Archive of Our Own ^beta

Two truths and a lie:

1. I’m obsessed with my ex.
2. I hate my ex’s boyfriend.
3. I never want to date her again.

“You cannot keep this.”

“Why not?” Aryna squinted, evaluating the ends of the hair she had snared between her index and middle finger. She gave the splits a quick snip with a pair of nail scissors. As the hair fell somewhere on the shag rug, she shot Paula a smirk. “I am obsessed with you.”

“Because no one will want to date a person like this!” Paula, with her legs tucked under her on her end of the couch, brandished Aryna’s phone as if it were the most damning evidence in the trial of her dateability. “And you don’t hate Stef.”

“Yes, that one is the lie.” Aryna winked and waited until Paula returned to studying her Hinge profile before rolling her eyes. Truth: nothing on the list was a lie. She was obsessed with Paula, they would never date again, and hating Stefanos Tsitsipas came to her as easily as being hot and breathing.

Not for the first time, Aryna wished Paula hadn’t met Stefanos only a month after she and Paula had decided they were better off as friends. The break-up hadn’t been traumatic; really, Aryna was relieved she got to keep her soulmate even after admitting no amount of effort could produce a romantic spark. But immediately Paula had found someone thrilled to run a couples Instagram account with her, whereas Aryna had assumed, wrongly, they’d be navigating the horrors of modern dating together. Third-wheeling Paula and Stefanos on nights out hadn’t exactly helped bring any boys or girls to Aryna’s yard.

“What do you think I should say?” Aryna asked. She might seriously question her best friend’s taste in men, but she still valued her opinion above all others.

Taking the question as permission, Paula began furiously backspacing Aryna’s answer and substituting her own. “Okay, one: I’m hot.”

“Truth,” they said simultaneously, grinning at each other.

“Two…” Paula pursed her lips, thinking. Thirty seconds passed, then a full minute. “Uh, two…”

Aryna tossed up her arms in vindication. “See, it’s hard!”

“You’re right, this sucks,” Paula concurred. She tossed Aryna’s phone onto the middle cushion and sighed. “What are you going to do then?”

“Do I have to do something?” Aryna countered, returning to her split ends so she could pretend not to see the stricken frown Paula was sending her way.

Hanging out with Paula and Stef didn’t make her feel lonely—nauseated, certainly, but not lonely. Their brand of shout-it-from-the-rooftops love had never been her style. And honestly, Ons and her husband weren’t much better. Neither were Dasha and her girlfriend, with their burgeoning YouTube vlogging career. Ditto to Paula’s young and overtly-smiley teammate, Carlos, and his smile-deficient boyfriend, who often joined Paula, Stef, and Aryna for brunch; the eyes they all shot at each other across the table were gooier than the syrup.

Seriously, where the hell did people meet anymore for something casual and fun, without a twenty question entry survey and the looming specter of ‘til death due us part?

“Wait, I have the best idea!” Paula clambered up from her sprawl, beaming.

“But will I like it?” Aryna asked, grabbing her phone before Paula kicked it off the couch in excitement.

“Stef has this—”

“No.”

“Come on,” Paula whined, breaking out her best pout. “He is so hot, you wouldn’t believe.”

Aryna actually could believe Stefanos had hot friends; their personalities were what worried her. Two weeks ago, at a club in SoHo, they had met two friends of his visiting from Australia, and one of the men had spent the entire night belligerently bragging about himself, interrupted only once when he told Aryna they should hook up sometime. She had taken a long, hot shower to wash the gross off once she and Paula had gotten home.

“He is not like Nick, promise,” Paula said, reading her mind. “He is super sweet and so cool. Stef even tells me he dated Sharapova for a little bit.”

“Great, so I have to worry about her murdering me,” Aryna replied, shuddering as she imagined how their most intimidating coworker would finish the job. At least it would be a knife to the front, not the back.

“It’s ancient history,” Paula dismissed, just as she rose to her knees on the couch and clasped her hands to her chest. “Please, please, please, please, please. I love Ons and her husband, you know that, but all they want to do on double dates is play board games, and Dasha will not shut her camera off for, like, five seconds, and Carlos and Jannik are so young, and—”

“Okay, okay!” Aryna pressed both hands over Paula’s mouth to shut her up. “One date. One.”

Paula licked her palm, and Aryna immediately snatched her hands away in disgust, but accepted Paula throwing her arms around her and cradling her head to her chest. “You won’t regret this,” she said, smacking a kiss against her hair. “I promise.”

There was a fifty-fifty chance Aryna would regret it, but what would one little blind date hurt? Especially since it allowed her to indulge two of her favorite hobbies: dressing up and being treated to a night on the town. What the hell, the guy might even end up being passable.

I

All I ask is that you —
Know how to have fun.

okay FINE, Aryna texted Paula, followed by a string of furious emojis, he’s cool. and really fucking hot.

Boy, was he.

Grigor Dimitrov picked her up in a bright-blue Lamborghini SVJ, top down, and hopped out of the driver’s seat so he could hold the passenger door open for her. They had reservations at a sushi restaurant Aryna had never heard of but was so exclusive that everyone gawking outside the lobby glared at them as they breezed inside. A bottle of the house’s small-batch wine was waiting for them at the table, and Grigor explained he was friends with the owners in a way that came off like he genuinely didn’t see it as a big deal.

“So, Aryna Sabalenka,” Grigor said once the wine had been poured, and fuck if she didn’t love how his full name sounded in his smooth accent. “Tell me everything about you.”

“Everything?” She took a sip that she hoped looked delicate.

His gaze on her was soft, attentive, and somehow already fond. “Everything.”

The dinner passed in a motion blur of stories and laughs shared over wine and delicious food. They traded their favorite memories of Stefanos Tsitisipas nonsense, but she had to fight off a blush when Grigor said, “But he’s gotten some things right, I think,” with a twinkle in his eyes.

A check never arrived at the table. When Aryna discreetly flagged down their waiter while Grigor was in the bathroom, he told her that everything had been taken care of already.

FINE!!!!! she texted Paula under the table, with an even longer string of pissed-off emojis, you can tell stef i owe him one.

As they left the restaurant, Grigor with his hand gently resting on the small of her back, he proposed, “Dancing?”

Aryna, who would prefer the night never ended, agreed immediately.

That was how she discover that not only was Grigor really fucking hot, and cool, and a great driver with excellent taste—he was also an amazing dancer. Hands on her waist, lips ghosting her temple, hips moving in sync with hers, he made Aryna feel like an amazing dancer, too.

Sometime later—time merely a suggestion in the shadows of the club—it was her turn to propose, “Last call at my place?”

The next morning, Aryna woke up with hair in her mouth, in an otherwise empty bed, smelling a hangover’s favorite aromas: bacon and fresh coffee. Before daring to investigate further, she tiptoed to the bathroom to assess last night’s damage. She yanked a brush through her hair and washed the morning breath out of her mouth, but decided to stay in Grigor’s shirt instead of subbing it for her favorite robe. Weirdly it wasn’t on the hook where she typically left it.

