Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
SOPHIE
Mondays aren’t meant to feel like this.
I’m halfway through typing up the draft for next month’s hospital finance meeting, and I’m grinning like a lovesick idiot. My assistant, Marissa, glances at me over her computer screen and narrows her eyes.
“You’re being suspiciously cheerful.”
“I’m just in a good mood.”
Marissa hums like she doesn’t believe me for a second and goes back to sorting through the figures from last week’s event. I try to refocus on the spreadsheet in front of me, but my phone vibrates in my lap again. I glance down, knowing exactly who it is.
Murph: Are you wearing my hoodie under your office blazer again?
Murph: Because that’s very sexy. Power move, Hart.
I bite my lip to hold in a laugh.
Sophie: How do you even know that?
Murph: Because I know you. And I can picture it. Legs crossed, bossing your department, secretly wearing my hoodie like a minx.
Murph: Also, I miss your face.
God help me.
I tuck my phone into the drawer, my cheeks burning, and pretend to care deeply about font sizes for the quarterly report. But it buzzes again a second later.
Murph: PS last night was perfect. PPS so are you. PPPS let’s skip work and run away to Paris. I’ll bring the pancakes.
I snort out loud.
“Sophie?” Marissa says.
I straighten immediately. “Hmm? Sorry. Thought of something funny.”
She gives me a slow blink and goes back to her Excel tabs. She’s seen me through a few boy disasters over the years; men who ghosted, men who lied, men who were emotionally available as a houseplant. But this? Murphy?
This is different.
It’s only been a few days since the match, since the kiss, since sleeping over at his place, but it already feels as though we’ve been orbiting each other for ages and finally snapped into place. Everything makes sense in a way it didn’t before.
I smile to myself as I draft a reply under the desk.
Sophie: You’re distracting. Stop texting me or I’ll come over there at lunch and kiss you senseless in the physio room.
The typing bubbles appear instantly.
Murph: Where’s the threat?
By midday, I’ve sent almost finished the report, scheduled a meeting with marketing to set a financial forecast for next quarter, and managed to mostly keep my heart rate normal, despite Murphy’s barrage of voice notes that are half charming and half utterly filthy.
There’s one where he whispers, “I’m imagining your legs in those tights you wear to work,” while fake groaning into the microphone. I play it once, shriek internally, and then delete it before I accidentally throw my phone across the office.
I grab lunch in the canteen; salad, even though I’m craving chips, and eat it at my desk, scrolling through our texts like I’m sixteen again.
I’d forgotten this feeling. Not just the butterflies, but the slow-blooming joy of someone seeing you, teasing you, wanting you without games or confusion.
Murphy is Murphy; loud, chaotic, incorrigible.
But with me? He’s also kind. Attentive. Sweet in ways I never expected.
He remembered how I take my tea. He made me pancakes.
He kissed my forehead when I got shy. And this morning, he sent me a selfie from the gym captioned “thinking about your bum during squats”.
I nearly choked on my peppermint tea.
I’m still staring at his smug grin in the photo when Mia’s name pops up on my screen.
Mia: Drink after work? I need to hear everything.
Sophie: Yes please. 6pm? Usual pub?
Mia: I’ll be there.
Just after five, I’m speed-walking out of the hospital, coat half-buttoned, Murphy’s hoodie definitely hidden under my smart wool blazer, and my heart floating several feet above the pavement.
The pub’s only a few streets away, it’s a low-ceilinged place that smells of spiced chips and wood polish, tucked away from the usual after-office crowd. I find a table by the window, order two glasses of wine, and sink into the booth just as Mia appears in the doorway.
She spots me and makes a beeline over, shaking out her hair like she’s walked out of a shampoo ad.
“You,” she says, plopping down. “You are glowing.”
I groan. “Oh God. Am I?”
“Yes. It’s disgusting.”
We clink glasses.
“So?” she says, eyes sparkling. “Is it official? Are you together? Are you in love? Did he do that thing with his stupid jaw when he kisses you?”
I laugh so hard I nearly snort. “Yes to everything.”
Mia shrieks like she’s won a game show and grabs my hand. “Tell me everything. Word for word. Don’t skip the sexy bits.”
I shake my head, flushed. “Honestly, Mia, I don’t even know where to start. I think I fell for him on the rink.”
“During the goal?”
“No, before that. When he skated over and made that heart on the glass.”
Mia puts a hand over her heart. “He’s so dramatic. I love it.”
“It was stupid and corny, and I think it actually broke my brain. Then after the game we… well he just… said it. Out loud. That he was in love with me.”
Mia’s jaw drops. “What? He said that? Already?”
I nod, feeling the same electric buzz I felt that night. “Yeah. Like he’d been holding it in and couldn’t anymore.”
Mia stares at me for a second and then lets out a low whistle. “Bloody hell, Soph. You’ve got him.”
“I think I’ve had him,” I say, smirking into my wine.
She cackles.
We spend the next hour giddy and pink-cheeked, dissecting everything from our first proper kiss, to the sleepover, the pancakes, and the hoodie theft. Mia’s glowing too, even if she tries to hide it. Every time I mention Murphy doing something sweet, she smiles like her heart’s caught the light.
“You think this’ll get complicated with the team?” I ask eventually.
Mia sips her wine carefully. “It might. But not in a way I’m scared of. I think if anything, Murphy being happy makes Dylan happy.”
By the time we leave the pub, our cheeks are flushed, our bags are heavier with gossip, and our hearts are a little fuller.
This thing with Murphy? It might still be new. Fragile. Wild.
But it’s ours.
And for the first time in a long time, I feel like I’ve finally stopped chasing the wrong stories.
Because this one feels like it’s worth writing.