“Why are you thinking about him?”
Maybe I just need… people. Not a date, not anything serious. Just connection. I grab my phone and open that app Maddie made me download, the one for finding friends. Within seconds, smiling strangers fill my screen. “Looking for a hiking buddy.” “Need a brunch crew.” “Dog mom, wine enthusiast, true-crime lover.”
My stomach knots. I could swipe right, go for coffee, pretend I’m excited about the opportunity to meet new people. But every profile just feels exhausting. And every time I think about meeting someone new, all I can picture is sitting across from some stranger while my brain wanders straight to him.
I want… comfortable. I want the way his presence settled the entire room like gravity. I want that excited,butterflies in my bellyanticipation while I wait for him to come over. I keep picturinghimin all of these scenarios. I want the wrong thing. Obviously.
I finish my wine and cue up a Christmas movie for background noise. My phone sits face down on the coffee table. I stare at it, my foot bouncing nervously as I chew the edge of my thumb nervously. I cave and reach for it, flipping it over.
Be brave, I tell myself, pulse thudding as I pull up the text thread between Cole and me from earlier this week. My thumbs hover. Then move… and that’s when I type the message that detonates my quiet night.
If you ever want to grab a drink, I owe you one for saving my life from the failed furniture assembly asylum.
The words sit there unsent while my pulse jackhammers in my throat. It’s friendly. Totally normal. Perfectly reasonable. Until I hit send.
“Shit.”
I drop the phone like it burned me, face-plant into the couch pillow, and let out the kind of strangled groan usually reserved for horror movies. There’s nothing I can do about it now. I don’t even have any friends here yet that I could “pretend” I was texting and tell him it was sent by mistake.
Why would I text that? I should have stopped after the drink line!
The silence of my apartment feels louder after that little whoosh sound. Even the characters in the Christmas movie on my TV feel like they’re judging me.
I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling. “You are a confident, independent adult, Hailey Simpson. You can manage a friendly drink with your best friend’s brother… who also happens to be my exact type all of a sudden.”
A confident, independent adult who just booty-texted her best friend’s brother.
I sit up, grab my wineglass, and gulp half of it in one swallow, my foot still tapping nervously like I’m practicing a tap dance routine.Another gulp can’t hurt.
The phone stays dark. Still no response. Of course it does. He’s not sitting around waiting for my random, awkward invitation. He’s probably doing something rugged and adult—building a cabin, chopping wood, brooding in some corner with a woman who would know exactly how to handle a man like him.
I try to scroll through Instagram to distract myself but all I see are cozy couples under twinkle lights. Engagement rings. Matching pajamas. My chest tightens.
“Ugh, gimme a break.”
I thought I was doing okay with being alone. But the silence here is way more deafening than I anticipated, and the loneliness is starting to feel like a heavy cloud that’s settling over me quickly.
Maybe he’s asleep. Maybe he saw it and is ignoring me. Maybe he’s seeing someone and now I’m that girl.
“Okay.” I close the app and toss my phone down before I spiral further. “This is getting pathetic.”
I walk to the kitchen and pour the rest of the bottle into my glass. It’s not just the familiarity of home that I miss; it’s also the feeling of community that I no longer have here.
“Whatever,” I lie out loud, pacing the tiny living room. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Totally fine.”
Ten minutes pass and I’m halfway through overanalyzing the way I arranged my Christmas candle collection when my phone pings. I pause, my wineglass halfway to my lips. I’m staring at my phone that’s lying on my coffee table with Cole’s name on it.
Cole:Where am I meeting you?
My heart stops. I blink once. Twice.
“WHAT?” My voice ricochets off the bare walls. I reread the message three times just to confirm I didn’t hallucinate it. I meant sometime in the future. I didn’t expect him to agree to tonight.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” I set the glass down so hard wine sloshes onto the rug. “This is not happening.”
I stare at the message like it might self-destruct. My fingers hover over the keyboard, trying to decide if I tell him I’m already way too deep into a bottle of wine and I meant another night, but then I run the risk of him never agreeing again.
Another buzz.
