“So un-bail.”
I say nothing.
“You tanked something that mattered,” he says finally. “But you’re not dead yet.”
I smirk faintly. “Just haunted.”
“You get poetic when you’re crumbling. So what now? Gonna write her a sonnet or some shit?”
“Not unless it includes the line ‘I’m an heart cautious idiot with access to a company credit card.’”
“Better than flowers.”
I shake my head, but there’s a twitch of a smile at the edge of my mouth.
Rishi asks, “So that’s it? End of the road?”
I hesitate. “…Maybe not.”
He raises an eyebrow. “And that’s because…?”
“There’s someone else,” I say, almost to myself. “Sort of.”
Rishi blinks. "Wait, what?"
I nod slowly. “Anonymous. Through text. It’s… been a thing.”
“Like a sexting thing?”
“Not gonna lie, sometimes I wish it was. But no. We’ve been talking for weeks. No names, no faces. Just thoughts. Observations. Fries.”
“Fries?”
“Don’t ask.” I line my stick up. Crack. Miss. “It’s... different. We’re friends. She’s cool.”
He watches me. “You caught feelings.”
“Not really. I don’t know. We connect. She’s this closed-door kind of woman—never gives too much away—but I trust her. More than I probably should.”
“How did this even start?”
“I deleted Chloe’s number after I caught her, then tried sending her an angry drunk text, messed up the last number, and fired off a message to the wrong person.”
He squints. “You have a secret pen palanda fractured love story? Dude, this is some best-seller list shit.”
I sigh. “Yeah. And somehow, I’m the villain.”
“Self-awareness is step one.” Rishi lifts his glass. “You realize that’s a whole therapy session waiting to happen.”
“Trust me, I know.”
“You need to meet her. In person. Stop hiding behind the glow of your phone.”
“I don’t want to scare her off,” I mutter. “She gets cagey anytime we flirt too close. And right now, with the Cross event coming up? I don’t have the bandwidth to tank another connection. Not when I’m already spread thin. Plus…she’s not Rorie.”
Rishi lets out a low laugh. “So you’re emotionally in love with one woman and physically obsessed with another.”
“I’m not in love with her,” I sigh. “I just really like talking to her. I don’t want to ruin what we have, which is actual friendship. But Rorie…fuck, I should’ve never pulled back.”
