“No shade if you do decide to go with Craig, though. If you liked what you saw,” Val adds jokingly. “But also, as an IT professional, I must warn you that the dick pic he sent might not even be his. It could be a random image he found on Google. Or worse, an AI-generated one. Those are getting more and more realistic by the day.”

Kiara shrieks, and we all laugh.

“Maybe I should try meeting people out in the wild, first,” I say. “So far, dating apps don’t seem like they’re for me.”

“That’s a great idea,” Kiara replies. “We’re free tomorrow night, aren’t we, babe? Since it’ll be a Thursday. Why don’t we all go out to a bar or something?”

“Sure, sounds good,” Val says. “Gemma, do you know anywhere that’s still doing those spiced fall cocktails? I’ve been getting my annual pumpkin spice latte craving but haven’t gotten the chance to get one yet this year since I hardly ever go out.”

Kiara and I snicker as we look at each other. Val likes making fun of what she says are “basic bitch” things, but the one thing she can never resist is a good pumpkin spice latte. Or PSL-inspired cocktails. And of course, given what I do for a living, she asks me for recs on where to get one every year.

I smile. “I know just the place!”

3: Gemma

Fortunately, the next day at work isn’t nearly as bad as the previous, mainly because I have something to look forward to at the end of it. Luckily, both James and Daphne seem dead set on mostly ignoring me, with the only moment of drama occurring when James wrinkles his nose after our eyes accidentally meet on my way to the elevator.

“At least I’m not the one making out with a coworker in the printer room!” I want to yell at him. But I obviously don’t.

Shane also seems pretty content with whatever arrangement he must have worked out with James, because he just gives me a friendly “Hey, Gemma!” when we cross paths. Either that or he wants to pretend that nothing happened. Which is understandable.

I throw myself into my work again. Aside from the lifestyle recommendation articles, which are always fun, my favorite part of my job is reading the stories behind the people asking for advice on Dear Karl. I truly, deeply love all the different stories I read about other people’s life experiences, and today, I find myself especially immersed in a submission from a man in his fifties who’s trying to make the holidays good again for a woman whose husband died around this time last year. Thanksgiving is next week, so we’ve been getting a lot of advice requests about the holidays.

Love isn’t dead, after all. Or at least, it isn’t for some people.