Page 98 of Tech Bros

“Yes,” I say, aware of the small world thing we’ve got happening here.

“How old is he?”

“Calyx didn’t tell you?”

“I never asked him,” Sam says.

“He’s thirty-five.”

“Oh. Younger than I thought.”

“Yeah, he’s not old.”

“And he went on a blind date with Deacon?” he asks as he moves to stretch over his left leg.

“Yeah, but I didn’t know it was Deacon until a few days later when Deacon took me out to dinner to let me know he might be having a guy stop by from time to time and by the way—it’s my boss.”

“Oh, shit. He took you out to dinner to tell you that?”

“He’s got some quirks. Anyway, this led me to tell him—because I’m a friend, right?—that by the way, your new boyfriend happens to fuck me five days a week, usually in the mornings.”

“How’d he take that?”

“Well, that’s the thing,” I slap the mat with both hands. “He didn’t mind.”

“I mean—you said it was just a few days later, right?”

“There’s like way more.”

“Oh.” Sam’s brows lift. “Go ahead.”

“I decided for some stupid reason this would be a great time to tell Deacon I liked him.”

Sam freezes midway through switching legs. “Please be lying, bro.”

I press my lips together and shake my head.

“Dude. You really should have called me first.”

“I tried. You didn’t answer.” I called Sam when I was outside the restaurant freaking out but ended up leaving a five-minutevoicemail I knew he wouldn’t listen to. “What would you have said?”

“I would have said step the fuck back and let it run its course. Also stop fucking your boss, but I’m sure everyone says that.”

That, in a nutshell is why no one but Sam knows. I can make my own decisions about who I fuck. “Noted, but there’s actually more.”

“All right, all right.”

I spew it all pretty fast. The blow job from Deacon, the walk in the park with Isaac, the awkward as fuck conversation I just had with my roommate, and, at the end, I throw in the job offer from Hunter, just for flavor. “That was all in the last twenty-four hours.”

“Jesus,” he says when I finally wrap it up.

“Also, you saw Millie’s post.”

He chuckles. “You just need to wait her out. Dogs don’t stay pregnant that long. If Apollo’s the dad, I imagine it’ll be pretty obvious.”

“I can honestly say that’s the least of my problems.”

“Why did the idea of having a conversation with Deacon and Isaac freak you out?”