In the kitchen, the curtains had been thrown open, allowing the mid-morning sun inside. The French press—exclusively used by Stefanos, and only when on a pretentious kick—had been dusted off and sat full beside a bowl of sliced strawberries and mango. At the stove, Grigor was flipping pancakes, wearing only a pair of briefs and her favorite pink satin robe. It fit him perfectly, hitting just at mid-thigh.

“Uh,” she said eloquently. “Good morning?”

“Good morning,” Grigor echoed, sending her a warm smile and then a wink. Aryna, who never found winking sexy before, had to remember to take her next breath.

She felt someone coming up behind her, peering over her shoulder. “Oh my god,” Paula whispered directly in her ear.

Mid-yawn, a shirtless Stefanos padded past both of them and into the kitchen. He stopped to sniff the air and grinned at seeing Grigor. “That smells amazing,” he said and rushed to pull a stack of plates down from the cabinet. It should have disturbed Aryna to see how comfortably Stefanos navigated their kitchen, but her brain hadn’t come back online yet.

Paula seized her by the wrist and dragged her into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind them. Her wide eyes found Aryna’s. “Oh my god.”

“I know.”

“Oh my god,” Paula repeated for the third time. “Get the ring before I steal it from you.”

“I am telling Stefanos you said that.”

“You saw him out there.” Paula waved a dismissive hand. “He’s competing, too.”

They broke into a fit of laughter, so loud that they’d one-hundred percent be heard from the kitchen. Aryna had a vision of Grigor smiling down at the pan, perceptive and self-possessed enough to know they were saying only good things. This could be something really good, she decided. The exact kind of fun she wanted.

Fun turned out to be weeknight surprise dinners at underground spots that would blow up on TikTok a week later. Flowers delivered to her office on a Thursday afternoon after she had complained about what a long, stressful week she had and that the miserable weather had been getting her down. Strolling Savile Row hand-in-hand on a Friday evening. Weekend getaways to Paris or Amsterdam, pictures snapped along the canals and the Seine. She uploaded stories with his hand on a white-cloth table inches from hers, no tag, and posted solo shots to her grid with captions slyly crediting her favorite photographer, who coaxed her into trying snails, and didn’t smoke, and kept attempting to convince her to go skydiving with him.

hard launch already!! Paula demanded.

sorry, too busy was Aryna’s reply, attached to a photo taken of the view from a balcony in Monte Carlo.

A charm for her bracelet, a bluebell tucked behind her ear, tickets to a ballet at Sadler’s Wells, double dates with Paula and Stefanos, just like they had wanted, without board games, or vlogging, or any of them getting carded. Some of the best sex Aryna had had in years. Kisses hello, kisses goodbye, good morning texts, doors held open, drives outside the city limits, never responding late, always on time, a great laugh, a kind smile, a permanent twinkle in his stupidly sexy eyes.

He was, in a word, perfect.

It drove Aryna fucking crazy.

“In a bad way?” Paula asked in disbelief, after Aryna finally confessed three glasses deep in a bottle of rosé. It was only the two of them in the apartment, a rare occurrence nowadays. If it wasn’t Stef monopolizing the cozy armchair, it was Stef and Grigor, cooking them all dinner to pair with the fancy bottle of wine he had brought over. How was discount rosé supposed to compete?

“I just feel…” Aryna pinched the stem of her glass between two fingers and twisted. “Like, he plans everything, he knows everyone, and I’m just there. It’s like I’m not keeping up, you know?”

“But you’re perfect,” Paula stressed.

Aryna blew her a kiss from her side of the couch, but her heart wasn’t in it. 

She knew she wasn’t perfect, same as she knew Grigor wasn’t actually perfect either. C’mon, his favorite chore was laundry. He had a surprising number of unscalable walls for someone who seemed so emotionally available on first meeting. Very few of his relationships she had heard about had gotten past the casual stage. They both loved glamour and fun, but they rarely pushed each other to wade beyond shallow waters. Maybe the problem was they matched up too well. All their edges were in the same places, so nothing interlocked.

“Sorry, I know you and Stef really liked him,” Aryna said, her decision made.

“We like him, but we love you. And it’s not like you’re killing him,” Paula reminded her, nudging Aryna’s calf with her slippered foot. “We can still hang out with him, right? He seems like the guy who is great at staying friends with his exes.”

That was exactly what Grigor said to her at brunch two days later: “But we can still be friends, right? You’re too cool to never see again.” With how much he sounded like he meant it, it took all of Aryna’s self-control not to wrestle his keys from the valet and drag him back to her apartment.

Somehow, she stayed cool about it and kept his number saved as a favorite in her phone, still under Sexy-comma-Grigor.

II

I won't shut up about —
The WTA.

Aryna arrived at the courts fifteen minutes before the booked time and, when asked the name the reservation was under, said Pegula. With a knowing ah, the woman handed her a laminated pass with her company headshot printed on it, a bottle of Evian, and waved her in the direction of Court 1. The facility—one of the city’s premier private racquet clubs, if her Google search told her right—certainly lived up to its fancy reputation. Just like the Pegulas.

She had met Jessica Pegula before but only in passing: once, at a corporate retreat where she popped in as the opening night guest of honor and stayed until last call at the welcoming drinks, and the other at the company’s annual Christmas gala where she took whispered credit for spiking the eggnog when Aryna asked. Those weren’t uncommon run-ins at a corporation as large as the one they worked for, but her family also owned said mega-corporation, so there was that. Honestly, Aryna didn’t know how Paula would have even shared the same elevator as Jessica Pegula, let alone gotten her number or permission to set her up blind dates, but Paula Badosa worked in mysterious ways.

Jess—no one calls me Jessica, unless I’m in trouble with my parents, she had texted—was already on the court, lacing up her shoes. Spotting Aryna, she gave her a warm smile and a wave with her racket. A Babolat, older model.

“The new one looks intimidating as shit,” Jess said when Aryna asked. “Wilson?”

With a shrug, Aryna said, “It’s what my dad used his whole life.”

“Cool.” Jess smiled and didn’t pry into the past tense. “Warm-up and then a set?”

“How about warm-up and then a full match,” Aryna counter-proposed. “Paula said you are really good, so one set will not take too long.”

Jess laughed, and Aryna liked the way she leaned forward when she did, as if she couldn’t contain the sound. “Well, Paula told me that you kill her most of the time, so I’m not falling for it.”

“Wanna make it a bet?” Aryna raised her eyebrows and stuck out her hand. “Winner buys the first round of drinks after?”

It might have been presumptuous of her to assume they’d like each other enough after the match was over to go to a second location, but by the way Jess’s eyes brightened minutely, she liked Aryna’s game already.

