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Rey needs new friends.
Not better friends, she can’t imagine ones better than the ones she has. It’s just that right now, she wouldn’t mind also having a couple slightly worse friends, only one or two, who cared about her a little less and who didn’t get along with her real friends, enough that she could have any excuse to get out of this. Her people skills are middling at best, and not only does she not like lying to her friends, she’s bad at it. They would probably pretend to believe her, because they’re good people, but they’d feel guilty for pressuring her, and then worst of all, they’d worry.
She can already see the carefully worded text messages in her mind. Just checking on her, and also there’s this mixer downtown and wouldn’t it be nice to get out and meet some new people?
It would not. The reason Rey doesn’t have other friends is she’s happy with the ones she got. Most of the time.
“And it’s no pressure at all,” Rose is saying, probably trying to make up for the too long silence left as Rey struggled to come up with the words that would make this go differently. “You know Jannah and I will always be happy to have you as our third.”
“Same for me and Poe,” Finn adds. “Seriously, we won’t invite him if you don’t want to.”
Rose nods. “We just thought, since Poe and Jannah are both coming, and the bar’s having that promo for dates that night –”
“We didn’t want you to feel left out,” Finn finishes.
Rey presses her lips together. Around them, the busy late afternoon chatter of the coffee shop goes on, but all she notices is the empty space as they wait for her to answer.
It’s not that she hadn’t noticed the longer pauses during their nights out when both her friends got caught up with their partners and left her to scroll on her phone for a minute. She’d just hoped they hadn’t either. She doesn’t begrudge them that time; she’d worry more if they didn’t want to talk to their partners. And she doesn’t feel left out, until they bring it up.
“Seftin’s a great guy,” Finn continues when she doesn’t have anything to say. “He’s in Poe’s department and I’ve met him a few times, really chill. And cheap drinks isn’t a bad deal either.”
“But you don’t have to meet him,” Rose adds quickly. “It can just be the five of us, that’s totally cool. It’s just, if you wanted to meet someone –”
“We’ve got a guy,” Finn concludes.
They pause, watching her. Rey takes a long breath, hoping to calm the racing pulse she’s sure both of them can hear. Anxiety oozes off them, staining the coffee-scented air with the slight edge of sweat. Her muscles tense, base instincts telling her that her friends have noticed danger and she has to either run or protect them. If only her instincts could do something for her social life. Maybe in another couple millenia, her kind will have evolved to take on these modern challenges. In the meantime –
“I’ve already got my own guy,” she blurts out, barely aware of what she’s saying.
Rose and Finn stare at her and blink in almost perfect unison. She’d laugh if her heart wasn’t stuck in her throat. She tries to wipe her palms on her jeans, but she’s not sure it’s an improvement.
Rose recovers first. “That’s great!” she chirps, and Rey almost believes her. “Oh my gosh, wow, that’s really awesome. We didn’t – I mean, no, that’s great, we’re really happy for you, Rey.”
“Right, yeah.” Finn catches up. “Really great, really happy for you. Do we know – or, it doesn’t matter, you don’t have to say. It’s your business, obviously.”
He does his best to hide it, and if she didn’t know him so well, she’d miss it, but she picks up on the pang of disappointment that she’d met someone and hadn’t told him. The faint bitterness to his scent sours her already uneasy stomach. Her gaze drops to her hands on the table between them.
Rose half-coughs, as if trying to clear out the awkwardness cloying the air around them. “Do you want to bring them then? We’d love to meet them.”
She hears Finn straighten without seeing him. “Yeah, for sure, we could all hang out for the night.”
She hesitates, mind racing. There’s plenty of reasons her mystery partner they’ve never met despite the two of them being her entire social life wouldn’t be able to make their weekly night at the bar after work. “I’m not sure…” she says, dragging out the words.
Finn’s chair creaks as he slumps. “Sure, yeah,” he says, pushing the cheeriness into his voice. The faint note of sour disappointment grows slightly stronger. “No pressure, of course. Whenever you’re ready, if you’re comfortable, they can come anytime. You know where we’ll be.”
Her eyes flick up in time to catch his weak smile. Next to him, Rose smiles in that encouraging way she has, her cool scent twisting with the sharp bite of eager curiosity.
Rey realizes suddenly that the hole she’s dug herself into leads only two ways: either she hedges for weeks until finally giving in and saying she’s not seeing anyone anymore, at which point her friends will almost certainly realize she was lying in the first place, and then the guilt and worry and pity will set in, or, she actually brings someone.
“I’ll ask,” she says on a sigh, feeling herself slipping further down the hole. She doesn’t miss how they both sit a little straighter, locked onto prey they can’t even see. “This week might work. Besides, cheap drinks, right?” She gives her own smile, hoping it’s stronger than it feels.
Finn and Rose both smile back at her, and the seed of guilt wriggles inside her at how genuinely excited they seem at the idea. She occupies herself with drinking the last of her coffee, biting at the straw until long after it scrapes the bottom of the empty cup. Finn and Rose let her, chatting about someone else in the office that sounds like someone she’s met, but wouldn’t know if she saw them.
When they finish, they all stand up together and walk down the street until they go their separate ways. Finn waves after her, familiar smile back on his face. “Let us know about Friday, yeah?”
“Yeah,” she says, waving back before turning away, carefully not any quicker than usual.
She stares down the street and hikes her bag up on her shoulder. She has two days to find someone that she could take with her to meet her friends who they’d believe could be her date. Someone she knows who isn’t Finn or Rose, and not someone any of them work with, since Finn would definitely have picked up on that before now. Someone she could ask to hang out on Friday and not embarrass her any further.
She doesn’t even have to go through everyone she knows to draw a total blank. Holding back a sigh, she wonders if tomorrow is too soon to say her mystery partner can’t make it, or if she should keep the suspense until Friday night. And how long is reasonable until they’ve broken up and her friends can start casually mentioning other coworkers who might be interested in her?
She really does need new friends.