? I’m so sorry—” I rush to apologize. “I just didn’t want to waste your time by going to you first in order to get an intro if this wasn’t a doable thing and?—”
Lena waves a hand in the air, dismissing my concerns. “Stop, it’s fine. I told you I was giving you more freedom and you’ve clearly used it well, taking some serious initiative.” She looks back down at the folder and nods once. “I’m going to double-check these numbers and then hand it over to Jenna if they’re good. Next week is our in-person follow up meeting with Stevenson—they’re coming in to discuss business and look at the updated Fall line. Jenna and Sascha, our CEO, will also be in attendance. I want you to present this to them before the meeting.”
I inhale sharply, eyes wide. Jenna is the VP everyone is terrified of, the one who seems to float around the office, dressed exclusively in black, like a sort of grim reaper looking for her next victim. Scary Lena is a bunny rabbit next to Jenna. Thankfully, she works on a different floor.
Reading my expression, Lena smiles and cuts through my doom spiral. “Relax. I’ll be there with you and you’ll do great.”
But when a week goes by, and I never get called into anyone’s office, I begin to worry maybe my research didn’t make the cut. A crisis comes up for another client, so I’m left wondering whether Lena’s even had the time to double-check my work before the meeting, leaving me tied up in knots.
Please don’t let this opportunity slip through my fingers.
* * *
“I’m telling you,she’s not going to cave on that pricing. Lena is ruthless—she’s not even going to take it to upper management for consideration,” I tell Will over FaceTime as I get ready for work.
“It doesn’t make any sense, though. Our team is increasing the order by 10%. That’s enough to amortize the cost—or it should be. And that’s on top of the original increase of SKUs. You guysshouldbe able to give us a bit of a deeper discount,” he argues.