“I’ll take that bet,” Jess said, and shook on it.

Aryna knew who she was up against; that Google search on the racquet club had been preceded by multiple searches on the Pegulas and a little internet stalking about Jess herself. The results yielded the fact that Jess had been a top-ranked junior but ultimately decided to go to university in London and take a position at her parents' company instead. Aryna hoped to ask her about it, over the drinks she’d probably have to buy.

The match’s margins ended up being razor-thing—7-5, 7-5, in Aryna’s favor. At one point, she even pulled off a tweener passing shot that had Jess planting her hands on her hips and shaking her head in amazed disbelief.

“Were you the best player in the world in another life?” Jess called from the net.

“Or you are just out of practice, Miss Junior Champion!” Aryna called back while she caught her breath. For a second, she expected Jess to shoot her down, or get annoyed Aryna had internet-stalked her, or fire her, or a combination of all three.

Instead, a smile tugged at her lips. “You were doing your research?”

“Had to size up the competition.”

After Aryna converted her third match point, they met at the net, sweaty hands clasping together. It shouldn’t have been sexy, especially for a first date, but Aryna couldn’t stop staring at the sweat glistening on Jess’s shoulders and how her chest heaved from the exertion.

“You’re unbelievable,” Jess said as they walked to the bench. “Seriously, do you want to join this club some of my friends and I have? We meet twice a month. It’s really chill, and we always get drinks after.”

Aryna swung her racket bag over her shoulder and considered the offer. Nowadays, she typically only got to play when her work schedule aligned with Paula’s and, on rare occasions, Stef’s. It sounded kind of nice to have a standing group of people to play with. Drinks on the table didn’t hurt either.

“Sure, but we’re still getting drinks now, right?”

Jess chose, of all places, a margarita bar and, by the rules of the bet, bought the first round, then the second. They talked about work, their childhoods, whether tequila shots were cool or corny, and decided on corny before they did the shots anyway. When they made out in the bar’s tiki-lit bathroom, they both tasted like sugar rims and lime.

she’s the best!!! Aryna texted Paula on the way home, in a car Jess had called for her.

told you, Paula texted back, and Aryna didn’t even care how smug it was.

Planning further dates wasn’t exactly easy. Aryna had been promoted just a few weeks ago, and work had her slammed; Jess was equally busy commuting between the London and New York offices. They had dinner at a steakhouse where it was near-impossible to secure a reservation and another dinner at a low-key sushi place with Paula and Stef. That night, Aryna got to meet Jess’s two huge and outrageously fluffy dogs, who slept at her feet all night like a weighted blanket. She also learned Jess’s place had a heated rooftop pool, a gym with a rock climbing wall, and its own tennis court in the basement of the complex.

Aryna won their post-brunch, slightly hungover set 6-3.

It was nice. 

And Jess was nice, almost terrifyingly so. Though she’d never tell Jess it to her face, it shocked Aryna how down-to-earth she was considering it sometimes seemed as if her family held stakes in half the world. She walked her dogs every morning and afternoon, picked up their shit, cooked a pretty great pasta primavera, didn’t get made no matter how many sets she lost, bought all her friends and Aryna’s friends the first round at whatever bar or club they went to, also called the car to bring Aryna home—no matter what home she was going to—and she was just kind, deep down in the core of her. Again, not that she’d tell Jess, but it overwhelmed Aryna just how kind she was, same as how Grigor’s cool often threatened to throw her off center. Aryna didn’t always know how to do much more than tread water.

“Do you think you are not a nice person?” Paula waved her wrist in Aryna’s direction, the matching charm bracelet Aryna had gotten her for her last birthday jingling there. “Because whoever has made you believe that, I will kill them.”

“Nice isn’t just buying people things.” Aryna sank deeper into the couch and withheld a sigh. “I don’t know. Sometimes, like with Grigor, I just feel like I can’t relax. I want to impress her, all the time.”

“She is impressed by you,” Paula pointed out. “She is always talking about how you are beating her when you play tennis together.”

“Is that all though?” Aryna wondered.

Paula gave her a look that screamed unimpressed. “She definitely also thinks you’re hot.”

“I want us to fit, but…” Aryna let the sigh go free. “I think I want it more than we actually do fit, you know? Does that make sense?”

Stefanos, strolling into the kitchen in nothing but a pair of track pants and a towel wrapped around his hair, slipped himself into the conversation. “I think it does. You cannot want yourself into a dynamic that fits perfectly. It only means you will try to change yourself in the long run.”

“Huh.” Aryna was never sure what to say when Stefanos came out with something wise.

“And you do not need to change,” Stefanos declared. Rummaging through the fridge, he pulled out one of Aryna’s special yogurts and stripped the lid off it before she could object. Around a spoonful of yogurt, he continued, “You’re funny, and exciting, and cool, and one of the best people to hang out with I know. Anyone will be lucky to go on a date with you in the future.”

“Exactly.” Paula wound her arms around Aryna, hardly giving her room to breathe. “It doesn’t have to be the super rich and nice daughter of our boss.”

“Oh, you’re breaking up with Jess?” Stefanos frowned down at his yogurt cup. “I’m going to miss the rooftop pool.”

“I will be sure to tell her that.”

Aryna blew a piece of hair from the corner of the mouth, mashed there from how her cheek had been pillowed against Paula’s shoulder. She waited until Stef had disappeared back down the hall to ask, “So, he lives here now, doesn’t he?”

Paula forced Aryna’s head back on her shoulder and wound her octopus arms and legs around her before answering, “I was really hoping Jess would keep you distracted for just one more week.”

Actually, the giveaway had been two weeks ago when Paula had roped Aryna into helping build a new, suspiciously-long king-sized bed that she had to order from a specialty American website. A new print had been hanging over the bed, a photograph of an oceanscape obviously taken in Greece. Paula hadn’t been to Greece—at least not yet.

“It’s for real then,” Aryna asked, as if it hadn’t been for the last eleven months.

“For real,” Paula confirmed with a cheesy look on her face only Stefanos brought out. The look tempered when she asked, “And you’re okay with all this?”

A couple of months ago, Aryna wouldn’t have been, but Stef had a way of growing on a person through excessive exposure. Like a bacterial fungus, probably. He had moped only a little bit when she broke up with Grigor, and now he was hyping her up with almost as much enthusiasm as Paula. Having a personal cheerleading squad to come home to after a failed date had few downsides she could think of. Plus, it didn’t seem like Paula had plans to kick her out of the apartment any time soon. Nothing was ending—well, again, not yet.

“I’m okay,” Aryna confirmed. “But I am stealing his shampoo, like, all the time.”

“Oh, obviously.”

The next morning, she drafted an email to their landlord asking to add a third person to their lease and saw she had an invitation waiting from Jess. Sent last night just before midnight, after they had ended things. It looked like Jess still wanted her to join her bi-monthly tennis club. Aryna hit accept and added the date but not-a-date to her calendar.

