Page 47 of Words We Didn't Say

“You text your mum and dada lot,”she said, her eyes still on the screen. “And all these texts to Eden… You know she blocked you, right?”

“Yeah, but I like to text her every morning and every night just in case she changes her mind. I don’t want her to think I’ve stopped thinking about her.”

Andie’s head tilted. She watched me for a few beats before she dropped her eyes again. “Michaela… Michaela… Where is she…?” she muttered as she kept tapping. “Mac.Gotcha!”

Gotcha?Hardly.

Michaela was a colleague. Nothing more. I’d already put her on notice to keep it professional, and she was on testy waters with Chris after their breakup. She couldn’t risk me telling him about the photo. No new ones had followed. The looks she sometimes shot me were confusing, but I was enjoying the quiet space she’d stopped crowding.

Andie scrolled through Michaela’s texts.“The bank says it’s off until five…Where are the guarantees…That dumb shit paralegal forgot the land title searches…” I cringed hearing the last one as much as I had the first time I’d read it. Totally unprofessional. I hope Andie saw my scathing follow-up. “What is all this shit?”

“Michaela’s a senior associate in the banking team,” I explained. “She runs the financing side for some of my transactions.”

“Besides work, nothing’s happening between you two?” When I shook my head, Andie asked, “But you didn’t block her?”

My eyes turned to the laundry ceiling as I blew out a long breath. “It’s like I said. Michaela and I work together on some transactions. She needs to be able to contact me in case something goes wrong. It would raise a lot more eyebrows if I blocked her than if I just kept things professional. That’s all it is. Professional—and barely that. I keep her very much at arm’s length after what happened.”

Andie nodded slowly. Then, her lips curled into a grin that chilled me to my core. I took a step back and hit the washing machine.

“Photo time!” she said.

Wow, she was about to bereallydisappointed.

“Get excited for all the fishing memes I send to my dad,” I muttered.

Scrolling through the photos, Andie’s eyebrows popped up. “Why the fuck do you have all these pictures of bread?”

My face flamed. I’d forgotten about those. “I’ve, um, well…” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I’ve been teaching myself how to bake sourdough. The first few loaves were a write-off, but the last couple have been pretty good.” I attempted a wobbly smile. “Edible, even.”

Andie was still staring at me like I was nuts. “You know you can just buy bread, right?”

I lifted a shoulder and kept the rest of my stupid plan to myself.

Right after Eden had moved out, I’d decided if she ever gave me a second chance, I wanted to cook her dinner. Eden loved Italian, so I’d spent my spare time perfecting a menu—a Caprese salad, bread, lasagne, and tiramisu. Everything homemade. The tiramisu needed some work because I’d dug in my heels about making the Savoiardi from scratch instead of using store-bought, but everything else was coming along nicely.

Mum was fully invested in my dinner plan. She got a real kick out of my bread updates.

Andie held out my phone. “You’re literally the most boring person I know. You don’t even have any nudie pics on there.”

Raising a brow, I asked, “People don’t really do that, do they?” I took my phone and slipped it into my pocket.

“A nude selfie? Sure.”

“Um… Are you saying…You?”

“What? Fuck. No!” She pushed her palm into my shoulder. A playful jibe. “Gross, man. Yvette’s got loads.”

“Had a peek, huh?”

Andie’s cheeks turned hot pink. “No, I just—” She shrugged. “Iheard.”

“Uh-huh.”

She recovered from her embarrassment by squaring her shoulders and putting her usual grim frown back on. “For what it’s worth, I believe you when you say you didn’t cheat.”

“Thank you.”

“But I’ll still never tell Ed to take you back.”

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