Sunday Short: Can We Be Friends - Chapter 4
- Faiz Faisal
- 8 hours ago
- 3 min read
The next morning, Lily met Bryan at their usual coffee spot, a tiny corner café that smelled like roasted beans and burnt toast. Bryan was already there, sipping an oat latte with the kind of intensity usually reserved for tax audits.
“Something’s got to be done,” Lily said, sliding into the seat opposite him.
Bryan nodded. “Yeah. We can’t just… let them drift into awkward-roommate territory.”
“So,” Lily leaned in conspiratorially, “we become cupids.”
Bryan blinked. “With bows and arrows, or…?”
“Metaphorically,” she said, rolling her eyes. “We set up romantic scenarios so they remember how good they are together.”
Bryan grinned. “Alright. Operation Cupid is a go.”
Their first attempt came that very night. Lily convinced Zoe to meet her at a cozy Italian place “by accident,” while Bryan told Ethan to swing by “as a surprise.” The plan worked for the first few minutes with awkward smiles and polite questions about each other’s day, until the violinist leaned a little too close to the table’s candle. His sleeve caught fire, the smell of singed fabric filling the air. Ethan leapt into hero mode, grabbed a water jug, and doused the flames… along with Zoe, the tablecloth, and a very startled couple sitting behind them. They left early, reeking of wet wool and garlic, and neither looked particularly smitten.
Plan B was subtler. Love notes. Lily wrote a neat little “You make me feel like home” on heavy cream paper and tucked it into Zoe’s purse before work. Bryan, inspired, scribbled “Your arms make me feel safe” and slipped it into Ethan’s gym bag.
Only Ethan didn’t think it was from Zoe.
Which was how Bryan ended up mid-shower at the gym when the door to his cubicle swung open and Ethan stepped inside, all casual grin and zero awareness.
“Dude, what the hell?” Bryan yelped, clutching his towel to his chest.
“I got your letter,” Ethan said warmly. “That was sweet.”
Bryan blinked water from his eyes. “What letter? That was from Zoe!”
Ethan chuckled. “But it’s something you would say.”
“Bro! My arm is as big as your head, why would I compliment yours?”
“Oh,” Ethan said, tilting his head like a detective who’d just solved a case. “So it was from Zoe, huh?”
“Yes! And can you get out now?”
Ethan stepped back, still smiling. “Oh, sorry.” Then he winked.
Bryan stood there dripping for a solid thirty seconds after he left, wondering if he’d just hallucinated the whole thing.
By the end of the week, Operation Cupid had racked up one near-restaurant fire, a major towel incident, and exactly zero romantic progress. If anything, Zoe and Ethan seemed even more off-kilter.
Lily stirred her coffee on Saturday morning, staring at Bryan. “Okay, something bigger is going on here.”
Bryan nodded grimly. “Yeah. I think we’ve been playing this all wrong.”
Next week in chapter 5: That Saturday night, Lily couldn’t shake the feeling that the answer was already staring her in the face. And when Zoe mentioned the fountain again casually, between bites of cupcake, something clicked. A ridiculous, impossible something. The kind of something that could explain everything. Next, she just had to convince Bryan… and then figure out how to undo a magical wish without setting anything else on fire.
Comments