III

You should not go out with me if —
You take yourself too seriously.

Taylor Fritz was not a friend of Stefanos’s but a friend of their coworker Holger’s on-again boyfriend, Casper, which meant he was probably going to be the boring kind of hot and the hot kind of boring.

He showed up ten minutes early to pick her up and spent the time waiting for Aryna to finish her hair chatting with Stefanos in the kitchen. His accent was unlike any Aryna had heard, flat and fried but soothing in an inexplicable way. It made it sound like he and Stefanos were volleying questions back and forth, every sentence out of their mouths ending with a confused and lingering question mark. Aryna swooped in to rescue him just as Stefanos was whipping out his photography Instagram account.

They ended up at one of Aryna’s favorite restaurants in Chelsea—points for doing his research, she texted Paula—only to discover the restaurant had no record of their reservation. Wait time without a reservation? The host pulled a bitchy face and told them not to hold their breaths as he added them to the waitlist.

“Like, I swear I made this reservation last week and called this morning to confirm. They said they had it,” Taylor insisted. You would have thought he had kicked off the apocalypse by how stressed out he was. “I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Aryna said, for the fifth time since they left the restaurant. “It’s good food, but not like the best ever. And the people who work there…” She feigned gagging.

“Right? Did you see the way that guy looked at us?”

Taylor smiled at her in relief. He had a good smile when he wasn’t forcing it, sweet, and shy, and a little tired. Aryna liked that, even in heels, she had to tilt her chin to see it in full.

They wandered aimlessly down the street, chatting about nothing and occasionally stopping to read another restaurant’s menu. Most places they passed either had clots of people outside clearly waiting for tables or a packed house inside, not even a single seat free at the bar. Just as Aryna thought to call it a night and reschedule, they pulled up beside a Chipotle.

Taylor glanced at her, his eyebrows raised.

“Seriously?” Aryna asked, not sure how well her make-up would hold up under the chain’s fluorescents. But her stomach picked that moment to growl, and Taylor had such an earnest look on his face, determined not to let the date end in a fizzle. “Yeah, why the hell not?”

Inside, they joined a sparse line of people, and it was then Aryna had to confess, “I’ve never had Chipotle before.”

“What, really?” Taylor sounded genuinely shocked by this revelation. “Never?”

Aryna shook her head. “So, you will have to tell me what is good.”

“Man, there’s pressure now.” Taylor scratched at the back of his head and shot her another one of his sweet, self-deprecating smiles. “Just a warning, my order is, like, kind of boring. Frances—my best friend, he makes fun of me all the time for it.”

“Just point me to whatever is kind of spicy, and we’ll be okay,” Aryna said, looping her arm through his and pulling him up the line.

True to his word, Taylor’s order did look pretty boring. Green mush was what Aryna dubbed it, which had Taylor laughing hard and promising her that she and Frances would get along great. Aryna’s own bowl had more heat and crunch to it, and it could have been her hunger talking but she swore it tasted better than the tiny portions at her preferred restaurant would have.

The stress of a first date melted away once they were shoving their faces full of cheap food and Aryna had kicked her heels off. Taylor let her prop her feet on his chair and didn’t mind whenever she nudged her toes against his thigh. The whole thing was normal and relaxing, the way a joy ride in a Lamborghini or a bet-driven tennis match wasn’t. Aryna didn’t hesitate to say yes when Taylor asked if she wanted to hang out again.

Being with Taylor felt like getting to wear her favorite sweats every day. It was easy, casual, comfortable. He got along with all her friends, and she had a great time with his (all much bigger personalities and who went shot-for-shot with her in a bar and on a basketball court). He had two cats—one named Ashe and the other named Roddick—who loved to curl up on her lap and watch house hunting shows with her while Taylor cooked them steaks in the kitchen. Taylor was just as cool with spending a night in as he was going out; in most things, he just wanted to follow her lead.

“I like him.”

She liked the color of geranium pink she had chosen for her nails, too, but it had looked more vibrant in the store.

The baby blue of Paula’s nails stood out much better. She went to dip the brush back into the bottle and missed, smearing a dot of baby blue on the couch. Paula cringed and began rubbing the stain in with the pad of her thumb, briefly glancing over at Aryna to prompt, “But?”

“And the sex, it’s good,” Aryna hedged, not an answer to the question.

“But?” Paula repeated.

“I don’t think we fit. He is too…”

“American?”

“Maybe,” Aryna admitted. “He is just so chill.”

“American,” Paula repeated, this time with a period. She gave up on the polish stain and returned to finishing her pinkie nail.

“But also anxious about everything,” Aryna added. Someone up in the sky had flipped too many switches when fine-tuning Taylor Fritz’s brain, and she’d bet he’d agree. “It’s really weird”—she paused, wondering at the non-committal frown on Paula’s face—“right?”

The thing was, she didn’t necessarily trust herself anymore. Her problem with Grigor and Jess had been she couldn’t relax enough around them, and now her problem with Taylor was he made her feel too relaxed. Nothing was a challenge. But what if good, long-term relationships were supposed to be sort of boring? She and Taylor could have hit it off so well they skipped about a year’s worth of steps and stupid excitement.

“If you think it’s weird…” Paula trailed off with a shrug. She then rose onto her knees on the couch and peeked over her shoulder, even though Stefanos had gone out for a boys’ night with Grigor and Matteo two hours ago. Once she decided the coast was clear, she leaned and whispered, “Want to hear something crazy?”

Aryna leaned in to mirror her. “Of course.”

“I think Stef will propose soon,” Paula said. In all of three seconds, a thrilled smile overtook her entire face. “I saw a box in his drawer.”

A ring box hidden in the back of a sock drawer—so cliche and trademark Stefanos. And still, Aryna couldn’t help but get caught up in Paula’s overwhelming joy. Wet nails and all, she threw her arms around her and held on.

“You are going to be the most beautiful bride,” Aryna told her. “And Stef, he will also be there.”

“You have to save the jokes now for your maid of honor speech.”

Aryna grinned. “Oh, I have plenty saved up.”

After a few more dates, she and Taylor decided to end things on mutual terms. “But Ben and Frances would kill me if I didn’t keep inviting you to Shots and Shots night,” Taylor said. She promised she’d not miss it.

“And when we see each other, tell me your cats miss me even if they don’t,” was her last request.

Taylor laughed, and Aryna knew she’d miss the easygoing sound of it. “Yeah, I can definitely do that.”

IV

I'll brag to you to my friends if—
We always make each other laugh.

By now, Aryna had stopped asking how Paula knew all these hot singles in their area. (Okay, once she might have asked, “Are you keeping a list for just in case,” and Stefanos pretended to find that funny.) Since Taylor, there had been a series of one-hit no-wonder dates: with Hubi, who had been nice but boring; with Karolina, who had been cool but only in town for the night; with Alejandro, who was funny but flaky. Paula promised her Elena would be different.

