19. Sloane
Chapter nineteen
Sloane
Lunch is already half over when Paige groans and drops her fork.
“I swear, if my friend Marissa texts me one more screenshot of that man’s ‘thinking about things’ message, I’m blocking him for her.”
Nancy snorts. “That’s not thinking. That’s slow-fading.”
Paige nods emphatically. “Exactly. One week he’s all good-morning texts and late-night calls, and the next he’s suddenly ‘busy.’”
I lift my glass, listening.
My phone sits face down beside my plate.
I tell myself not to look at it.
I still register its weight, its outline against the table, the way I’ve started noticing it even when it’s quiet.
“They don’t disappear,” Nancy says. “That’s the worst part. They just… pull back.”
Paige gestures with her fork. “And when that happens, it’s because they’ve already decided something. They just don’t want to say it out loud yet.”
My fork pauses midair.
Nancy shrugs. “Or he’s tired. Or busy. Or emotionally constipated. Men contain multitudes.”
Paige laughs. “True. But you can usually feel it when something shifts. Like when the vibe changes and nobody sends a calendar invite.”
I laugh when they do, a second too late, like I’m chasing the moment instead of in it.
I force a smile and take a bite I can’t taste.
I tell myself it’s fine. That I’m here. That I’m present.
My attention keeps drifting anyway.
They aren’t talking about Colby.
Not really.
They’re talking about Marissa. About her almost-boyfriend. About dating in general. About situationships that stretch too thin before snapping.
Still, the words scrape the inside of me.
“You okay?” Nancy asks.
“Yeah,” I say quickly. “Just distracted.”
Paige tips her head. “Work stuff?”
“Always.”
That part isn’t even a lie.
A moment later, Paige adds casually, “You seeing hockey guy tonight?”
There it is.
The question slips in like an afterthought, barely meant to mean anything.
I hesitate anyway.
It’s a split second, but I feel it.
The pause.
“I don’t know,” I say. “He’s got a lot going on this week.”
Paige hums. “Makes sense.”
Nancy just says, “Huh.”
Not suspicious.
Not pointed.
Just… noticing.
The rest of lunch continues normally with stories and laughter.
Paige launches into a dramatic recap of her Hinge date, complete with exaggerated hand motions. “He showed up wearing boat shoes,” she says. “In February. And then told me he’s ‘between passions.’”
Nancy groans. “That’s code for unemployed with opinions.”
“I swear,” Paige says, stabbing her salad, “if one more man describes himself as an entrepreneur but can’t explain what he does, I’m joining a convent.”
Nancy steals another fry from my plate. “You wouldn’t last a week.”
Paige points at her. “Neither would you. You’d flirt with the groundskeeper.”
We laugh, loud enough to earn a look from the table beside us, and for a few minutes everything feels easy again.
The kind of easy that almost convinces me nothing’s wrong.
Almost.
Because somewhere between the laughter fading and the plates being cleared, something slips out of alignment.
Not with them.
With me.
With the part of me that keeps expecting my phone to buzz, even though it hasn’t all lunch.
Because I realize I don’t actually know when the last time Colby asked to see me was.
***
I check my phone while walking back to my office.
Nothing.
That’s when it hits.
Not panic.
Unease.
The kind that settles low and refuses to move.
I tell myself I’m being ridiculous.
He’s a captain.
He’s busy.
They’ve had away games, long travel days, weird schedules.
Hotel conversations are always different. Shorter. Easier to let fade.
I’ve done this before. Dated men whose lives ran on clocks that didn’t match mine.
It doesn’t mean anything.
Except it didn’t feel like this before.
Before, he checked in.
Not just a generic how’s-your-day text, but the small ones that felt like he was actually there.
A blurry photo once, taken somewhere in the bowels of an arena, his helmet half off and his hair sticking up at a stupid angle. Locker room lighting should be illegal, he’d typed underneath it.
I’d laughed out loud at my desk.
Another time, a voice memo sent too late at night, his voice low and tired, saying he couldn’t sleep and asking what song I’d been listening to on repeat lately. He said he needed something new for the bus.
It wasn’t big.
It wasn’t romantic in a movie way.
It was consistent.
Now it feels like I’m the only one reaching across the space.
That realization feels heavy all afternoon.
I reread emails.
Miss a detail in a meeting.
Check my phone again like it might suddenly decide to explain itself.
It doesn’t.
By four o’clock, I can’t stand it anymore.
Me: Survived Monday. Barely. Please tell me you’re also exhausted so I don’t feel dramatic.
The message sends.
I regret it instantly.
Too light.
Too obvious.
He replies fifteen minutes later.
Colby: Long day. Yeah. Pretty wiped.
No question.
No follow-up.
No opening.
The conversation ends before it starts.
A sharp knot forms just beneath my ribs.
Okay.
That’s new.
***
On my way out of the office, I'm walking behind two people near the elevators.
I’m not trying to listen.
I just… hear it.
“…apparently she entered that whole contest to promote her artist,” one of them says.
The other laughs lightly. “Smart, honestly. That kind of exposure doesn’t come around twice.”
They disappear down the hall.
I stop walking.
My pulse spikes.
I know that.
Of course I do.
That was never a secret.
But the way it sounded just now…
Casual.
Offhand.
Like trivia.
My stomach drops.
Because suddenly I’m not thinking about what I did.
I’m thinking about how it sounds.
And worse.
About how he might have heard it.
If he heard it at all.
Not from me.
From someone else.
From a comment.
From the internet.
From a hallway conversation just like that.
My phone feels like a brick in my hand.
His distance earlier replays in my head.
The shorter replies.
The careful tone.
The silence.
A new thought slides in, unwelcome and sharp.
What if he isn’t pulling away because he’s busy?
What if he’s pulling away because he finally understands the beginning… and is deciding that’s all it is?
I don’t know if that’s true.
I don’t know what he knows.
But the possibility sits there now.
Breathing.
Waiting.
***
Later that night, I stare at my phone.
Type his name.
Delete it.
Type again.
Stop.
What do I even say?
There was a reason at first, but it changed.
I should’ve told you sooner.
Please don’t decide without me in the room.
None of it feels right.
So I don’t send anything.
The quiet presses in.
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
Just thick.
I don’t know what changed.
I only know that something did.
And the worst part isn’t the distance growing between us.
It’s that I can trace exactly when it started.
I can guess why.
And still, I’m standing here with my phone in my hand, realizing I might have waited just long enough to let him decide without me.