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I laughed out loud, and now the feeling in my chest actually was relief. I could have this. I could keep this. I wouldn’t be able to ruin it by turning it into something more.
I had no idea what we’d text about since I’d taken most of my favorite text topics off the table, but if Hugh was willing to try friendship… well, as he’d said, why not?
Oscar
Don’t tell him I said this, but Frank’s a terrible correspondent. It’s probably the lack of opposable thumbs. But yes, you and I can be text friends. In fact…
Oscar
Hugh
*cry-laugh emoji* Is that a terrazzo marble sink Frank’s lounging in? Who put those tiny cucumber scraps on his eyes?
That was a silly question, so I didn’t bother answering it. Instead, after a brief hesitation, I added:
Oscar
I’d better not find any pics of you and Frank on your TikTok. He is not your HEA, understand?
The dots beside Hugh’s name swirled for a long time.
Hugh
Oh, lord. You saw that, huh? Did it make you break out in romance allergy hives?
Oscar
Something like that.
Hugh
lolol. What are the chances you won’t tease me mercilessly?
Oscar
I’d say… slightly lower than your chance of getting Frank to text you back himself.
* * *
That first afternoon, I’d wondered what the hell I’d find to message Hugh about. I’d been willing to try friendship, yes, but even with my friends, aggressive flirtation was my communication style of choice. With a ban on flirty content, I’d half expected our text chain to become a barren desert with the occasional “Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas” tumbleweed blowing through it.
Instead, it felt like the conversation never stopped.
At first, we exchanged a message every day or so—generally, him saying hello and asking after Frank, and me sending a brief reply after a carefully considered, not-too-eager span of time. Then, a few weeks in, I accidentally sent him a meme about Love Island—a show I’d never watched, for the record—and suddenly, Hugh was bombing me with GIFs and memes, insisting that I was missing the greatest cultural phenomenon of our time. And through some kind of witchcraft or trickery I would never fully understand, I caved and began watching the previous season, and then Bridgerton, and then Heartstopper, sending caustic and jaded comments after every episode and getting Hugh’s heart-eye emojis and long-winded, earnest explanations in reply.
It should have been annoying.
It… was not.
Somehow, by the time Halloween rolled around, my camera roll was filled with images of gooey brownies I’d never eaten, people I’d never met, streets I’d never walked on. I knew far too much about Hugh: that his roommate had an “annoying” habit of bringing home wedding cake that Hugh promptly ate; that he volunteered at an adult training center in Brooklyn taking headshots for resumes and relished the personal connections he made with people there; that he had a sister named Abby in New Jersey, who he was very close to. That his parents had died within months of each other when Hugh was in college, leaving him and Abby with only each other to lean on.
There was something about his lack of family that spoke to me. My own father had left when I was young, and it had wrecked me. I hated that Hugh had lost loving, warm parents. While I’d lost a bigoted bastard who hadn’t thought much of me, he’d adored my mother. After watching her mourn the loss of him for over a decade, I knew firsthand how destructive grief could be.
Apparently, Abby had recently gotten engaged to her boyfriend, which seemed to leave Hugh feeling both happy for her and a little lost. My heart went out to him—so much so, in fact, that I’d actively tried to bring the conversation back to a shallower level. I didn’t want to feel so… whatever it was that Hugh brought out in me.
It was at this juncture that I appointed myself as Hugh’s pre-date wardrobe consultant since the man’s artistic eye ended at his closet door, and he seemed to feel personally responsible for keeping the Gap in business. I told myself it was important, if this text-friendship was going to survive, to remind myself that Hugh was out there doing the dating thing, the same way I was, at least theoretically, still hooking up with guys. The fact that my hookups were less frequent than usual was simply a product of boredom on my part—not to mention the whole slate of Netflix binging I had to keep up with these days—and had nothing to do with Hugh whatsoever.
