Page 57 of Try Hard

“Itisher,” she said triumphantly. “You’re getting it on with Ophelia.”

I winced. “No! We’ve just been hanging out as friends,” I insisted, not sure that was even entirely true. I was tactile, sure, but I didn’t touch my friends nearly as much as I touched her. “Nothing’s happened. And I wouldn’t want to just… hook up with her.”

Row glared at me. “Yes, I know. You’ve been pining over this woman for about twenty-five years at this point.”

“I don’t think it’s been quite that long.”

“Yes, it has.”

I blocked the part of my brain that was automatically pointing out it wasexactlythat many years. “I’m struggling to comprehend how this call started out about your meeting someone and is now onto calling me out.”

Row laughed. “Don’t worry about it. Just let it in and tell me exactly what’s going on with the woman you’ve been in love with since you were a teenager.”

I held up one finger. “In loveis quite a stretch.”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s the tiniest of leans. Barely a stretch at all. But now who’s stalling? Give me the details!”

I looked away, over at the TV that I hadn’t been watching as I’d typed a message to Ophelia.

We’d barely stopped talking all day, and I totally got Row’s confusion over whether it was one conversation or more with her mystery woman. Sometimes, the conversation was every conversation, all at once. You just never really stopped or said goodbye. Life was the things that happened in between your conversations, the things you told the other person about. That was how it felt with Ophelia.

Row spluttered when I didn’t speak. “Wow. I’ve literally never seen you like this. Ophelia must be quite something.”

I scrunched my nose up. “You should call her Fia.”

“Because you don’t like sharing her name?” She eyed me in a veryRohannaway. I wondered if her new love interest knew what she was getting herself into.

“No. Well… yes, I guess.”

“You’ve called her Ophelia the entire time I’ve known you.”

“She goes by Fia.”

“Oh. Fine. Fia it is.”

A grin crept onto my face. “Except, I’m allowed to call her Ophelia.”

“You’reallowedto?” she asked, eyes narrowed.

I shrugged, feeling anything but casual. “She asked me to. Though not around our families, who know her as Fia. Or all these friends we’re running into from school at this wedding.”

“She’s going to the wedding too?”

“She is. And the joint stag/hen party this weekend. And the brunch yesterday…”

“Oh, my god,” she sighed, falling backwards on her bed. “You’re so coming back from this with a wife.”

I laughed, unable to fight off the image of how radiant Ophelia would look standing across from me, saying her vows. “It’s notmywedding.”

“I know that.” She shook her head and sat up again. “The point is that this is too good. And you missed your shot in secondary school, but you’re both adults now. And she’s got to be into you too.”

“You think?” I tried not to sound too hopeful, but between the way Ophelia had tugged at my waistcoat yesterday, and the texts all day today, and the potential flirting—and, hell, just the way Iwantedher to want me—I couldn’t help but hope.

“Uh, of course I do. I swear you don’t realise how many women throw themselves at you. You know I’m about to get ten different calls this week from people wanting to hire us just so they can meet you.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“I’m really not. Your skills and your team did a great job making every woman on the planet want you.”