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“All right.” Abagail pressed her lips together in a thin line. “I haven’t heard from her since she left.”

“When did she leave?”

“The same day you did, after we had our talk.”

“Talk.” Elia said that word like it was going to answer all the questions Abagail wasn’t being asked. “What did you say to her?”

“I told her that what was happening needed to stop.”

“And what was… happening?”

Abagail’s stomach flopped. She’d already been through this with Elia before, so why was she asking the same damn question again. “Sex.”

“Here’s the thing, Abs, and I’m only going to tell you this once. Aromantic people can have relationships. They don’t look like the standard relationship, but it’s okay to explore what that might look like. So I guess my real question is this—why won’t you explore that with Nicola?” Elia huffed out a breath, and Abagail was fairly certain she was finally in her house.

If only they could be having this conversation in person. It’d be that much better than a phone call. Although their earlier issue of tension and distance that Abagail was the cause of seemed mostly resolved by this point, Abagail wasn’t such a fool as to think that it wouldn’t come back up some day.

“She deserves someone who can give her what she wants,” Abagail said, her tone softening to just above a whisper, and her heart aching in her chest.

“What if what she wants is you?”

“She doesn’t.” Abagail shook her head.

“Okay, we’re going to sidestep that conversation for a minute, because until you actually talk to her, you won’t know the true answer to that question.”

Now Abagail was being scolded into thinking that she was wrong the entire time. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I want you to be honest, and I want you to stop avoiding your feelings.”

“I don’t have feelings.”

Elia snorted. “We both know a line of bullshit when we see it.”

Abagail laughed, the sound bubbling up from her chest and through her lips, and she let it release into the wild. Her lips curled upward, and she shook her head. God, this was why she loved Elia. She was able to call her out like this no matter what.

“Fine, I have feelings,” Abagail admitted through a few lingering chuckles.

“For Nicola?”

“I told you that I’m fond of her.”

“And beyond that?”

“I want her to get everything she deserves and wants. I empathize with her. I just had the advantage of wealth that she doesn’t have.” Abagail paused then. “I could take care of some of that, but I’m not sure she’d accept it. She’s independent to the core.”

“Like you,” Elia added.

“Yes, like me.”

“I have only one more question for you.”

“What’s that?”

“Why are you talking to me about this again? Shouldn’t you be talking to Nicola?”

Abagail tensed and then relaxed. She should be, but she wasn’t sure quite where to find Nicola. She didn’t want to find her at work and interrupt her there, and Nicola wasn’t taking her calls. Shouldn’t that mean that she needed to give it up and let Nicola go?

“What if she doesn’t want to talk to me?” Abagail asked, sheepishly.