5. Best Friend Barricades
Best Friend Barricades
SLOANE
“Milo, please tell me you didn’t put the Batman head in the dishwasher,” I call out, my voice hitting a pitch that suggests I might actually shatter the wine glasses I just polished.
Why did I polish wine glasses? We’re eating pizza.
We’re eating pizza with a man who looks like he was grown in a lab specifically designed to produce ‘High-End Lumberjack Chic.’
“I didn’t, Mommy!” Milo shouts from the living room, followed by the clatter of plastic bricks. “Cooper has it! He said he’d bring it!”
Cooper. The name tastes like trouble and double-shot espresso.
It’s too friendly. Too accessible. It’s a name that invites people to sit down and stay a while, whereas my name—Sloane—sounds like something you’d use to describe a sharp, icy incline.
I’m the incline. I’m the thing people slip on when they aren’t wearing the right boots.
The buzzer for my apartment rings, a sharp, intrusive sound that makes me jump high enough to actually pull a muscle in my calf.
It’s too early. Cooper wouldn’t be this early.
Cooper is the kind of man who would be exactly three minutes early with a bouquet of non-threatening wildflowers and a smile that makes you forget your own social security number.
I check the intercom. It’s not the sunshine co-host. It’s Tasha Rios, looking into the grainy security camera while holding two venti Starbucks cups like they’re holy relics. I buzz her in with a level of relief that is frankly embarrassing.
“You look like you’re preparing for a deposition or a colonoscopy,” Tasha says the second I swing the door open.
She brushes past me, the scent of vanilla and rain—a sharp, cool intrusion that cuts through the sterile, over-polished air of my kitchen.
She sets the coffee on the counter and fixes me with a look that has seen me through a divorce, a career relaunch, and that one time I tried to cut my own bangs in 2019.
“I’m hosting a professional networking dinner,” I say, smoothing my hands down my dark jeans. I’ve changed my shirt three times. I landed on a charcoal silk button-down that screams ‘I am successful and also could fire you at any moment.’
“It’s pizza, Sloane. On a Tuesday,” Tasha says, handing me my latte. “With a man who, according to Tessa, has shoulders broad enough to have their own zip code. This isn’t a networking dinner. This is a lapse in judgment that I am here to facilitate.”
I take a long, scorching sip of the coffee.
The caffeine hits my system, but it does nothing to settle the vibration under my skin.
“It’s a strategic move. The network is already running ads for the ‘Donovan-Ellis Exchange.’ If I don't find a way to manage him, they’re going to use him to dilute the show until it’s just one long, upbeat commercial for toxic positivity. ”
Tasha leans against my refrigerator, crossing her arms. “And the best way to manage him is to let him sit at your table and eat pepperoni with your six-year-old? The same six-year-old who has mentioned ‘LEGO Cooper’ fourteen times in the last hour?”
I flinch. That’s the jagged part. The part that’s catching on my ribs. “Milo is… he’s a child. He likes shiny things. Cooper is very shiny. It’s a biological imperative.”
“He’s more than shiny, Sloane, and you know it,” Tasha says, her voice softening, losing the edge of banter. “You’re terrified because Milo liked him instantly. You’re terrified because for the first time since Noah, someone walked into a room and your son didn't just tolerate them—he saw them.”
I turn away to rearrange the napkins. They’re already perfect. I move them two inches to the left. “Noah was a mistake I spent five years correcting. I’m not opening that door again. This is about the podcast. It’s about maintaining the brand.”
“The brand is a fortress, Sloane. But you’re starting to look like a prisoner inside it,” she says. She walks over and puts a hand on my shoulder, forcing me to stop fiddling with the paper squares. “It’s okay to let someone in for a meal. It doesn't mean you’re handing them the keys to the city.”
“I don’t even like him,” I lie, and the words feel brittle in the air.
“He’s… he’s the human equivalent of a golden retriever.
He’s too loud and he’s too happy and he noticed that I touch my collarbone when I’m annoyed.
Who does that? Who pays that much attention to someone they’re trying to replace? ”
Tasha’s eyebrows shoot up. “He noticed your tell?”
“It’s not a tell. It’s a physical reaction to incompetence,” I snap. But my hand instinctively goes to my throat, finding the small gold bar that hangs there. I drop my hand immediately. The silence in the kitchen feels heavy, filled with the things Tasha isn't saying but is definitely thinking.
“Listen to me,” Tasha says, her voice low and steady.
“You have spent three years building a life that is a perfectly sealed vacuum. It’s safe.
It’s quiet. But Milo is getting older, and he’s starting to notice the air is getting a little thin in here.
