Heart of Stone

Chapter Five: Sliding into the DMs

When I arrived home later that afternoon, Becca and Gabby suggested a debrief over pizza. If there was one food I craved more often than anything else, it was pizza. Considering my two flatmates didn't share my intense love for Domino's, I wondered if they'd chosen it deliberately as a thank you for going through with the plan.

The combination of fresh air, exercise, and concentration on not fucking this up had exhausted me, though, so the prospect of reliving it all under the girls' scrutiny filled me with dread, despite the food on offer.

It wasn't that I wanted to hide anything from them—I was doing this under their encouragement after all. But there lay the problem. Playing two sides was hard enough without the added pressure of feedback.

I tried to keep things vague to start, but that only led to more questions as they both strived to fill in the gaps.

"I'm just knackered, guys," I said when they asked if I was holding back. "There really isn't anything that interesting to report."

"You spent three hours with Teddy Stone and nothing juicy happened?" Becca raised an eyebrow, as if to suggest I was lying.

"I hardly know the guy," I said, tossing my hands in the air. "It'll take time and I'm not prepared to throw myself at him because that'll only look dodgy. What kind of girl hits on the man her friend's obsessed with?"

As soon as the words left me, I wanted to take them back. Too late. Exhaustion had clouded my judgement, and tension crackled in the air between us.

My mouth dried up, my stomach squirming as I scrambled for something to say that would diffuse the awkward atmosphere. No matter how many times I'd apologised for the compromising situation I'd found myself in a few years ago, it continued to haunt me. And for however badly it haunted me, it must have haunted Becca twice as much.

"Sorry," I said, before running my tongue over my lips to dampen them.

"Forget it," Becca said, her voice no louder than a murmur as she picked a mushroom off her pizza. "Let's focus on the current topic."

I cleared my throat. "We did actually talk about the future. I made it clear we should go slow. Friends first. Out of respect for Becca."

"You just need to be careful you're not completely friend-zoning him," Gabby said, nervous eyes darting towards Becca. "He needs to think he still stands a chance, or he might lose interest in you."

Another one of Gabby's classic feel-good offerings. I let it slide, understanding her point.

"He appreciated where I was coming from," I said. "Seemed cool with it."

Not saying anything, Becca reached for another slice of pizza. I'd reopened old wounds, and she was being a good friend by not demanding I help heal them. Ironically, one of the reasons I'd agreed to do this Teddy charade was to compensate for bad decisions I'd made in the past, but reminding Becca of those decisions risked making the process even more painful.