4. Ophie
Ophie
I give up trying to shower quietly when I drop my shampoo bottle for the third time in a row. If the clatter didn’t wake Philip up the first or second time, then either he can sleep through the noise or he’s awake anyway.
My four a.m. alarm felt obnoxiously loud when it woke me up this morning, and I’d turned it off in a hurry, unlike my usual three-snooze-button routine. Of course, this means that I’m twenty-four minutes ahead of schedule, leaving me time for a proper hair wash before heading to my opening shift at the coffee shop.
God, I can’t wait to find a real job. I never want to start work at five in the morning again.
Yawning, I finish showering, letting the hot water wash away the remnants of my tossing and turning. I don’t know why I was so jumpy all night—I should have slept like the dead after yesterday’s drama.
Maybe it was because I fell asleep on the couch while we were watching a movie last night. Yes. That had to have been the problem. It’s definitely not because having Philip here feels weird. Or that when the movie finished, I woke up with my back pressed against his chest, his arms wrapped around me, and his soft breath tickling my ear. Philip’s always been physically affectionate with me, kissing my head all the time, but we’ve never cuddled like that before. It was dangerously comfortable.
I haven’t exactly avoided him since we came back from Vegas, but I haven’t gone out of my way to hang out with him, either—both of us being overwhelmed by the end of grad school made it easy to keep some distance. Ever since the Elvis impersonator officiating our Vegas nuptials told him to give me some sugar, and Philip gave me a quick, sweet peck on the lips, there’s been an unsatisfied feeling in the pit of my stomach. A feeling that roared to life last night when he nuzzled his face into the crook of my neck, making the most adorable sleepy noises.
He’s spent the night on my couch or in Maggie’s room dozens of times before. There’s no reason it should have felt different last night.
Except it did.
My hair can’t decide if it’s straight or wavy, but the one thing it is for sure is thick—drying it is a commitment. A commitment I can’t deal with today, so I push all the weirdness from my mind as I braid back my hair for work. Right now, I can’t be thinking about the man who’s asleep in my spare room.
Towel wrapped around my torso, I open the bathroom door and run straight into a wall of man chest. Echoes of my vows to love him tender and love him sweet sing at the back of my mind while I stare at the muscled pecs in front of my face.
“Good morning to you too.” Philip grips my arms, holding me steady as I gape up at him. When I don’t move, he slides his hands to cup my elbows, picking me up and moving me to the side. “Gotta use the loo.” He drops a kiss on the side of my head and then closes the door in my face.
Stunned, I stand there staring at it for a moment. I’m naked. He was shirtless. Does he really not feel like everything is different now? Also, why am I still thinking about it? He’s being perfectly normal. I’m the one being weird.
I hurry to my room and force myself to focus on getting dressed and ready for work. By the time I emerge, the bathroom door is wide open, and his is shut. Pausing outside the closed door, I listen but don’t hear anything. He must have gone back to bed. Which makes sense since the sun’s not even up yet.
It’s so overcast that the sky barely changes as I drive to work, adding to my internal grumbling. The end of spring in Portland is either gorgeous or miserable, and there is no in-between. Growing up in Seattle was the same, so you’d think I would be used to it, but every spring, as the gray skies drag into June, I get antsy and irritable about it. I’ve been dreaming of the sunny skies in Las Vegas and the memory of baking by the poolside to get through these last few weeks of gloom.
My shift is the usual Sunday morning parade—the regular before-church rush, then the more leisurely crowd, with some of my regulars sprinkled in between.
“That guy is hot,” one of my coworkers whispers in my ear as I pass her behind the bar.
“Which guy?” I’d been taking out the trash, and there definitely hadn’t been anyone I’d describe as “hot” when I’d left the front of the coffee shop.
Sarah tips her chin toward a scrawny white guy with greasy hair and chin fuzz. “The one in the corner who looks like he’s waiting for a job interview.” He’s fiddling with the tie around his neck and drumming his fingers on the table beside his cup.
I raise an eyebrow at my coworker. “Seriously? Raise your standards, Sarah.”
“What? He’s cute,” she objects. “He kind of looks like Pete Davidson.”
“Yeah—also not cute. I don’t understand the appeal at all.” I shake my head. “At least go for a guy who looks like he bathes regularly.”