Don’t push this guy away just because he brings his own oxygen. ”
I look toward the living room, where Milo is currently making ‘vroom’ noises with a spaceship.
He looks so much like me—the same stubborn chin, the same intense focus.
But he has his father’s eyes, and sometimes, when he looks at me, I see the ghost of every lie Noah ever told me.
I can’t let that happen again. I can’t let someone get close enough to find the cracks in the foundation.
“I’ve set rules,” I tell her, more for my own benefit than hers.
“Strict ones. No talking about personal history. No work talk after the pizza arrives. No staying past eight-thirty. And absolutely no being charming. I’m going to be so professionally boring that he’ll be begging to leave by the time the crusts are cold. ”
Tasha snorts, picking up her bag. “Good luck with that. From what I’ve heard, Cooper Ellis doesn’t do ‘boring.’ He does ‘sincere,’ which is your kryptonite. Try not to melt, Donovan. It’s bad for the silk.”
She heads for the door, leaving me alone with my cooling latte and my escalating dread.
I check the microwave again. 5:45 PM. The arugula is still wilting.
I feel like the arugula. I feel like I’m being stripped of my protective layers, leaf by leaf, until there’s nothing left but the vulnerable center I’ve spent years hardening into a diamond.
I walk into the living room and sit on the edge of the sofa. Milo immediately crawls over and leans against my leg. He’s warm and smells like apple juice and plastic. He is the only thing in the world I am 100% sure of.
“Is Cooper almost here?” he asks, looking up at me with those wide, hopeful eyes. He’s holding the headless Batman body in his small hand. It’s an accusation. A reminder that things are broken and someone else has the piece required to fix them.
“He’ll be here soon, bug,” I say, smoothing his hair. My hand is trembling, just a microscopic vibration, but I can feel it. “But remember what we talked about? He’s a coworker. Like Mommy’s friend Tessa. He’s just visiting for work stuff.”
Milo nods, though I can tell he doesn’t care about the distinction. “He’s funny. He told me that Batman likes pizza even more than Joker does.”
“I’m sure he did,” I murmur. I can almost hear Cooper’s voice—that low, honeyed rumble—saying something ridiculous like that just to see Milo’s face light up.
It’s a tactic. It has to be a tactic. No one is that naturally attuned to a six-year-old’s internal logic unless they’re trying to sell something.
But then I remember the way he looked at me in the studio.
Not with the slick, predatory hunger of Graham Voss or the calculating coldness of Rhea Saye.
He looked at me like I was a puzzle he was genuinely interested in solving.
Like he saw the ‘No-Bull’ brand as a mask rather than a person.
And that is significantly more dangerous than corporate sabotage.
The buzzer rings again. It’s exactly 6:00 PM. Not a minute early, not a minute late. He’s precise. He’s disciplined. He’s currently standing in my lobby with a missing LEGO head and the power to ruin my Tuesday, my career, and my very expensive internal equilibrium.
“He’s here!” Milo shrieks, scrambling to his feet and sprinting toward the door.
“Milo, wait!” I call out, standing up and smoothing my shirt for the fourth time.
My heart is doing that frantic, uneven rhythm it only does when I’m about to go on air for a live segment.
It’s adrenaline. It’s professional stakes.
It’s definitely not the fact that I can already picture him standing there in a henley that probably makes his chest look like a tectonic plate.
I reach the door just as Milo reaches for the handle. I put my hand over his, taking a deep breath of the air that Tasha says is too thin. I can do this. I am Sloane Donovan. I take down influencers. I expose frauds. I can survive a pizza dinner with a man who smells like pine trees and competence.
I pull the door open.
Cooper is standing there, and the hallway seems to shrink.
He’s wearing charcoal grey—the kind of soft, expensive wool that makes you want to reach out and see if it’s as warm as it looks.
The color makes the blue of his eyes look like a direct threat to my resolve.
He isn't holding flowers. He’s holding a box from the good pizza place across town—the one that doesn’t deliver—and a small, clear plastic baggie containing a tiny, disembodied plastic head.
“Evening, Donovan,” he says, and his voice is a low vibration that I feel in the soles of my feet. He looks down at Milo and winks. “Hey, Batman. I hear there’s a crime-fighting emergency involving some pepperoni?”
Milo cheers, and just like that, the barricades I spent the last hour building with Tasha start to look like they’re made of toothpicks.
Cooper steps across the threshold, and the smell of woodsmoke and rain follows him into my controlled, vacuum-sealed life.
The air doesn't feel thin anymore. It feels charged, like the moment before a lightning strike, and I realize with a sickening jolt that my rules don't matter. He’s already inside.