———
Dear Ash,
It’s my job, but it was also my pleasure to do it.
Glad you have such good neighbors. Do they also lend you cups of sugar? Or cheese?
———
Dear Max,
Haha! No cheese. But they have come to my rescue in some other kinds of “emergencies.”
———
Dear Ash,
You have me intrigued once again with your use of inverted commas. May I ask what the nature of these“emergencies” was?
———
Dear Max,
I think if I told you it would probably be oversharing. We don’t know each other well enough to be discussing those kinds of “emergencies.” Especially not over email.
I pulled my phone towards me and started typing my message to her. I’d already changed her name in my contacts to Ash, and felt like a kid opening a Christmas present on Christmas morning as I’d deleted “Leigh” and typed in those three letters.
Max:Is Whatsapp better?
Ash:You really want to know?
Ash:It’ll probably just be a boring story for you.
Max:I doubt anything you could say or do would be boring.
I paused, wondering if that gave too many of my feelings away. I was struggling to hold them back, though.
Ash:Fine. I’ll tell you, but only if you tell me something personal too?
Max:Deal.
Ash:Okay then, let’s just say it was an “emergency” of the personal nature.
Max:You’re going to have to elaborate.
Ash:Put it this way, have you ever been on a date with someone and it was going so terribly that you had to send a secret message to your neighbors asking them to fabricate some kind of emergency to get said person out of your apartment?
My stomach dropped. Of course I knew she dated. But having her actually tell me made my forehead clammy and cold. I swallowed and tried to keep those feelings to myself.
Max:I’ve had a few dates over the years that I wished I could have put an end to, so I know the feeling.
Ash:Oh, I doubt you really know the feeling. Because trust me, I have a bit of a strange history of going on dates that usually end badly in some certain, special kind of way.
My forehead felt even clammier now. I wasn’t exactly sure what she was alluding to, but I knew I didn’t like it.
Max:Hopefully the cheese will save ours from that.
Ash:But this is not that kind of date, right? What did you call it, “professional semi-work-related”?
