Page 31 of The Best Bad Decision

So I said “we’re friends, I feel like that’s the kind of thing I should know” and then he said “friends?” and I said “well I thought we were but maybe I misunderstood” and then he DIDN’T CORRECT ME

ROO

Fucker

Lolo

dump him sis

Amie

I can’t dump him Lo, he’s Maisy’s dad

Katy

He’s a man, he probably didn’t even think about it

ROO

No, he def did.Fucker.

Ugh.

Just as I throw the phone down to the mattress in defeat, it begins to buzz with a conference call in our group message. I answer, holding the phone at my chest knowing full well that in the dark of my bedroom, my friends can’t see me anyway.

“What the fuck are you wearing, Lo?” Ruth greets us. I lift the phone to my face and squint at the quarter of the screen occupied by Paloma. She’s wrapped in a mint green silk robe; the one Katy bought her last Christmas to match the slippers and eye mask I bought. But I know instantly that Roo is referring to her hair: Paloma’s long red hair is swallowed up by neon green and yellow ribbons with a stiff wave. She looks like Medusa on 80s rave night.

“They’re heatless curls and they’re going to look AMAZING,” she tells us, dabbing splodges of lotion onto her face. It looks like she’s propped her phone against her bathroom mirror as she goes about her nighttime routine.

“He doesn’t want to be friends,” I whine bitterly. “I want to fuck his brains out and he doesn’t even want to be friends.”

“Says who?” Ruth is clattering around her kitchen, pouring steaming water into a mug. The clang of a teaspoon against the ceramic rings through my phone’s speakers and I wince, turning the volume down.

“Duh,” I supply. “He’s nearly forty—”

“Sexy older man vibes,” Lo smirks, wiggling her tongue in and out of her mouth salaciously.

“He’s nearly forty,” I repeat, rolling my eyes. I wince. It makes him sound so much older than he is—like there’s more than just eight years between us. “We’re in different places. Physically. Figuratively. Literally. He lives thousands of miles away.”

“Maybe he’d move,” Ruth suggests. She’s at her desk now, the blue glow of her computer screen reflecting in her glasses.

“I doubt it,” I sigh. “He’s settled. He’s got a good job. One he loves. One he’s worked fucking hard for, too. It’s what he’s always wanted.”

“And you’re not?” Ruth quirks a brow.

“I’m not what? Settled? In a good job? Doing something I love, that I’ve worked hard for? Yes to all of the above, and no, I’m not about to uproot my three-year-old and move her to the other side of the world. Not when you guys and Mum are all here.”

“I meant you’re not what he’s always wanted, but go off, sis.” Ruth dunks a cookie into her mug and hangs it over her mouth as it breaks into soggy pieces.

I scowl into the lens.

“I’m glad you’re finally admitting that you want him to rail you. But for what it’s worth, I think you should talk to him about it,” Katy speaks up. She’s also in bed, illuminated by her pink bedside lamp. I can see the glow from her e-reader reflecting on her skin. “Miscommunication is the worst relationship trope. It’s always just some bullshit that could’ve been fixed by people justtalkingto each other.”

“You and your damn tropes,” Ruth sighs. “They’re not star-crossed lovers in a sappy romance novel, K.”

“Are you sure?” Katy waggles her eyebrows into the camera and Lo snorts.

“Yeah, maybe call him. Maybe have hot phone sex,” Lo suggests, now finished with her lotion and applying some kind of potion to her eyelids.

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