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Sally smushed her face into Esther’s palm, unconcerned with the romantic affairs of humans. Lucky cat.
“Us Weekly is saying Ben and Jen are back together and Brad and Angelina are back together,” Jinny announced as she breezed into Esther’s apartment an hour later. “It’s like 2005 all over again, and I love it.”
Esther smiled weakly, feeling sick to her stomach.
Jinny went into the kitchen and pulled open the fridge. “I’m taking a water bottle. And one of your yogurts.”
Guilt burned in the back of Esther’s throat. She needed to confess. She’d been keeping too many secrets from Jinny. It was time to come clean.
“Wait,” Esther said. “Before we go, I have to tell you something.”
Jinny set the yogurt and water down. “This sounds serious.”
Esther looked at her feet. Best to just get it out, rather than try to sugarcoat it. Rip off the Band-Aid. She looked up at Jinny and took a deep breath. “I slept with Jonathan.”
Jinny went still, her eyes widening. “My Jonathan?”
Esther swallowed. Nodded. “The Jonathan who lives next door, yeah.”
“But—but how? Why? You don’t even like him.”
“I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.”
“An accident?” Jinny’s forehead scrunched. “How does that work, exactly? Did you trip and fall onto his dick?”
“No, he invited me to this party Friday and—”
Jinny’s mouth fell open. “Like a date?”
“No, definitely not like that. Just as friends.”
“Friends who sleep together?”
“That’s the part that was accidental.” She couldn’t even claim she was drunk. She’d done it because she’d wanted to.
Jinny looked confused. “Since when are you two friends at all? I thought you couldn’t stand him.”
Esther’s cheeks heated and she looked down at the floor, shoulders hunching in shame. “We’ve been sort of…hanging out.”
“For how long?”
“A couple months, I guess.”
“A couple of months?”
Esther cringed, lifting her eyes. Jinny looked shocked. Rightfully so. They’d always told each other everything.
She hadn’t meant to keep her friendship with Jonathan a secret. She just hadn’t known how to bring it up without raising other questions. It had seemed safer not to mention it at all.
That ship had sailed now, though. It was time to fess up. To all of it.
“It was—it was around the same time you started dating him,” Esther said. “He asked me for help with one of his screenplays.”
The look on Jinny’s face sank straight into the pit of Esther’s stomach. “Let me get this straight—you started hanging out with him at the same time he started dating me, and didn’t think to mention that before now?”
Esther winced. “It wasn’t like that.”
“What was it like, then?”
