The Man She Almost Forgot

Chapter 1: The Conversation Continued

The question came on an ordinary workday, somewhere between unfinished tasks and the slow crawl toward lunch.

“You single?”

I looked up from what I was doing and found my coworker watching me with the kind of smile that usually meant she had already planned the next five minutes of my life.

Technically, I was seeing someone. But calling it a relationship would have given it more weight than it deserved. There were occasional dates and casual conversations, but no promises, plans, or real sense that it was going anywhere.

So I leaned back and gave her the most honest answer I could.

“I can be. What’s up?”

Her face immediately brightened.

“I have a friend,” she said.

Of course she did.

There always seemed to be a friend. Someone nice, someone funny, someone who supposedly had everything in common with you despite never having met you.