For the record, if a guy ever whispered that in my ear, I’d slap him. As soon as he was finished with the hypothetical finger blasting, that is. The point was he had this kind of impossible blend of danger and comfort, almost like asking for your favorite meal from the local Indian place, but telling them to make it so spicy your asshole won’t speak to you for a week.

Marley popped into my cubicle and tilted her head, eyebrows up as she watched me wordlessly. I worked with about a dozen people regularly and things were friendly enough, but Marley was my only true work friend.

I pretended I’d been hard at work, even though my piece in progress was on my screen and definitely not far along. I turned and folded my arms. “Yes?”

“I gave you a pass yesterday,” Marley said. She had big brown hair that was thick and curly enough to stash things in. I knew this, because she regularly liked to pull objects of increasingly insane size from her hair while wiggling her eyebrows at me. So far, the biggest I’d seen was a stapler. “But now we need to talk about this.”

“I don’t want to talk about Eric,” I sighed. “You know that movie, Encanto? It’s like Bruno.”

She narrowed her eyes. “So he’s living in the walls of your house and watching you while you sleep?”

“As in, we're pretending he doesn’t exist from now on. It’s over. I sent him a text, just in case he was dumb enough to not gather as much.”

“What did you say?” She leaned in, brown eyes going wide with curiosity.

“I said our love square was over, and he could officially consider himself part of a love triangle. Except with the note ‘Em’ left him, I was assuming it was more of a love line.”

Marley smiled, almost reluctantly and shielded her eyes. “God, girl. You are such a nerd. But good for you, even if that’s the weirdest breakup text I’ve ever heard of.”

“I had a lot on my mind yesterday, okay? I wasn’t exactly thinking straight.”

“Yeah,” she said, smiling even wider. “Did your fuzzy thoughts have anything to do with that man I saw you talking to? Tall, dark, and delicious?”

“You really think I’d move on that fast?” I asked. I managed to sound offended, despite my nocturnal activities last night.

She shrugged. “I wouldn’t judge. If a guy cheats on you, then you get a fast pass back into the dating world without any questions asked.”

I made the mistake of swiping up on my phone to check a notification. I still had the image of Dean opened wide. Marley saw, gasped, and snatched the phone from me.

“Holy shit, Pearl. You dog!”

“Hey!” I whisper-yelled, reaching for the phone until I had her cornered. Marley was a softball player in college, and frustratingly strong. She basically stiff armed my forehead, holding me at bay while she took her time admiring the picture. Finally, she handed the phone back with a smug smile.