I sat at my desk, lost in thought, staring at Stacy Sinclair.

No, this isn't a flashback to my horny teenage years, this is present day.

I was stuck in the thought that this all started with her. She was the one who had first turned my head to this way of thinking and now I couldn't stop myself. Though I was slightly worried that I was only feeling these feelings towards Evie because the seed had been planted in my mind like some sort of brainwash, I'd recently been connecting a bunch of long lost dots together that made me wonder if I'd just been in denial over my feelings all along.

Stacy looked up and stared back at me. Just like all those years ago in geography class, her hair had fallen over her eye at one side, but unlike those days, I didn't look away in hiding. I continued to watch her. Like a creep.

"Is everything ok?" She finally asked, looking quite uncomfortable.

"I need to ask you something," I said after a while. Though I probably looked and sounded pretty cool and relaxed, I was literally sweating on the inside. Yes that's really a thing.

"What about? Work?"

"Not exactly," I said, rising from my chair and slowly making my way to sit on the side of her desk. "Do you remember your party?"

"Barely."

"You said something about Evelyn," I persevered, ignoring her obvious cringing at her lack of memories.

"Oh god. Was I a bitch? I know you two are friends and I really like her. If I said something daft about her then I definitely didn't mean it!" she panicked.

"Would you just let me finish? Please?" I laughed. Who would have thought I'd ever be the one telling Stacy to stop stammering at me.

"Sorry."

"You mentioned something about her . . . having feelings for me. Or me having feelings for her or something like that. I can't remember exactly what it was but you've got the idea in my head now and I guess I just want to know if you genuinely think that. Does that make sense?"

"I said that?" She scoffed, leaning back in her chair and looking to the ceiling as if the memory would drop down from it at any moment.

"Yeah. Well, I mean basically. I think you used something a little stronger than "have feelings for". If you know what I mean."

Stacy was silent for a while after that before a wicked smile appeared on her face. In all honesty, if I wasn't freaking out about Evie, that smile would definitely have turned me on a little.

"I don't mean to ruin your meltdown but does it really matter what I said about it? Surely you know if you more than have feelings for someone, right?" She teased.

"You've spent time with both of us! You've seen us together and I just want to know if this is all in my head or if . . ." I tailed off, not really sure I knew how to end the sentence.

"If you love her?" Stacy offered, clearly more willing than I was to dive straight in.

I didn't answer with words. Instead I'd contorted my face into an uneasy expression that perfectly conveyed the ridiculous struggle that was going on inside me.

And ridiculous was exactly what it was.

Imagine not knowing if you are in love someone or not. It sounds crazy but I still had to rationalise it. I knew that I did love her. That was a fact. But what was unclear was whether or not it was a soul-mate love or a best friend love. I think we can all agree that there's a pretty big difference! And even then, I needed to figure out if the difference was big enough to take a chance on.

"Look, I'm probably the worst person to ask about relationship stuff. I moved my entire life to a new city with a guy I thought was perfect, but was actually a massive wank. What do I know?" She shrugged. I obviously couldn't see my dumb expression but I could have sworn that Stacy had the exact same one on her face.

"You're a girl! You have insight, right?" I pleaded.

"What are you, twelve? Figure it out for yourself! Fucking hell!" She snapped suddenly, forcing me into a flinch.

I'd never seen her mad before but funnily enough, this was always what I'd pictured the outcome would be if ever I did ask her out in school.

As I looked at her in shock, she seemed to realise what she'd said and immediately her face fell.

"Sorry," She sighed.

"Is everything ok with you? You can talk to me."

"I'm fine; I'm just feeling a little bit shitty. That's all. I'm sorry I took it out on you."

I placed my hand on her shoulder without thinking, hoping to comfort her through whatever she was going through. It was soft. Both Joe and Evie had both constantly reminded me that Stacy had recently went through a break up and although I'd heard them, I hadn't really listened. Now I could see that in fact she really was still struggling with things. I was about to comfort her further when our "moment" was interrupted.

"What's going on here?" Asked Jerry who'd snuck into the office like a ninja.

"Jesus!" I leapt to my feet, spinning to see him just inches from my face.

"What are you doing here Jerry?" Stacy groaned.

"I just couldn't help but see through the office door that you two were getting . . . close. Thought I'd come check it out."

"The door was closed," I pointed out.

"Not all the way," He shrugged.

"We're fine, Jerry. All good," Stacy sighed again. I was glad that she obviously didn't have that much time for Jerry either. It meant that I wasn't just being a dick to him.

"Are you sure? Because you know this workplace is a safe environment. We don't tolerate any forceful behaviour from predators."

"I'm right here," I mumbled.

"Trust me Jerry, Mike is one of the good guys. You don't need to worry about him."

"Ok. I was just checking. You can never be too careful these days."

"You'd think I was like fucking Weinstein," I said to myself as Jerry made his exit, skulking away like a chastised schoolboy.

God damn regulations.

*

Despite the awkwardness of the entire experience, I took Jerry's interruption as a hint to stop pressing Stacy for information that, if she had, she clearly wasn't willing to share with me. She obviously had enough on her plate without adding my nonsensical problems to it.

I'd been ignoring the totally obvious signs that the only way I was going to get answers to these burning questions was to tackle them head on. As you can tell, I was terrified as hell to even open that can of worms but it was inevitable now. Finally getting over my fear of even talking to Stacy had given me a little bit of hope that the upcoming collision course that I was on with Evie wasn't going to be as difficult as I was telling myself it would be.

It was time to sit down with Evelyn and somehow discuss our potential feelings for each other. No Joe, no Stacy. No creepy Jerry. Just the two of us.

As soon as I left work, I called Evie to set up what can only be described as a date.

Fuck.

________________________________________________________________________________

Waaaayhaaaay! Finally a new chapter! Its been a while for several reasons that I wont bore you with but for now I want to address a few things in this chapter.

Firstly, its a bit short but as you can tell by the end, the next one is gonna be huge! I'll say no more on that.

I also feel like the story has lost a bit of humour lately so I wanted to try and add some in, particularly near the start. 

And finally, the parts about Stacy in this are my favourite. She isn't the main character but I want to give a special spotlight to her emotional state. It's been hinted at that she's having a bit of a shitty time so I wanted to properly address that, or at least start to. I'm definitely going to dive deeper into that because as seemingly magical and unattainable as Mike has always seen her, she's really just human like the rest of us. And thats a key point I've always wanted to get across eventually with this story.

Anyway, thats enough of my rambling. Thanks for reading!!