Page 121 of Not In The Contract

It gave me the creeps. “What’s going on with you?” I narrowed my eyes, waiting for her head to pop off and reveal she was actually an alien in a freakishly accurate Taylor suit.

“Same as what’s going on with you,” she replied, an eerily easy cadence to her tone. “Which is to say, nothing. Right?”

And there it was. I was either going to spill it or play. After a brief analysis of my general wherewithal to wade through my personal life over morning coffee, a decision was made.

“Right.” I forced a smile and turned my attention to her laptop. “I see you finally got the hang of that AI tutorial.”

Taylor rolled her eyes. “Listen, I let you have your bullshit avoidance without judgment, so it’d be great if you can afford me the same with this.”

“No judgment?” It came out louder than intended. So did my caustic laughter. Sharp enough to stab someone in the eye if they got too close. “Taylor, I can feel it oozing out of you while you pretend to be okay that I’m not saying anything.”

Our chai lattes arrived, steaming and poised to provide the three second breather Taylor needed to perfect her attack. Once our waitress had gone she leaned forward, her dramatic whisper sounding more like a hiss than anything else.

“So then tell me.” Her lips barely moved. “We’re either going to spend this hour going through my shitty Singapore video, or you’re going to tell me what the hell is going on with you. What’s it going to be?”

“Well, it depends… How shitty are we talking?”

The tendon in her jaw twitched dangerously as she gave me a death stare that would strike a grown man to his knees.

I held up my hands in surrender. “I’m just saying, I made it through Star Wars Episode 1 without nodding off, so my pain threshold is pretty high.”

“If you don’t start talking in the next five seconds, I’m sending out a red alert broadcast to the others and they’ll be here before you can think of some other sarcastic response.” Taylor dug her phone from her purse and locked eyes with me, the battle lines firmly drawn.

“Jesus, was the right side of your bed otherwise occupied too?”

Taylor ignored my attempt to lighten her mood and started frantically tapping away on her screen.

I made a mad grab for her phone, which she suspended just out of my reach. Not today, was what the look on her face said.

And after a moment’s consideration, I believed her.

“Devon’s in love with me,” I breathed, feeling stupefied to hear the words out loud.

Somehow the mere act of speaking them solidified the reality deep within my chest somewhere. It was a kind of truth that ached.

There were too many things wanting to come out of her mouth at once, I could tell. Which made the extended sip of chai Taylor took that much more excruciating to sit through.

Eventually, after she’d double-dabbed the cream from her upper lip, she was ready to get into it. “Devon’s in love with you.”

I’d be lying if I said that first response wasn’t an anti-climax. Simply repeating back to me what I’d just said. And that after making me wait for it, too.

“That’s what she told me. Among other things…”

Taylor’s eyebrows shot up and her posture tensed as she leaned in, riveted. “What other things?”

With no way out but through, I proceeded to fill Taylor in on my last conversation with Devon while we finished our chai lattes. She listened intently, nodding at some points, rolling her eyes at others. I appreciated her lack of commentary because it gave me a chance to dive in and get everything off my chest.

It felt fucking great.

“What about you?” Taylor waved our waitress over with a lazy finger, her eyes glued to mine. “Are you in love with Devon?”

Maybe it was the lack of sleep, maybe it was the fact that I had no more fight left in me to dodge that one. I nodded and dropped my gaze to the empty cup in front of me, the back of my neck burning. Unlike the other thing, that was an admission I couldn’t yet put my voice behind.

“Two more,” I heard Taylor say, quickly dismissing the waitress again.

Then I got the look. I didn’t see it but could feel her unwavering stare.

Finally, I lifted my head and said, “It doesn’t matter how I feel about her. She’s made up her mind.”