Page 40 of Hate Mail

My face starts to heat at the mere suggestion. Seeing my blush, Anne gets even more excited.

“You did, didn’t you?”

“No!” I say, shushing her, because she’s being loud now, and I’m worried that Patrick will walk in at any second.

“Tell me everything.”

I purse my lips, deciding how much I want to tell her. “We might have made out in the stairwell after breakfast.”

Anne squeals again. “Did you move the party from the stairwell to the bedroom?” She wiggles her eyebrows.

“Unfortunately, no. I was so close to inviting him into my apartment when he told me to go inside and get some sleep.” I mock pout, pretending to be sad. “I don’t think he likes me.”

“You’re right. He doesn’t. Taking you out to breakfast and then making out with you is a huge red flag. He should have tried harder to get your pants off.”

I laugh. “We shouldn’t talk about this at work. Someone might hear us.”

“I’ve heard much worse from the anchors,” she says.

I’m dying for this conversation to be over because I’m afraid that Anne will keep pushing to know more. I wouldn’t put it past her to guess exactly what was on my mind when I had my hand between my legs yesterday. She would probably say it as a joke and then my face would give me away. I would never hear the end of it.

“I think I just heard the toilet flush in the men’s room,” I say. “You better get back to work.”

“You’re lying,” she says. “I would have heard it too.”

“I have work to do, Anette.”

“Speaking of work, guess what I saw last night.”

“What?” I ask, glad that the conversation seems to be steering away from my love life.

She pulls her phone out of her pocket and shows me her screen. I recognize the dating app she uses all the time. She scrolls through a few photos of single men, then stops on a familiar face.

I gasp. “Is that…?”

“Patrick,” she finishes for me. Her lips are contorted in an expression I can only describe as a grimace. “Do you think this means he saw my photo too?”

“He’s probably looking at your photo right now. On the toilet.”

“Ugh. Don’t say that!”

“I bet that’s why he takes so long in there,” I say. Anne frowns, and then her eyes widen. “He probably sits in there swiping right, and all those poor girls he’s matching with have no idea that he was pooping while he did it.”

“Jesus, Naomi. I thought you were going in a completely different direction with that. Either way, gross. I don’t want to think about that.”

I hear the toilet flushing. We both turn to look in the direction of the bathroom. Anne rolls her eyes at me, then saunters off. I turn back to my desk to continue preparing my weather report, and then I do my first on-air appearance of the morning. Anne is busy with her own work, so I don’t see her again until she makes her rounds handing out the mail. By the time I’m finished with my last appearance, Anne is waiting at my desk with an unopened envelope in her hand. I can tell by the look on her face that it’s another letter from Luca.

“He sent another one already?”

“He’s not waiting for you to write back because he knows you can’t.” She hands the envelope to me when I reach her. “Open it.”

I rip the envelope open, bracing myself for whatever his letter contains today.

Dear Naomi,

I want to play a little game. It’s probably killing you that you can’t write back to me, right? I can just imagine how badly you want to. I’ll make you a deal though. I want you to say the word ‘bologna’ in your 5AM weather report. If you can do that, I’ll give you a hint about where I am now. Maybe I’ll even include my return address on the next letter. Maybe.

Love,

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