Jen hums, unconvinced but listening.
“But,” I add, surprising myself with how quickly it comes out, “I had a lot of fun.”
She studies my face, then nods once. “You look like you did.”
I pick up the bags again, heading for the stairs, my reflection catching briefly in the hall mirror—new makeup, new clothes, a version of me that feels slightly sharper around the edges.
As I climb, I can’t help thinking it.
Sage doesn’t just enter rooms.
She changes them.
And somehow, without meaning to, she’s started changing me too.
It doesn’t happen all at once.
That’s the thing I don’t notice until later.
At first it’s just emails—harmless, funny ones sent during work hours. Subject lines likedid you SEE Tony last nightorI am never drinking tequila again. When Ethan is locked in manager meetings and can’t make lunch, I walk a few blocks and meet Sage instead. We sit on benches or grab salads we don’t finish, laughing about the same people we always do.
The girl Tony hooked up with that one night becomes a running joke.
She’d looked unreal ten beers in—long legs, tiny dress, hair teased sky-high like it was still 1996. The next morning she showed up at brunch with mascara smeared halfway down her face, Aqua net-stiff bangs drooping, heels in her hand like weapons she’d lost a fight with.
We laughed until we cried.
Sage snorted soda through her nose. I almost choked.
It felt… easy. Natural.
Then one afternoon she leans in conspiratorially and says, “You should join my gym.”
“I already go to one,” I tell her.
She waves it off. “No, no—mine. I don’t like working out with Ethan.”
She lowers her voice, grinning. “I can’t have him seeing how I actually get this body. That’ll be our little secret.”
She winks.
And just like that, it becomes a thing.
Spin classes at lunch. Sometimes right after work. Never mornings—Sage is always still rolling out of Ethan’s bed then. We shower at the gym, hair wrapped in towels, swapping complaints about instructors and playlists. Afterward we get iced coffees and sit outside, legs stretched out, sweat drying on our skin.
Somewhere in there, the thought hits me:
Sage is slowly becoming my best friend.
Is that weird?
She complains about Ethan—how he’s always with the boys, how they hang out too much, how she wants more couple time. I don’t really know what to say. I don’t get couple time at all. My relationship feels like two people constantly missing each other in doorways.
Sometimes I don’t even feel like I’m in one anymore. And my secret feelings and attraction for Ethan stay secret. Locked up. I avoid him as much as possible at work now. Not so much anyone woods notice but maybe I walk the long way around the office to the ladies instead of the path that goes right by his desk.
One afternoon, without planning to, I blurt out, “I’ve never… you know. Come. During sex.”
She stops mid-sip.
