Page 75 of The Prime-Time Experiment

Riley looked down at the coffee again. “I expected physical contact to require management.”

Understanding crossed Dee’s face instantly. Riley could see it in the way her expression softened.

“But it doesn’t?” Dee asked quietly.

“Not with him.” A grin spread slowly across Dee’s face, the kind that usually meant Riley was about to become the subject of sustained harassment.

“Oh, you are down bad.”

“I am not.”

“Riley.”

“I am not.”

Dee laughed into her coffee. “You just told me you actively seek out physical contact with him, think about him when he isn’t there, and prefer being closer to him rather than further away. I don’t know what definition you’re working with, but from where I’m sitting, you’re absolutely down bad.”

Riley chose not to engage with that assessment. Unfortunately, Dee showed no signs of moving on. “I cannot believe this,” she said, shaking her head.

“What?”

“I genuinely spent years assuming I would be the first one of us to have a functioning love life.”

“This is not a love life, it is a clearly defined arrangement.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“There are established parameters.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Riley narrowed her eyes. Dee took another sip of coffee, looking entirely unbothered. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

Riley briefly considered explaining, once again, that labels without sufficient supporting evidence were logically unsound. Experience suggested it would accomplish nothing. Dee already reached her conclusion and appeared perfectly content to remain there.

The discussion ended for a much simpler reason. Her phone buzzed against the table. The vibration cut cleanly through the layered sounds of the café and immediately pulled Riley’s attention downward.

Declan.

Dee’s head snapped back up so fast it was almost violent. “Oh my god,” she whispered, eyes wide. “Speak of the devil.”

Riley glanced at her briefly before looking back at the screen. The reaction seemed disproportionate, Declan called her regularly. There was nothing inherently unusual about seeing his name appear on her phone.

And yet her thumb lingered above the screen for a fraction longer than necessary before she accepted the call.

“Hello.”

“Hey, Riles.” The response came easily. His voice settled comfortably into her awareness, warm and familiar in a way she had begun to recognise as distinct from simple predictability. There were many consistent things in Riley’s life. Very few of them altered her internal state simply by existing.

Declan, increasingly, seemed to be one of them.

“I was going to wait until Monday,” he said, sounding faintly amused with himself. “That was the plan.” Riley listened. “But I keep thinking about you, so apparently that didn’t last very long.”

Her fingers adjusted slightly around the phone. Across the table, Dee made a strangled noise and immediately covered her mouth with both hands.

Riley ignored her. “Is everything okay?”

“Of course. Actually,” Declan said, and there was a subtle shift in his tone that drew her attention immediately, “there was something I wanted to ask you.”