Page 4 of Changing the Playbook
We fall into an easy rhythm. He tells me about another of his ‘new things,’ the cooking class where he nearly set a dish towel on fire (“the instructor banned me from open flames after that”). I confess my attempt to learn guitar, which ended with my teacher suggesting I might be more suited to “appreciating music as a listener.”
“Which was definitely code for ‘please stop torturing that instrument,’” I add, then change tack. “So what’s with trying all these new things? Quarter-life crisis?”
Something shifts in his expression—not quite sadness, but something deeper than the easy humor we’ve been trading. “Something like that. More like…” He rotates his beer bottle between his palms. “You ever feel like you’ve been doing the same thing for so long that you forgot there were other options?”
The question lands somewhere unexpected, right in the center of my chest. “Yeah. I know that feeling.”
He studies me for a moment, and I wonder what he sees. The girl who follows the same routine every day? Study, clinical rotations, safe and sterile hookups that never risk becoming more? Not to mention the million-and-one things I need to do for my sister and my parents to keep the family boat afloat in the rough seas we’ve sailed recently…
“Hence the jewelry-making,” he says, lighter now. “And the cooking. And the pottery workshop, which was exactly as pretentious as it sounds.”
Time does that strange elastic thing where it stretches and contracts simultaneously. I’m hyperaware of everything—the way his hands move when he tells a story, sketching shapes in the air; how his laugh starts low in his chest; the fact that he actually listens when I talk instead of just waiting for his turn, with what he wants to say already pre-loaded.
But time snaps back when Maya materializes at my elbow. “Hey,” she says, giving Mike a wink that makes me want to hide. “We’re moving on. Coming?”
I check my phone, shocked to see two hours have vanished. The bar has gotten more crowded, bodies pressed closer, music cranked louder, but I hadn’t noticed. We’ve been living in our own little bubble at this corner table, and I’ve thought about nothing but Mike and his jokes and his charming stories and his body—oh, his body—for all that time.
“I…” I look at Mike, then back at Maya.
“I should introduce myself,” Maya announces, not waiting for an invitation. “I’m Maya, Sophie’s friend who’s been watching her smile more in the last two hours than she has in the past two months, which is actually quite annoying because I’mhilariousand tryreallyhard…”
“Maya!” Blood rushes to my face, but Mike just grins.
“Mike.” He shakes her hand. “And that’s good to hear. She has a great smile.”
My face goes nuclear. Maya shoots me a look that clearly sayskeep this one.
“OK, well.” She backs away slowly, like she’s trying not to spook a wild animal. “I’ll let you two…” She makes a vague circular gesture. “We’ll be at Flanagan’s if you want to catch up. Or not. Probably not. Definitely not. Although if you finish up early and feel like getting dressed again, feel free to join us…”
She melts back into the crowd before I can die of mortification.
“Your friend seems fun,” Mike says, and I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic. “Like chaos in human form.”
“She’s a lot.” I fidget with my empty glass, aiming for casual and probably missing by miles. “Do you want to have the next drink at my place?”
The words hang between us. I watch his face, waiting for the shift. The moment when Easy Conversation Mike becomes Guy Who Just Got Lucky Mike. The moment the act melts away and I see the cockiness, the arrogance, and the selfishness that’s behind the game.
But he just sets down his beer, a smile playing at his mouth. “I’d like that.”
And it sounds like he means more than just the drink I’d offered.
two
SOPHIE
The walkto my apartment should only take ten minutes. I’ve timed it before—the bar to my building is exactly three blocks, two traffic lights, and one sketchy alley I always speed-walk past—but tonight, with Mike beside me, time operates differently.
Each step stretches like taffy, and I’m hyperaware of the space between our bodies. We’re close enough that I catch whiffs of his soap (something cedar-sharp that probably has a ridiculous name like “Forest Blast”), but far enough that we’re clearly nottogether-together.
My pulse hammers, and the nursing student in me catalogues symptoms: tachycardia, peripheral vasodilation, and heightened proprioception. Basically, my autonomic nervous system has decided to throw a party without inviting my rational brain—and next to a guy like this, I can’t blame it.
“So, nurse, huh?” Mike’s voice cuts through my self-diagnosis. “Do you have, like, the uniform and everything?”
“A uniform?” I arch an eyebrow. “Let me guess, you’re expecting a crisp white number, strategic button shortage, and a hemline that would violate OSHA regulations?”
“Maybe?” His grin spreads without apology. “Look, my mom’s a doctor, but she mostly just complains about insurance companies and brings home horror stories about kids sticking those little colored Lego lights up their noses. Fashion wasn’t really covered, although I’ve had my share of?—”
“Nurses?”