My words conjure up an image of Philip showering at my place, and a new and unwelcome zing shoots through my core. This is ridiculous—he shared the hotel suite with Sydney and me in Vegas, and I didn’t react like this. I am losing my mind.
But Philip definitely bathes regularly. He always smells delicious.
“Whatever, Ophelia. At least I do something about being interested in a guy.” Sarah shakes her head at me as she pulls a carton of almond milk out of the fridge.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
A woman walks through the door, and I move to take her order.
Sarah pours milk into the metal pitcher for steaming and gives me a look. “It means you talk a lot of game about who people should date without ever dating yourself. You and Philip just do that weird thing you all do.”
I don’t have a chance to respond before the customer starts rattling off her order while Sarah flips on the machine’s steamer, drowning out anything else.
I don’t date because I don’t want to date. A fact nobody seems to understand. With how things ended with my college boyfriend, I don’t trust myself not to pick another narcissist. And after I nearly didn’t finish my undergrad because of him, I vowed never to let a penis derail my plans again.
Besides, I’ve been too busy with school and work and have plenty of friends. Past me made sure that present me doesn’t have the burning desire to have “a man” in my life that everyone seems to assume I do.
I have Philip and a vibrator—what else do I need?
“He’s my best friend. It’s not weird.”
Sarah gives me a look. “Him being your best friend isn’t the weird part. It’s the fact that you guys act like a couple but claim that A) you’re not attracted to each other. Hello, you’re both fucking hot, so that’s one hundred percent bull. And B)—” She stops to scoop some ice into a cup. “Whenever anyone tries to ask either of you out, you always use the other as an excuse not to.”
I don’t have a chance to argue before a team of preteen girls in soccer uniforms, plus their families, walk in the door. It’s an endless stream of blended drinks and pastries until I clock out for my lunch break at ten.
Snagging a sandwich from the cooler case, I wave to Sarah, then take it and my drink out to my car. The sun has come out, and even though it’s still chilly, I want to bask in the warmth of it on my cheeks. As soon as I close the door and crack a window, the weight of being surrounded by people is baked away by the sunshine seeping into my bones.
My older sisters are both natural extroverts—Daisy lives for showing off her perfectly curated life, and Maggie is the living embodiment of a golden retriever. My whole life, I thought there was something wrong with me because I like being alone so much more than they do.
Discovering what an introvert is at the age of seventeen was a true lightbulb moment for me. And I’ve been constantly surrounded by people for the last few days. I think the only time I’ve been alone is in the bathroom. And even though Philip has never triggered my need to be left alone before, I’m suddenly so aware of his presence in my house that I can’t relax.
I dig my phone out of my pocket and scroll through it while I eat. Recently, my algorithm has taken to showing me a combination of baby cows, food porn, and women who have given up on the male species. I’m not mad about it—especially the baby cows.
A video with helpful tips for writing a dissertation pops up on my feed, and I quickly exit the app. I only have five minutes left of my break, and I refuse to spend any more minutes of my life thinking about my thesis. Or anything else to do with school.
Can’t think about school.
Can’t think about Philip.
I’m not sure what’s left to distract myself with.
I fire off a quick text to my sister, including a picture of a quokka for Kel’s daughter Olive. She’s been obsessed with them for the last few weeks.
By the time I drag myself up the steps to my house hours later, the countless cups of caffeine I’ve consumed to keep me on my feet are making me jumpy and sick. I unlock the front door and, for a second, question if this is the right place. Voices echo from the kitchen, and the smell of some kind of meat cooking wafts in on the cool breeze coming from the open patio door.
“Hello?” I hang my purse and coat on the rack, then toe my shoes off and line them up neatly below.
“Hi there!” Philip calls from somewhere in the house. The voices cut off abruptly, and he pokes his head out of the kitchen. “You’re hungry, yeah?”
“Starving.” My stomach growls as the smell of what he’s cooking hits me again. “Do I have time to shower? I was on bathroom cleaning duty right before I left.”
“Yup, it’ll be ready now now.”
I stop in my tracks and give him a look. “Okay, you say that all the time, and I have no idea what ‘now now’ or ‘just now’ means. Like, ‘right now’ or ‘in a bit,’ or what? It’s been driving me crazy for ages.”
Philip’s cheeks turn pink beneath his scruff. “Um. It means in a little bit. It’s a bit vague, to be honest.” He shakes his head, then clicks the tongs in his hand. “I’m just cooking some chicken, and I made a salad. Is that alright?”
