Page 77 of The Prime-Time Experiment

Riley glanced down at the coffee in front of her. “Okay.”

“Bye, Riles.”

“Goodbye, Declan.”

Neither of them hung up immediately. The silence lingered for a second longer than it probably needed to before the line finally disconnected.

Riley lowered the phone onto the table. When she looked up, Dee was staring at her, her mouth agape in a similar fashion to Munch’s The Scream.

Riley watched her for several seconds, then frowned when she realised Dee wasn’t moving. “Did you hear the part where you were invited as well?”

The question seemed to snap Dee back into her body. “What?”

“You were invited.”

“I know I was invited.”

Dee stared at her for another second before letting out a strangled laugh and dragging both hands down her face. “You said yes.”

Riley blinked. “Yes.”

“No, but you actually said yes.”

The distinction remained unclear. “I am aware.”

Dee looked at her like she had personally chosen to become a different person during the last thirty seconds. “Riley,” she said, leaning forward slightly, “you agreed to go to an AFL charity function.”

“Yes.”

“With Declan.” The grin that spread across Dee’s face was slow enough that Riley had several seconds to become concerned by it. Dee leaned back in her chair. “You do realise this is a date.”

Riley sighed. “There has been no formal agreement regarding relational status.”

The objection barely seemed to register. “Riley, that’s not what makes something a date.”

Riley opened her mouth, prepared to explain why labels without agreed parameters were inherently unreliable, but Dee was already pushing forward. “No, seriously. Think about what just happened. He called you because he was thinking about you, because he wanted to talk to you.”

Riley’s fingers tightened slightly around her cup. “That is not necessarily indicative of—”

“And then he invited you to something important to him.”

“He invited me to a charity event.”

“Exactly.”

Dee pointed at her as though Riley had somehow just proven her argument.

“Something important to him and his family, which he could have attended perfectly well without you. And when you immediately started mentally calculating seventeen different ways the evening could go wrong, he invited me too.”

Unfortunately, the more she replayed the conversation, the harder it became to argue with the underlying observation. Across the table, Dee was watching her with entirely too much satisfaction.

“See?” she said.

“I have not agreed with you.”

“You don’t need to.” When Dee spoke again, the humour had softened. “I am definitely coming, by the way.”

The response left Riley immediately. “I wouldn’t go without you.”