They decided to meet at Hampstead Heath for a park date, already a plus in Aryna’s book. She recognized Elena immediately, despite Paula refusing to show her any pictures. (“Don’t worry, she is your type: tall.”) Elena stood aways off from the loose pockets of families and couples milling about along the heath, gazing out at the Thames with a calm, contemplative expression on her face, She had her blonde hair braided in a swinging ponytail popping out from a New York baseball cap, and she gave Aryna a quiet smile as she walked up to her.

“Aryna?”

Of course Paula had given her pictures. “That’s me,” Aryna replied and resisted throwing in a pair of jazzy hands. “Does Paula set you up on dates often, too?”

Elena laughed softly but easily. “No, no, this is my first time. She told me you will be funny.”

Aryna rolled her eyes inwardly. “So, she really set me up.”

Again, Elena laughed, and Aryna felt herself growing more relaxed. “No, I think she is going to be right.”

Early in their walk, Aryna learned that Elena and Paula had met at the gym and become work-out buddies over the last few months. They did classes together and everything. “She says you are too intense,” Elena confided when Aryna expressed her (mostly exaggerated) outrage. “But I can be intense also.”

“You are better hiding it than me,” Aryna said. She was bad at hiding a lot of things, like how distracted she kept getting whenever she looked directly at Elena. Her face seemed to glow in the mid-morning light. The apples of her cheeks had a flush, and Aryna badly wanted to know if that flush was because of her. “You will have to teach me.”

Another airy laugh from Elena—Aryna would have to be careful, or she’d become addicted to making her laugh.

“You will have to teach me something, too, so it’s fair,” Elena said.

“Like a trade?” After a couple of seconds of brainstorming, Aryna suggested, “Do you have TikTok?”

Elena hid her face in her hands, both as a reflex and to contain her laughter. “Anything but that. I am not good on video.”

Aryna had trouble believing that could be true, but agreed to a photography lesson instead. The first photo Elena took was on Aryna’s phone, one of her posing in front of the glass windows of Kenwood House. On the way home, Aryna posted the photo to Instagram with a simple emoji sun as the caption.

Things with Elena—just like things with Grigor, Jess, and Taylor—were easy. She wasn’t a texter the way the other three were: no good morning or good nights texts, no article links, no check-ins. Almost always, Aryna kicked off their conversations and suggested their next date. “It’s nice getting to be the one to decide things sometimes,” she told Paula. Less worry she was failing in some way, or she was just someone along for the ride.

She did wonder how much Elena thought about her when they weren’t together, and then felt guilty when she realized she had gone a whole day not thinking about Elena once. On one of their lunch hours, Holger kept trying to convince her she had a major problem on her hands: “I would break-up with Casper if I thought he wasn’t thinking about me all day.” But Holger was also twenty-two and overdramatic, and hadn’t learned yet adults were supposed to be independent and thinking about things other than their hot blonde significant others.

Still, she wondered.

On a Friday night when she would have been settling in for a Tennis Channel and chill night with Taylor or have been at a classy dive bar with Jess, Aryna had the apartment to herself and was debating whether or not it was too late to invite Elena over. She hadn’t even reached for her phone when Paula and Stef burst into the apartment with two bottles of champagne and a big rock on Paula’s finger.

Tell them congratulations from me! was what Elena replied the morning after. Hungover from the champagne, Aryna texted her the details for an engagement party that was three weeks away, instead of something like are you doing anything tonight?

The Tsitsipas and Badosa families did throw one hell of a joint party. They rented out a Mediterranean restaurant and filled it with all Aryna’s favorite people in the world. As the maid of honor—a position that had been bestowed on her through blubbery, champagne tears—Aryna’s only job for the evening was ensuring the hired photographer got a picture of everyone. The result was Aryna herself ended up in an awful lot of the photos.

“You are not the bride, yes?” the photographer’s assistant asked after a certain point, and Ons and Sara sure got a kick out of that.

“He does not know there would be no wedding, because you would have killed poor Stefanos by now,” Ons said, out of earshot of the Tsitsipas family and the photographer’s assistant. “And you have a beautiful new girlfriend.”

Aryna’s traitorous ears heard an emphasis on new.

“I did not even know you broke up with the tall American man before we come here,” Sara said, shaking her head aggrieved. “Jasmine tells me nothing.”

“I told you,” Jasmine insisted, her face scrunched in faked annoyance. Turning to Aryna, she asked, “And everything is good? You are happy?”

That was always what mattered most to Jasmine: happiness. Hers, Sara’s, her friends. She and Ons made quite the happiness tag team when together, and under their kind scrutiny, Aryna felt strangely caught out. She was happy. She had a great job, a great group of friends, a vibrant city to live in, so much to look forward to, and a kind, sweet, lovely girlfriend, which was what Jasmine was actually asking about. Did her relationship with Elena make her happy?

“Yeah, of course,” Aryna answered, searching for Elena in the crowded restaurant. What did it say exactly that they hadn’t seen each other in over twenty minutes, and Elena hardly knew anyone here? “We’re good, it’s good.”

“Yes, but do you…” Sara interlocked her fingers and gestured toward Aryna emphatically.

“I don’t”—Aryna mirrored Sara’s interlocked hands—“and tell,” she finished and raised her eyebrows suggestively.

“Eh, this is a family event,” Ons joked, though it was emphatically not. At the bar, Apostolos Tsitsipas was on his fifth toast, and most people had stopped listening by then. The Badosas were currently ushering in a five-piece band and demanding everyone be ready to dance.

Jasmine, barely suppressing her giggles, swatted Aryna’s wrist and then Sara’s. “You are both—”

“I mean fit!” Sara protested, grabbing her girlfriend’s hand mid-swat and intertwining their fingers. “Do you fit together? She just seems…”

“Wonderful,” Jasmine interrupted quickly. “But quiet, I guess?”

Aryna raised her eyebrows again. “I am not quiet?”

None of them could keep together at that. As they tried to calm down and not draw the attention of everyone in the vicinity, Aryna found her eyes drifting around the room again. She finally found Elena in the crowd, standing in a back corner and in awkward conversation with Casper Ruud. It was easy to see Elena would not want to stay for dancing, and Aryna didn’t want to force her to stay simply because it was less fun dancing alone.

“Don’t opposites attract or something?” Aryna asked with a genuine question mark.

“Sometimes,” Ons said kindly. “You know better than us.”

Aryna ducked her head to rest it on Ons’s shoulder, just for a minute. “I wish that were true,” she bemoaned. In actuality, she never felt like she knew less about dating. Over a year into this blind-date merry-go-round and Aryna had begun to feel like the Goldilocks of relationships: nothing seemed to work just right.

