TIMANTHA:FIVE MINUTES, HOE!
Bossy.
Five minutes later, my phone lights up and there we are—three ashy faces, bedhead and all, on a group call.
“Girl, what in the entire wilderness is going on?!” Timantha yells first.
I snort. “Calm down. I’m fine. Things just got a little…carried away.”
“Carried away?” Eslin deadpans, eyes narrowed. “Sis. You just texted us abouttreesex.”
I groan. Then laugh, tossing my head back. “Look,” I sigh. “It wasn’t planned. And now…we’ve drawn boundaries.”
I give them the short version. How Eli and I are volatile in the most inconvenient ways—either arguing like we’re allergic to peace or tangled up like we forgot what clothes are for. There’s no neutral ground. No casual lane. And every time we swear we’ve found the line, we end up stepping right over it like it was a suggestion instead of a rule.
“So instead of fighting it, we agree to let whatever this is be, for one week,” I add.
Eslin hums, adjusting her bonnet the way she does when she’s about to slide fully into therapist mode, with a side of best-friend shade. “Okay. Then let me say this in plain English. If this is just sex, great. Have fun. Stretch. Hydrate.”
She tilts her head, eyes sharpening. “But if there’s even a hairline crack in that armor, if you feelanythingdeeper, you need to be honest about it. With yourself first. Because if you catch feelings for a man with an expiration date?” She pauses, dead serious now. “I do not have the emotional bandwidth to relive your drunk-text era. I will not be confiscating your phone every night again. We barely survived that.”
She’s joking. Mostly.
And the fact they once had to hide my phone to keep me from drunk-texting my ex unholy, unhinged confessions we willneverdiscuss, tells me exactly how serious she is about the warning.
Eslin knows I’m a closet romantic. She knows when I fall, I don’t stumble, I dive. No parachute. No exit plan.
“I hear you,” I say. “But that’s the thing. Eli isn’t pretending this is forever. He doesn’t promise more than what he can give. He believes in the time he has, not the time he wishes he could keep. He’s fully here, cherishes the moment and then lets it go.”
Timantha pulls the phone away from her face, squinting at the screen. “Um. I’mlookingat these pictures. Max? You are in danger, girl.”
Eslin leans closer next, eyes narrowing as she swipes. “I mean…” She pauses. “A Black lumberjack. Whoknew?”
“IS THAT A PENIS PRINT?” Timantha shrieks.
“Yep,” I say, without a shred of shame. “I plan to donate to an elk wildlife preservation fund on my way out of town as a thank you. That near-death experience with that damn elkchangedme, okay? I’m hydrated. My skin is glowing. And can I just say, I’m sleeping better than I have in years?”
“Yeah, okay,” Timantha cuts in, unimpressed. “The elk might’ve changed you. But looking at the man in these pictures—”
“And the dick print,” Eslin adds helpfully.
“That man is about torearrangeyou,” Timantha finishes.
And we lose all composure. Fully gone. Laughing, hollering and gasping for air.
Whenever I laugh with them, whenever I’m with my friends, this is us. We laugh until our faces ache and our stomachs hurt. And I’m instantly reminded, without question, why these are my people.
But before we move on, I feel it press up against my chest, the need to say it out loud. Maybe for them. Definitely for me.
“But ladies, this only works because it has an ending,” I say. “We both know it.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Timantha hums, still staring at the screen. “All I know is this man isfine. You arenotcoming home. Mark my words. This is how happily-ever-afters in this group begin.”
“Whatever,” I say quickly, waving her off as I shove down the giddy little spark trying to flare in my chest.
Then I change the subject.
“Actually, I have a little project for you, Tim.”
