I rest the phone against my other pillow and curl up against my own.
“Because this is a conversation we should be having over wine, but it’s too early for that. When did this all start?”
“A few weeks after everything went down with Eric.”
Claire shakes her head. She knows exactly when this was. “Eric dumps you and you decide to get back out there on a dating app and then you discover that Eric has been stealing from you for years. I mean, why wouldn’t you want to tell me you found someone new?”
“It’s why I didn’t tell anyone,” I confess. “It’s not like Jasper has access to my bank accounts, but I was still nervous.”
“And? How is he?”
“How is he what?”
“In bed!” Claire shrieks again. “If you’re calling me this early, I hope it’s with details.”
“The only details are I figured out who he was and I didn’t tell him who I was. And we just so happened to bump into each other again last night at the Knights gala.”
“Does he know who you are now?”
I wince again. “He does now.”
“Why does that look like a bad thing based off your face?” She rests her phone against the wall and starts making coffee.
“Because he thought I was lying to him by not telling him I already knew who he was. He was mad, Claire. I couldn’t even get a chance to apologize.”
“Shit.” She drops a pod in her machine and rests on her elbows to look down at me. If only she were here and could make me a cup. I don’t even have the energy to call for delivery.
“Yeah. We’ve been talking for months and he kept wanting to meet, but I was worried.”
“Worried he wouldn’t believe it was you?”
“Yeah. It’s not like I was lying to catfish him or something.”
“But it was still a lie of omission,” she says.
“Ugh. How am I going to make it up to him?”
“Is he worth it?” Claire asks.
I blink at the camera. Blink again. “Would I be calling your ass this early in the morning if he wasn’t?”
“Okay. Fine. Just wanted to make sure.”
“We’ve been talking for months. I know things about him he’s probably never told anyone else.”
“Like?” she fishes.
“Nope, not telling you.” I shake my head.
“Well, maybe one of those things is going to be how you get back into his good graces. Send him an apology. If he won’t talk to you, that might get his attention.”
“But how would I get it to him when I don’t know when he’ll be there?”
She rolls her eyes, harder than usual…like to get me to see it on the tiny square camera. “Good thing you know where he works.”
I smack myself on the forehead. “Of course. Now I just need to think of something good enough.”
Something that shows Jasper I really know him. That I’m sorry and I wasn’t leading him on.
