This—this right here—is why the system exists.
Because this is what happens when you’re single in your early thirties. You go on dates not because you’re desperately searching for a husband, but because it might be nice. Nice to get dressed up. Nice to feel a little feminine. Nice to have someone else take the lead for once.
Nice to not be the CEO of your love life on top of running an actual business.
But no. Instead, I’m speed-walking down a quiet street on my one sacred day off, being followed by a man who has already shared more with me about his body than I have ever shared with my doctor in my life.
I can hear my grandmother now: “Vivian, sweetheart, you just need to let your walls down. Relax. Let someone in.”
Right. Because letting your walls down these days apparently comes with a detailed discussion of?—
“So the discoloration started spreading,” he says beside me, completely oblivious, completely unstoppable. “And at first I thought it was just, like, a surface thing, but then?—”
And this. This is what happens.
I close my eyes briefly as I walk, just for a second, summoning every ounce of patience I have left.
Which, at this point, is hanging on by a thread.
My hand slips into my bag, fingers curling around my phone like it’s a lifeline.
This is it. Big guns. If the system can’t come to me, I will become the system. Fake call. Urgent tone. Immediate exit.
Beside me, he’s still talking. “…and honestly, I think the biggest issue was that I didn’t catch it early enough…”
I start pulling my phone out, already preparing my voice. Slight panic. Controlled urgency. Believable but not dramatic enough to invite follow-up questions.
Then—laughter. Big. Easy. Unbothered laughter. The kind that cuts straight through everything else.
I look up to find two guys standing outside a building halfway down the block. One of them is doubled slightly at the waist, shaking his head like whatever was just said was the funniest thing he’s heard all day. The other claps him on the shoulder before pushing open the door and heading inside.
The one who stays behind pulls out his phone, still smiling to himself.
I slow. Wait. I know him.
My heart leaps through my chest. I know he’s a hockey player for The Dominion, but I don’t know him well. Not in a “we’ve shared secrets” kind of way. More like…orbiting. Familiar. Same circles adjacent enough that if I waved, it wouldn’t be weird.
Right now? That is more than enough.
“So where do you have to go exactly?” the man beside me asks, suddenly curious, suddenly paying attention to something that is not his own foot.
I glance at him. Then back at the man outside the building. Then back again.
Decision made.
“Oh—right here,” I say, already angling away. I move fast enough that I know I am now committed. Yet, also not fast enough to look like I’m fleeing. It’s a delicate balance.
“Hey—” he starts.
Too late.
“Hey, sweetie,” I call out, my voice lifting into something bright and familiar as I close the distance. “Sorry you had to wait for me outside.”
The man looks up from his phone. For a moment, I hesitate, but I’m in need. I mean, at times like this, any port in a storm, right? I have exactly two seconds to size him up before I launch myself toward him, which bonus: he is delicious.
I watch as his hazel eyes go wide, sunlight catching the green and gold in them like they can’t decide what color they want to be.
“What—?”