If there was such a thing as too similar, there had to be such a thing as too opposite. Aryna liked Elena, so much, but she also had to admit Holger might have a point: was the relationship worth it if the other person was always a second thought?

Elena did leave before dancing, and Aryna stayed until last call. She and Paula helped get Mama and Papa Badosa back to their hotel, and then on the ride back to their apartment, she told her that she and Elena had broken up.

“At my engagement party?” Paula asked with a melodramatic gasp. “Will you get divorced at my wedding?”

“We are going to stay friends, so now I can come to the gym with you,” Aryna said, poking Paula in the side.

Paula laughed herself into a yawn and tipped her head onto Aryna’s shoulder. “There is someone amazing out there for you. I know.”

“I know, too.”

Aryna found herself not as down as she thought she’d be. Having a bunch of amazing someones by her side tended to dull even the worst heartache.

V

My BFF's take on why you should date me —
She’s a fucking piece.

The club was packed by the time she arrived. Sticky, over-cologned bodies were everywhere, pressed into booths, monopolizing the bar, and grinding it up on the dance floor. Aryna decided against checking her jacket and kept her eyes glued to her phone.

As she had been stepping off the train, a delayed text from Paula popped up apologizing that she and Stef would be late. Dinner had gone long, and apparently Stef had gotten into an argument with one of his coworkers, and all of it had Aryna thinking she’d be better off texting back to say forget it. She could meet the latest amazing, gorgeous, sweetheart of a friend Paula and Stef were trying to marry her off to some other time.

But according to Stef, this particular amazing, gorgeous, sweet friend was extra special. So special, he’d not have set her up with just anyone. As Stef told it, they had known each other since they were small kids (or, since he was a small kid and she was the nicest girl in the neighborhood), and she finally decided to move to London after years of pestering. What Aryna hadn’t said but should have: wouldn’t this girl want to experience the city for herself first before immediately being shackled to her childhood friend’s fiancée’s best friend?

This had to be the friend’s way of humoring Stef. (And Stefanos Tsitsipas needed a fuck ton of humoring.) She’d go on one double date, say how great it was to meet Aryna to her face, and later give some vague excuse to Stefanos about why it wouldn’t work out. Really, Aryna had every reason to cancel. She was saving everyone from heartache and headaches in the long run.

i think i’m heading—Eyes flicking up mid-draft, Aryna spotted a woman standing alone at the bar. Everything about her was noticeable—from her sleek sleeveless dress to the tone of her biceps to how the golden strands in her hair glimmered under the club lights—but that wasn’t why Aryna couldn’t stop staring. Okay, not the only reasons.

She looked so familiar. Aryna could have sworn they had met somewhere before. As the woman glanced around, hands drumming idly on the bartop, she caught Aryna in the act of staring. A memory swam up of those brown eyes fastening onto her, but the exact time and place evaded her. The woman tilted her head towards the empty space beside her, an unspoken invitation.

As soon as Aryna made it to the bar, the woman asked, “Do I know you?”

“Great first line,” Aryna said, even though she had been thinking the exact same thing.

“You just look so familiar, it’s amazing” she said, just before breaking into a brilliant smile. If they had met before, Aryna was kicking herself now for forgetting. “That would be crazy, though. I just moved here, I swear, three days ago.”

A ping went off at the back of Aryna’s brain, like she had been given a clue to why this woman seemed so familiar, but she’d prefer talking to her rather than interrogating her, so she ignored it. “Oh, huge mistake.”

“Really?” The woman’s smile only widened. “Is London that bad?

“How much time do you have right now, and what are you drinking?” Aryna asked, noticing she didn’t have a glass in front of her.

“I am supposed to be waiting for friends,” the woman said, and Aryna’s mood took an immediate nosedive. Then, the woman shrugged. “But he’s always late anyway.”

“Same with mine.” Aryna waved down a bartender, not daring to let the opportunity slip by. “Only fair to start without them.”

Halfway through an espresso martini and a passion fruit margarita, they were still finding things to rib their friends over. Aryna had forgotten she was supposed to have texted Paula and then missed a subsequent three texts from her saying they had finally arrived and managed to swipe a table from some drunk university students.

“One second, I’ll be right back,” Aryna said and left her margarita behind to prove it.

Once she found the table, she saw Paula and Stef had brought along some guests—the coworker Stef was always whining about, Medvedev, and their mediating friend, Andrey. The childhood friend was nowhere to be seen.

“Hey,” Aryna called over the music. “I know this sounds crazy, but I actually think I met—”

“Maria!”

Stef’s shout and aggressive arm-waving cut Aryna off mid-sentence. She glanced over her shoulder. Weaving through the dense packs of people, the woman from the bar was impressively balancing her half-finished espresso martini and a fresh martini in one hand and two passion fruit margaritas in the other. As soon as she was within reaching distance, Aryna took the two margaritas from her, drained the one she had left at the bar, and hoped the dim light hid her furious blush.

“Maria,” the woman said with a grin, extending her now-free hand. “I knew I recognized you from somewhere.”

Somewhere turned out to be Stef and Paula’s engagement party. Paula had photographic evidence: a shot of Maria, Ons, Paula, Elena, and Aryna all smiling in a line-up, arms around each other. Aryna still couldn’t remember being introduced to her, so obviously this had to be Stef’s fault somehow.

“What was all that about having met someone?” Paula asked sometime later, much too smugly for Aryna’s liking.

Aryna, very maturely, stuck her tongue out at her before going back to asking Maria about her favorite beaches in Greece. By the end of the night, Stefanos and Medvedev had gotten into three more arguments, Paula had cut off Andrey twice, and Aryna had a date—just for two, thank you—for next Friday night. Hard to tell who was more thrilled: her, Maria, or Stefanos.

That instant burst of chemistry Aryna felt at the bar didn’t fade in the first month, or the second, or the third. Their interests matched up perfectly: gym, shopping, tennis, great food, great sex, more shopping, repeat. Aryna didn’t have to worry about Maria warming up to Paula and Stefanos, because she had known Stef first and loved Paula almost as much as Aryna did. They helped Paula look through five-hundred different bridal magazines, bribed their way into cake tastings, and pushed them into finally setting a date. When Aryna started getting fed up with just how much of her apartment had been taken over by fabric samples and photography look-books, Maria had a bold suggestion.

“Just move in with me.”

“You don’t think…” Aryna stopped herself. Why not move in with Maria? They had been together almost six months, her apartment wasn’t much farther from Aryna’s office, she could give Paula the space with Stef she hadn’t asked for but must want by now, and it all made sense, didn’t it? “Yeah, let’s do it.”

Paula was less sure: “You don’t have to leave. You found this apartment.”

“We found this apartment.”

Another angle: “And it’s fast, isn’t it?”

“Stef proposed after, like, a year,” Aryna said with an eye roll. “I want to go for it. I want to take a risk.”

“I guess I’m just sad.” Paula glanced around the room, at all of Aryna’s things stuffed in overflowing boxes. “An era is over.”

