Dear Friend,

chapter 6

Lennox Monroe

I woke up to the sunlight blinding me from the large windows wrapped in a striped blue comforter and wearing an oversized t-shirt that didn't belong to me.

I looked over to my side to see Mason with his head turned the other way. He was lying still, and I was hoping he was still asleep.

I sat up and leaned over to see his eyes closed as I started to roll out of his bed picking up my clothes that had been thrown onto the floor of his bedroom.

I looked over to the large mirror resting against the wall to see my hair a mess and my curls pushed all over the place. Yikes, Lenn, this is not a great look.

I swiped the velvet pants off the ground and shimmied my hips to pull them up. I tried tucking the t-shirt into the waistband to make myself look a little more presentable.

I went out to the kitchen to try and find where I had taken my shoes off and I saw a notepad hung on his fridge and left a little note so he wouldn't think I was just skipping out on him.

I signed the bottom with my name and a smiley face next to it. I debated on leaving a heart instead, but that felt too personal.

I don't know why I was overthinking how personal a little note left on the nightstand was considering we slept together, but a love note feels like a different connection that we don't have yet.

I knew taking an Uber would be super expensive on a busy Saturday morning but I didn't really have another choice considering Mason picked me up last night and I didn't want to wake him up to drive me home.

I opened the Uber app and stood outside the building, waiting for a red Toyota Camry with 'Bill' to come and pick me up.

The car pulled up next to the sidewalk and I climbed into the backseat. The driver started navigating through the traffic trying to make small talk with me but I was focused on my phone.

I got a text from Evie saying that she and Nate would be coming home tonight and that she wanted to grab brunch tomorrow morning with all of us, Harry included, if I felt comfortable.

I didn't want to tell her not to invite him just for my own sake so I told her that we could make it work and I would meet her at our favorite place in the morning.

I realized if I was going to be seeing Harry in 24 hours I probably owe him at least some response. I clicked the blue notification bubble in the top left-hand corner of my phone screen that featured a pretty large collection of unread messages.

I scrolled through the conversations in my messages app clicking on the one with Harry and seeing the stack of messages that he had been sending me.

I started typing out my response back trying to figure out what I should even say. I had a full paragraph written out before I was rethinking it and immediately holding down the button to delete the message.

I typed out a simple 'hey' debating on sending the three-letter word and having the conversation advance from there. My finger hovered over the arrow to push send but I stopped myself realizing how stupid that was considering the number of messages he sent me, I already knew 'what's up' with him and that would most likely be my next question if he responds.

I continued to overthink the message before I crafted my final message.

'Sorry, I'm just getting to these. Evie mentioned brunch tomorrow, see you there?'

Short and sweet. I gave him a response, and it was enough of a warning for both of us to prepare for seeing each other in the morning.

Almost instantly I felt my phone buzz shocked at how quickly he responded, but instead, a message from Mason lit up my screen instead.