“Sounds good.” I take a few steps down the hall when I can’t think of anything else to say. This awkwardness between us is new and unwelcome. He has cooked at my house before. He’s being his usual charming and thoughtful self.
I chastise myself through a quick shower, slipping into a pair of sweats and a tank over a clean sports bra. Following my nose, I find Philip in the kitchen, plating up the food.
There’s a perfectly sliced chicken breast lying on top of a bed of salad greens, feta cheese, olives, cucumber, and tomato. “This looks delicious. Thank you for cooking.” I pop up on my toes to give him a kiss on the cheek, like I’ve done a thousand times before, and take my plate. “Do you want to watch a movie? Or finish season three of The Witcher ? I was rewatching Bridgerton , but I didn’t think you’d be interested.”
“I’m game for Bridgerton if you want to keep watching it.” Philip says it just a little too casually. The moment I press play, I realize why—this is not the same episode I was on the other night. Glancing at the guilty party beside me, I stifle a snort at his pink-tinged cheeks while he carefully avoids making eye contact. I nudge him with my shoulder and settle in to rewatch season two.
I’m hyperaware of his shoulder occasionally bumping mine, and the way his thigh presses against me when he leans forward to set the remote down on the coffee table in front of us. All things that have happened a million times before, but now I have Sarah’s words echoing in my head.
I don’t use him as an excuse not to date, do I?
I’m only half watching the show as I puzzle it over. Sure, a few guys have asked me out over the last few years, but I wasn’t interested in them enough to make the time for a date. I was taking fifteen graduate credit hours, plus writing my thesis and working at the coffee shop, so where was there time for a boyfriend? I’ve been a graduate for less than forty-eight hours. Surely no one was expecting me to run out and get a boyfriend the moment I crossed that stage? Is it too much to ask for stability in one part of my life while everything else is changing?
Having to start my career, convince my family I’m not moving back to Seattle, and get ready for my new niece or nephew to arrive is enough to deal with, right?
What Philip and I have is perfect. We keep each other company when our friends drag us out, and if I’m ever lonely—which I’m not—I know I can count on him or Cassie to come over or meet up for a drink. All without the pressure of being a girlfriend. No one expects me to do his laundry, cook for him, clean up after him, or take care of him when he’s sick.
Reassured, I settle back into the couch and focus on the TV, stuffing my face with the delicious dinner he had ready when I came home from work.
“Are you alright?” Philip asks as I set my plate down, empty of everything except a stray piece of lettuce.
Every inch of me tenses. Am I being weird? I thought I was acting naturally, but maybe I’m not? I turn my head to look at Philip over my shoulder. “Why?”
“You’re very quiet.”
“Uh…” I move in slow motion, easing myself an inch away from his warm body. My stomach clenches, my heart races, and I don’t know what to do with my body. Worse, now all my arms and legs feel too long.
Last night, we were both so tired after the graduation ceremony and dinner with my family that we’d fallen asleep on the couch. Tonight, I’m tired, but not too tired for my mind to spin in circles, wondering how Philip feels about what happened.
Concern fills his face. “Did you not like it? Or did someone give you a hard time at work?” He reaches out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind my ear, and I hold still. “Oph?”
My heart slows at the touch of his fingers. A giant exhale escapes me, and I lean into his hand for a moment. “Work was fine. I’m just very peopled-out.”
Philip pulls his hand away and sits back. “Do you want me to leave? I can go—”
I grab his arm before he can finish standing up from the couch. “No, not you. Just. Other people. Yesterday was a lot, you know? I feel like I’ve been putting off being a real grown-up until graduation. But now we’ve graduated, and I don’t feel any different.”
He chuckles, and my heart slows a little more as he sits back down and throws an arm around my shoulder, pulling me close. “It was definitely a lot. And dinner with your whole family. And now I’m invading your space too. My poor little introvert is overwhelmed by people.”
A laugh bursts from my lips, and I cuddle in closer, wrapping an arm around his waist and settling my head against his chest. I’ve done it a thousand times and never thought twice about it. Despite the waves of awkwardness that have been washing over me, this feels right.
Pushing my silly thoughts away, I exhale and melt into my friend, the last of the tension I’ve been feeling leaving me in a rush.
“Good?”
I nod against his chest. “Much better now.”