Free Web NovelChapter 28: ... A Bad Day
The three dots appeared and disappeared twice before her next message actually landed, and David watched the gap between them like it meant something.
Holly: thank you for not judging me. idk what came over me, just started spilling my guts like that
He read it twice, something in his chest loosening slightly at the tone of it. Not distant. Not clipped. Just — honest, in a way that made the whole thing feel a little less like a countdown to disaster.
David: no need to worry, not really the type to judge people
David: and honestly it wasn’t even that bad
He hit send and immediately second-guessed the second message, wondering if it read as dismissive when he meant it as reassurance. Too late now.
Holly: thanks
David:*yeah
He set the phone down on his knee again, screen dimming slightly, and made himself sit with it. He didn’t want to fill the silence just for the sake of filling it — that felt like the kind of thing that made a person look desperate over text, and if there was one thing he didn’t need Holly reading off him right now, it was desperation.
But the quiet stretched, and stretched, and a minute became several, and David found himself doing the thing he always told himself he wouldn’t do: reading meaning into nothing.
’She’s probably just busy. Doesn’t mean anything.’
He almost believed it. He was still working on believing it when the three dots appeared again, and this time they didn’t vanish.
A moment later, her reply landed — a single emoji, a small smiling face, nothing else attached to it.
He blinked at the screen.
David: what?
He hit send before he’d even fully processed what he was reacting to, and then immediately felt his stomach drop.
’Shit — I forgot. Three minutes. You’re supposed to wait three minutes.’
But she was already typing again, and the reply came fast enough that the rule he’d broken barely had time to matter.
Holly: we are not talking about what happened before we left
David stared at the screen, something between a laugh and a wince pulling at his mouth. He didn’t even have an excuse ready — hadn’t expected her to bring it up so directly, hadn’t prepared for the particular flavor of humiliation currently working its way up the back of his neck.
David: yeah that’s fair, honestly kind of embarrassed about that. wasn’t trying to be weird
He meant it. Mostly. There’d been a version of that moment where he’d wanted to lean into it a little more than he had — wanted to be the kind of smooth that didn’t come naturally to him — but his hand had had other plans, and that particular attempt at charm had ended up somewhere considerably lower than intended.
Her reply came a beat later.
~Holly:liar 😊
~David: no seriously
~Holly: Naan. You’re Eechi.
He typed it fast, then stared at it, because even as he sent it, some part of him registered that it maybe was a lie. Or close enough to one that the distinction didn’t matter much.
He set the phone down again, thinking it through. Was that a real accusation, or was it Holly doing what people sometimes did over text — needling at something just to see if it moved, using humor to cover for whatever she actually felt about it. Because if he thought about it logically, the numbers didn’t lie even if she did.
Her temptation level was climbing. That wasn’t a neutral data point — it meant something, whatever the exact mechanics were behind it. If she found him repulsive, if this whole thing had actually landed badly, the number should have gone down, not up.
Which meant, whatever she was saying with her thumbs right now, some other part of her was saying something else entirely due to the skill.
He sat with the message for a moment, then typed back.
David: don’t worry about it, i know it probably came off kind of weird on my end too
He hit send and waited. Her reply came a moment later.
Holly: so how are we paying you back for last month lol ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com
David: netflix and chill, bill’s on me
Holly: 😂 who was paying before??
David: hey, cut me some slack, i had a lot on my plate freewёbnoνel.com
There was a short pause after that — long enough that David glanced at the ceiling, half-bracing for silence again. Then the three dots reappeared.
Holly: if you really wanna make it up to me there are other ways 🌚
David stared at the moon emoji for a solid three seconds, feeling the exact shape of what she was implying settle in. He wasn’t naive.
He knew what that particular emoji was doing in that particular context, and for a moment he tried, weakly, to talk himself into a more innocent reading of it.
Then the notification blinked into the corner of his vision.
[Name: Holly Houston ]
[Temptation Level: 34%]
He let out a short laugh, alone in his apartment, shaking his head slightly. ’Well. That’s something.’
He wasn’t about to read too far into one percentage point, but it was enough to put a small, stupid grin on his face that he was glad no one was around to see. He typed back the moon emoji, nothing else, and hit send.
David: Really? Like what?🌚
The pause after that one stretched longer.
~Holly: i gotta go, we’ll talk later
~David frowned slightly at his phone. ’Wait, what? We were just getting somewhere.’
~David: everything okay? did i say something wrong
He hit send, doing his best to keep the message casual rather than panicked, even though some low-grade version of panic was exactly what he was managing right now.
~Holly: no no, nothing like that lol,my sister is being annoying, she won’t stop banging on my door
David let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, some of the tension draining out of his shoulders.
~David: ah say no more, sibling problems are universal
~Holly: 😂 fr. she wants to borrow my charger for the 100th time this week
~David: get her one of her own smh
~Holly: that’s what i keep telling her!! anyway i really do have to go before she breaks the door down
~David: go save your door, talk later
~Holly: talk later 😊
He set the phone down against the cushion, screen dimming into darkness, and let his head fall back against the couch.
A slow breath went out of him, and he stretched his arms along the back of the cushions in something close to a victory pose — small, private, entirely unearned in any objective sense, but it felt that way anyway. He hadn’t completely blown it with either of the things weighing on him tonight.
All things considered, it hadn’t been a bad day.