Aryna opened her arms, and Paula walked right into them, as they had done thousands of times before. She’d really miss all the silly little things, like bickering about who had left hair in the shower drain when it was both of them (and they’d blame it on Stef) and their bi-weekly Whine and Wine Wednesdays. Paula had been the best person to come home to over the last few years, and part of Aryna wanted to be the third wheel of Stef and Paula’s bicycle forever. It was safe, comfortable—if not perpetually unbalanced.

“You will always have a bed here,” Paula assured her. “The new couch Stef and I ordered is long enough for him to sleep on.”

Months later, Aryna would think to ask if Paula was some kind of psychic. “Can I just sleep over here,” became a common refrain whenever Aryna burst into her old apartment (she, of course, got to keep a spare key) to give Paula the lowdown of what new argument she and Maria had gotten into.

Some people were meant to be friends, not lovers; Aryna learned that lesson with Paula, and then Grigor, and Jess, and Taylor, and Elena. And it seemed some people who were meant to be lovers were not meant to be roommates. She and Maria had different everything: sleep schedules, cleaning habits, beliefs when it came to volume. Almost every single domestic task, no matter how small, devolved into a fight. How often to water the plants and how much water to give them led to a week-long stand-off where Paula and Stefanos refused to pick sides and eventually convinced them to get rid of the plants altogether. At least Aryna can still visit Venus Flytrap Williams on weekends.

The make-up sex was fantastic, but it happened less and less as the fights grew pettier and pettier. She still liked going out to dinner with Maria but hated when they tried cooking together, and she still loved when Maria grabbed her hand while they were admiring a window display but despised how they couldn’t even agree on how to clean their own windows at home.

“I don’t want to end up hating you,” Aryna confessed, staring up at their ceiling.

Lying next to her in bed, Maria said, “I don’t want to end up hating you either.”

Maria helped her book the movers the next day. When to schedule their arrival was the last stupid fight they had, but it ended at the bar down the block, laughing over a margarita and espresso martini.

+ I

The best way to ask me out is—
Just shoot your shot.

“What about Qinwen Zheng in International Marketing?”

“Isn’t she, like, a part-time model?” Vaguely, Aryna recalled once passing a newsstand on the way to the office and doing a double-take to see Qinwen in a premium vodka advert. “And dating the CFO’s daughter?”

“Wait”—Paula dropped the pair of jeans she had been admiring—“That Emma? I thought she was dating the Emma in Client Relations.”

Aryna threw up an arm, thumping it against an open suitcase lid. “Well, either way.”

“Jannik has this really hot friend,” Paula offered. “If you’re into young British guys.”

Was this what it had come to—blind dates with friends of Jannik Sinner? 

“No, absolutely not. No more blind dates.” Aryna yanked a random shirt from one of the six suitcases surrounding them and began aggressively unfolding and refolding it. “Clearly I am meant to be alone. I will just get old and die all by myself in this apartment. Maybe even I’ll get a cat.”

She could text Taylor to ask about breeds. He had gotten a new cat recently to go with the new influencer girlfriend who had over half a million subscribers across YouTube and TikTok. At their last rec tennis match, Jess had casually name-dropped a boyfriend. She hadn’t been in touch with Elena in the last month, but Aryna would bet she had someone new. When she had last gone out with Paula and Stef, they had run into Grigor at the club and watched him leave with a striking brunette on his arm. After an unhealthy bit of social media stalking, Aryna discovered the brunette was an actress with blockbuster credits and eight million Instagram followers. She couldn’t catch a break.

Ons and her husband were having a baby. Dasha had gotten engaged. Carlos and Jannik were moving in together. And in six months from now, her best friend would be married.

Aryna wasn’t bitter about any of it, but she couldn’t help feeling like she was watching the big, photograph-album moments of her friends’ lives happen in real time, and all the while her album was filled with nothing but blank pages.

“You are not getting a cat, and you are not dying alone,” Paula declared.

“A dog then.”

Paula reached over to push Aryna’s head but missed. Frowning, she said, “You will find someone.”

“Who?” Aryna asked, and genuinely meant it. “I date all these great people, and it never works out. Either they are so cool, they intimidate me, or I feel like they’re too independent and I am too needy, or they seem embarrassed by me, or—well, clearly, I am the problem.”

“You are not the problem,” Paula objected vehemently. “You’re just figuring out what you want. It’s—it’s—trial and error!”

“Too much error.”

“Okay, so, they have to be cool like Grigor but not too cool, kind like Jess but not an intimidating kind of kind, independent like Elena but you need to be able to tell they need you, not so chill like Taylor but chill enough they’re not going to be embarrassed by you in public, and—”

“Ugh, stop.” Aryna collapsed into the sea of her unpacked clothes and wished she could shrivel up and die there. “Maybe Maria was the one. I should text—”

“Absolutely not.” Paula nabbed Aryna’s phone and tossed it out of reach. “Stef and I are done hearing about whatever new fight you’re having every other week. She is not the one.”

“Then who is?” Aryna asked. “This person you’re describing, they don’t exist.”

“Maybe they do…” Paula shrugged. “Somewhere.”

Aryna huffed. Somewhere out there, like in Melbourne or Paris or Manhattan. All places she’d be lucky to visit for a week but never for enough time to scour the city in search of Mr. or Ms. Right.

Paula finished folding the sweater on her lap and put it aside. Then she scooted around the piles to lay down beside Aryna. “Or…” she began, slipping a hand into Aryna’s, “Your one is not going to be cool, or chill, or very independent, or—”

“Stop describing Stef.”

Paula swatted her shoulder, but had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. “What I mean,” she said, tightening her hold on Aryna’s hand, “what you think is perfect for you sometimes isn’t, right?”

Over the next hour and a half, they managed to organize most of Aryna’s closet before Paula had to meet Stef for dinner. Aryna walked her out and then loitered on the sidewalk outside of her new building, really taking in the neighborhood for the first time. Finding the apartment and moving in had been a whirlwind, mostly spearheaded by Paula who had transformed into a realtor and interior designer overnight when Aryna had, half-jokingly, threatened to move to Miami.

The neighborhood was nice, quieter than the one before and populated primarily with families rather than drunk twentysomethings. A small park sat in the center of the square, equipped with a wooden playground and a crop of shady trees. Remembering how empty her apartment would be once she went back up, Aryna crossed the street instead and entered the park.

She took the first free bench she found. On the bench beside hers, there was a woman who looked to be on her lunch break. She was balancing eating a sandwich, sipping from a water bottle, and reading the massive book on her lap. Despite Aryna’s staring, she didn’t glance her way.

