Naomi glances down at her chipped nail polish like it’ssuddenly the most fascinating thing in the world. “It’s nothing,” she mutters.
Mila waits.
Naomi sighs, dragging a hand through her hair, which immediately rebels. “Fine,” she grits out. “It’s—ugh. It’s Tall.”
Mila straightens in her chair, eyes glinting with delight.
“Are you finally going to tell me what happened,” she says, “or should I keep relying on the visual evidence of your post-coat-closet dishevelment?”
Naomi groans, slouching deeper in the chair. “Nothing happened.”
Mila lifts a brow, skeptical.
“Okay, something happened,” Naomi admits, voice muffled as she tips her head back. “And I messed it up.”
“You hooked up with him?”
“Kind of.”
“That’s not a thing you cankind ofdo, Nomes.”
Naomi winces. “Okay. Yes. We…coat closet-ed. And it was—” She waves a hand vaguely. “Very coat closet-y.”
Mila’s grin is instant. “Oh my god.”
“And then I said something stupid, and now I think he hates me.”
“What did you say?”
Naomi scrunches her face. “That we weren’t catching feelings. Like, plural. We. As if I was speaking for both of us.”
“Oof.”
“Yeah. Big oof.” Naomi’s voice drops. “He looked so…hurt. For, like, half a second. And then he did that goalie thing, where he just shuts the door emotionally like a puck’s coming at his face. Slam. Then nothing.”
She swallows hard, guilt pooling low in her gut.
“I went to talk to him after,” she says quietly. “But he didn’t want to hear it. He wouldn’t even look at me.”
Mila's smile fades, her features gentling with unspoken empathy. “Okay. But do you want to catch feelings?”
Naomi picks at her cuticles, unable to meet her friend’s eyes. “I don’t know.”
“Do you think about him?”
“I try not to,” she says miserably. “It doesn’t work. He’s just…there. In my head. Like a pop-up ad I can’t dismiss. With stupid nice abs and an even stupider face that won’t leave me alone.”
Mila’s lips twitch. She’s fully in big-sister mode now. “You know what I’m going to say.”
“Nope.”
“Text him.”
Naomi makes a strangled sound. “That’s so lame. He probably forgot I exist. Or worse—he’s mocking me in the locker room with the guys right now.”
Mila gives her the most unimpressed look she’s ever seen, and Naomi once saw her verbally disembowel someone for suggesting Hollis run a “female-targeted pinkwash campaign.”
“Naomi, you’re a grown woman. A terrifyingly competent one. Are you really going to ghost someone because you’re afraid of being vulnerable?”
