Page 35 of While You Were Trending

He’s being nice.

I can be nice and make better coffee.

“You don’t have to do that,” he says to me.

“Need some for myself to get through my workday anyway.”

“You still in marketing?”

“Yes.”

“Same company?”

“Freelance.”

“Nice.”

Olivia slides me a look as she passes me on her way to the sink.

She’s a black belt in tae kwon do.

She could take him if I need her to.

Not that I need her to.

“I’ll get the dishes,” Declan says to her as he rises.

“Testing the equipment today. Shouldn’t miss it,” Olivia says.

Declan makes a noise that sounds like a rusty laugh.

It annoys me.

Mostly because of how hard I used to work to get a rusty laugh out of him.

He was my boyfriend’s best friend.

I wanted him to like me so that we could all hang out together.

Instead—well.

It was pretty clear he never thought Alex and I should’ve been together.

And he never gave me a chance.

Fucking reality TV show.

It happens all the time. People find out I’mthat Ginny Rhodes, and they say “Remember that episode where you couldn’t say the wordparallelogramand so you tossed your orange juice all over your siblings when they laughed at you?” or “Do you still throw temper tantrums if you have to share a bathroom with Ten?” or “Your mother was a saint to put up with you.”

Or, my all-time favorite, “You’re so much prettier than I expected you to grow up to be.”

It’s that beautiful insult couched in a compliment that I love about as much as I love stubbing my toe.

Declan never said those things, but I could feel him thinking them.

And I know he watched our show.

Alex told me.