“Falling for?” Ellery says, her voice cracking.
I go back over what I just said to her. “No. Not falling for. I mean…” I can’t lie to my best friend. Or myself. “Maybe a little. But I’ve never met him in person. There might not be any physical attraction.”
“Oh, there definitely would be.” Ellery’s smile somehow gets stiffer. “He’s a great guy. You should definitely fall for him.”
If that’s the case, why does she look so sad? “Wait. Is this a guy you’re interested in? Just say the word, Ell, and I’ll—”
Her laugh sounds a teensy bit maniacal. “No. I’m not saying the word. He’s all yours. You know I don’t do relationships, Melly. He’s just really hot, and I was considering making a move, but that’s all it would have been. I was only interested in his body. But I’m no longer interested in him. Not at all.”
If it were anyone else, I would question them harder. But Ellery has been even more relationship-averse than me. She’s the queen of hot and heavy flings. “Are you sure? Because if you’re actually interested in something more with someone, I’m not going to stand in your way.”
She smiles, and it finally looks real. “I know you wouldn’t. I’ve had my moment to mourn never getting that man in bed, but I’m over it now. Tell me more. Do you want to call things off with Deacon and go for HandsyGuy?”
I slap my hands over my face. “I want them both,” I say.
Ellery pulls my hands from my face. “So have them both.”
“But that’s so horrible and selfish and just… horrible.”
“Not if you’re honest with them. Handsyguy is what you need right now for the flirting and the conversation, and Deacon is who you want for the physical stuff. As long as you don’t promise them anything you aren’t planning to follow through on, you’re in the clear.”
“Are you sure?” I ask. “I’m feeling like I at least need to tell Handsyguy I’m dating someone.”
“You can if you want,” Ellery says. “But you’ve already told him you don’t want to meet him. He has to know he’s basically nothing more than your pen pal at this point. You’re not leading him on.”
“But—”
“I think you’re scared about how much you feel for Handsyguy and you’re trying to shut things down before you truly have a chance to see where they go.”
“They aren’t going anywhere.”
“Maybe not,” she says. “If that’s true, send a message to Handsyguy right now and end things.”
I open the messages app and see what Handsyguy wrote back to me.
Handsyguy37:Honestly? Probably. I had a job once where I worked for twenty-four hours straight without talking to anyone or seeing another human and the first thing I said to my brother when I saw him was, “Tired. I sleep.” But I slept for twelve hours and went out to a club and I remembered how to talk to people pretty quick.
He had to at least suspect from what I wrote that I was going on a date, but he didn’t ask. He just let me know I’m not alone and encouraged me to get out there.
Even if it never occurred to him that my social event might be a date, he made his response all about me. My eyes burn as I stare at the message.
I can’t remember the last time someone who wasn’t Ellery was so generous with their support.
I slide the app closed and meet my friend’s sympathetic gaze. “I can’t do it.”
She nods, unsurprised. “Right now, this is what you need. It’s okay to take what you need, as long as you’re honest about it with the other people involved. You’ve told Handsyguy you don’t want to meet, and you’ve told Deacon you don’t want a relationship. You don’t owe either of them more than that.”
“Why does doing things for myself feel so wrong?” I ask.
She pulls me into a hug. “Because you’ve been giving everything you have to the people, you love for so long that you’ve forgotten how to do anything for yourself.”
“You’re a good friend. I should go out with you tomorrow night and help you find a man.”
She snorts. “I don’t need any help in that department. And you should enjoy Deacon for the approximately forty-eight hours you’re going to get with him before he finds out you have a kid.”
“He’s going to run, isn’t he?” I feel unusually weepy.
Ellery pushes me away and gets up to stand. “You want him to run away, right? The alternative is he decides you need a husband, and he’s the man for the job.”