The rest of the park was buzzing with families and couples enjoying the cool but sunny autumn day. A young mom waited at the bottom of the slide for her son to scoot down. Under one of the shady trees, a couple were entangled on a quilted picnic blanket, sharing a pair of wired headphones. It was gag-inducing, and adorable, and Aryna hated everything about it, except that she wanted to know exactly what they were listening to, how they met, and if that shiny opal ring on the girl’s left finger was an engagement ring.

“Ugh!” Aryna hadn’t realized the groan had escaped her until she felt the eyes of the woman on the next-door bench snap to her.

“Are, uh…” The woman placed her sandwich carefully back on the deli paper by her thigh. “Are you okay?”

The woman had a serious look on her face, not pitying but a touch unsure she should be asking. Her eyes flit across Aryna’s face and then dart away, but she kept her body angled toward Aryna, clearly committed to hearing the answer.

“Honestly?” The couple were now holding hands on the blanket, and another couple had walked into the park arm-and-arm, and she had so much unpacking to do still in a one-bedroom apartment she would rather not have had to rent, and this woman probably expected to hear Aryna brush her off—I’m fine, whatever, leave me alone—but she did ask. Why shouldn’t Aryna actually answer? “Do you ever see all these happy in-love people and just hate them so much? And that means sometimes you hate your best friend so much, even though you’re happy for her and her dumb fiancé, but you would prefer they be happy somewhere far away from you, except…”

“They are your best friend,” the woman supplied quietly after Aryna had run out of breath.

“Yes, exactly!” They both winced at how loud Aryna said it. “Sorry—it hasn’t been my day…or week…”

“Or month, or even your year?” The woman burst into a smile, as if they were both in on an inside joke. Aryna tilted her head, trying to understand, and the woman’s smile dropped. “Oh, uhm, I thought you were maybe quoting Friends? The, uh, the theme song goes like that.”

Aryna hadn’t seen much of Friends—she and Paula were more Selling Sunset kind of girls—but she knew enough about the show to think this woman wasn’t far-off quoting the theme song. It hadn’t been Aryna’s day, week, month, or year.

“I just broke up with someone,” she confided, since she was on a roll now and might as well keep going. “We sort of broke up a lot of times, but this time it’s real, you know? And we were living together, so that makes it weirder.”

“Oh, uh—sorry?”

“And it’s terrible because she’s friends with my best friend’s fiancé, so I will have to see her at the wedding and if she shows up with a hot date and I have no one…” Aryna sighed. “You know?”

“You can do what they do in books,” the woman said, her hands fluttering over the one in her lap. “You ask someone to pretend to be your date, and they act like they are madly in love with you.”

Aryna raised her eyebrows. “They wouldn’t be madly in love with me already?”

“Usually, they are,” the woman said, laughing. She had a good laugh, breathy and just a little self-conscious.

“Where do I find one of these fake dates?” Aryna asked, scooting further over on her bench until only the two metal armrests separated them.

“Uhm, I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I think in the books it is usually someone you know already.”

Aryna pitched her head back and groaned. “I have dated everyone I know already.”

The woman’s eyes widened.

“Not everyone,” Aryna rushed to amend. “But all my friends, they are either in love already with someone perfect for them, or we tried dating and I’m not perfect enough.”

With a tiny shrug, the woman said, “Or, maybe, they were not perfect for you.”

“You sound like Paula.” Aryna didn’t mean for that to come out sounding as bitter as it did. So, now this woman not only thought Aryna was miserable, lonely, and crazy but a shitty friend, too. Fantastic first impression she was making. “She is the one getting married, and the one who really wants me to find someone. But I have tried everything now, and nothing worked.”

The woman shut her book but not before marking the page with a floral bookmark. A cursive I dangled from the top. “Do you want to find someone perfect for you?” she asked.

That was the question, wasn’t it.

“Paula said…” Aryna rolled her eyes at herself; Paula was coming off sounding like her therapist at this point. “That maybe what I think is perfect for me isn’t. If that makes sense.”

“I think so,” the woman agreed, though with a little crinkle between her brows like she was still turning it over in her head. The crinkle was kind of dorky, same as the big book in her lap, and the “Taylor’s Version” pin Aryna spotted on the strap of her backpack, and her severe middle part. Aryna couldn’t help herself from thinking, cute.

“Do you like weddings?” Aryna asked, out of the blue.

The woman blinked, the crinkle deepening. Cute, Aryna thought again, louder this time. “I’ve never really been to any,” she said with a small shrug, her cheeks flushing. “They seem fun?”

“Are you doing anything on May 23rd?”

“I don’t think so.”

“And you wouldn’t mind going to Barcelona?” Aryna could tell the woman was getting overwhelmed, and quickly added, “Sorry, this is crazy. I totally get it if you told me to—”

“I always wanted to go to Barcelona.”

“—fuck off,” Aryna finished.

They looked at each other and broke into a flurry of giggles. As the laughter subsided, Aryna took out her phone, went to create a new contact, and offered it to the woman. “I’m Aryna, by the way,” she said. “Sabalenka. One of your new neighbors, I think.” She had really just invited someone to her best friend’s wedding without knowing her name.

“Iga.” She typed in her name and number and handed the phone back to Aryna. “I saw you coming out of my building, so, uhm, yeah. Definitely.”

Aryna managed to suppress a blush at the idea that Iga had been checking her out already and immediately sent her a message, so she had her number, too. No risk of forgetting her as soon as they left the park. “It’s a date.”

“A fake date?” Iga asked, her eyes meeting to Aryna before skirting away.

Aryna shook her head and grinned. “No way.”

For a long moment, they looked at each other, smiling and unsure what else to say. Aryna had a million questions she now wanted to ask—when did you move to this neighborhood, what do you do for work, why is that book so huge, are you a reader, do you like reality TV shows or just sitcoms, the bridesmaid dresses for Paula’s wedding are peach, so what complementing color do you think you’d want to wear, what’s your apartment number—but she decided to hit the brakes for now. Something would scare Iga off eventually.

“I should go,” Aryna said, though she hesitated before standing. “If I stay in this park longer, I’ll probably go fully crazy.”

Iga pressed her lips together, suppressing another smile. “That wasn’t fully crazy before?”

Caught off guard, Aryna laughed harder than she had in days, maybe weeks. When she managed to recover some of her cool, she saw Iga looking quietly proud of herself for making Aryna laugh. She really should go before she blew this, but all Aryna wanted to do was sit down again.

“Not even close,” Aryna promised. She took a step backward, still not able to take her eyes off Iga’s smiling face. “I’ll see you.”

“Yeah, around the building,” Iga replied and gave an awkward but endearing little wave. “Bye.”

Aryna made it as far as the edge of the park before stopping to send a message: how about dinner on saturday? as practice for our not-fake date.

She glanced over her shoulder to see Iga beaming down at her phone. A reply came through: Or dinner tonight?

A frantic follow-up landed a split second later: Sorry, unless that’s weird!

Maybe it was weird, and maybe Aryna liked that. Maybe it was sort of perfect.

your place or mine?