Sweet Romance12 min read
My Friend's "Gift": Staying for the Cat and Finding Farrell
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I was taking a shower when TaoTao started clawing at the bathroom glass.
"Shh—TaoTao, stop it," I said through the steam, wrapping my towel tighter. The scratching grew louder. The kind that makes your skin prickle.
When I opened the door, there he was—sitting on the rug like a king, TaoTao on his lap, both of them squinting at me.
"You're home early," I said. My voice came out flat and three octaves higher than usual.
He didn't answer right away. Farrell Mustafa blinked at me like the night had been nothing special and like my whole life wasn't a dramatic telenovela.
"You smell weird," he said finally.
I stared. "Excuse me?"
"You smell like…" He waved a hand. "Like a bar. Like bad decisions."
"Bad decisions?" I laughed too loudly. "I'm taking care of TaoTao for Elliana. She asked me."
Elliana Lawrence's message had arrived at midnight, bold and mischievous.
"Taking care of TaoTao is just a cover. I slept with my brother. You're officially his sister-in-law."
I stared at the words as if they had been written in invisible ink. "What the—Ellie?" My thumbs flew across the screen.
Elliana replied with a string of laughing stickers. "He needed comfort. And I needed photos."
I tapped back, palms sweating. "You gave him comfort? My brother?"
Elliana: "Relax. I'm a professional. Also, bring snacks."
I laughed at nothing. For five years I'd been chasing a man who was always three steps away, polite and distant, like a sealed glass sculpture. Farrell was my friend’s brother, my neighbor for as long as I could remember, and the subject of five years of whispered plans and failed flirtations. I had rehearsed lines, enacted scenes, changed hair colors and outfits, practiced smiles. None of it changed the fact that Farrell looked at me like I was a very nice plate of jam—interesting, but not something to bite into.
"You're impossible," I typed. "And you're terrible."
"Also," Elliana added, "bring condoms. TaoTao will only come out if you bring blue ones."
I nearly threw my phone into the tub.
*
The plan—Elliana's plan—was ridiculous. She suggested I pretend to be drunk so I could "fall" into Farrell's arms. The old trope, drunk girl, tender man, small moments of consent-tinged chaos. Elliana swore it would work. She texted a list of secret stashes of very strong alcohol that her father hid in the hall closet. "One drink," she wrote. "Then go. If he scolds you, say you were tipsy."
"You're a monster," I told her, but I found the bottle, and I drank.
I remember the sudden boldness that came with the heat behind my eyes. I remember the kick of bravery that had been costumed in spirits. I remember my feet finding Farrell's door and my hand knocking like a burglar.
Farrell opened, hair in disarray, pajama top half on. He looked at me in a way I had never achieved through practice—half bewildered, half amused.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Declaring my love," I slurred and lunged. He moved; I misjudged. "Sorry."
"I thought," he said, looking more amused than ever, "you were an intruder."
"Be a gentleman," I told him. I pushed the bathroom door closed behind me and then I was over him, clumsy and brave. His skin was solid, warm. He smelled like laundry soap and something steadier. I reached for his mouth and then my stomach wrote a different story.
The barf was violent and sudden and epic. I thought I had eaten the whole moon. Farrell managed a sort of horror-stricken, caring face I had never seen before. "Dani—are you okay?"
"I am never showing my face in public again," I croaked.
Later, when only the evidence of a ruined sheets and Farrell's quiet patience remained, he guided me to the couch and sat with a look I'd catalogued once in a dream. He kept glancing at me, then at the window, then back at me. I wanted to be brave and lean in; instead I curled into shame.
In the morning Farrell stood by the window in a white sweatshirt and looked like he was made of everything tidy and correct. He raised an eyebrow.
"You really went through with the drunk plan," he said.
"Ellie made me," I said.
He laughed—soft, but there. "She sounds terrible."
"Terrific," I corrected. "She is terrible and also the reason I'm considered family now."
"Family?" He said it like a new word he was testing.
"She texted 'I'm your sister-in-law.'"
He put his fingers to his lips and hummed. "That settles that."
We both laughed. The kind that patches a tear in fabric with a small, human stitch.
*
Elliana came by the next day with a bag of snacks and diving glee. "So?" she asked.
"So what?" I said.
"So are you in or out? Does the new sister-in-law need any tips?" She grinned like a pirate who had landed a treasure chest.
"Ellie," I said, "I can't believe you."
"I'm your wingwoman." She winked. "Also, I brought more practice condoms. For science. TaoTao needs comfort."
TaoTao remained indifferent. He liked Farrell best.
"Don't forget," Elliana said, "he's weird about titles. Call him 'brother' or 'Farrell' but not 'sir.'"
"I'm trying here," I said.
She patted my head. "Just wait until he cooks for you."
Farrell cooked. He woke up early and moved like a careful machine through the kitchen. He made me soy-skim milk pancakes and arranged fruit into a little sun. I hadn't thought about a man's hands before like that—the ones that measured flour or folded a napkin. He was domestic in a way that made my heart twitch.
"Eat," he said.
"Thank you," I told him, and for once I felt words landed. He looked down at me with a softness I had only hoped for from a distance.
*
Work was an entirely different battlefield. Farrell had a job that made his days fit into suit sleeves and brilliant presentations; he was now part of a team at my company. He had been hired through a campus connection to a senior executive—talent pulled directly into warmth and promise.
On my first morning back after the bathroom incident I arrived early to find Farrell speaking at a meeting and doing the impossible: dazzling people. Women in the room looked at him like if he were a fountain of good decisions. Men glanced at him like he was a secret weapon. My chest twisted with pride and a small fire of fear.
After the meeting a rumor started: someone had accused Farrell of selling company secrets. Someone had left an anonymous note. Someone had decided that a bright newcomer would be easier to topple.
"Who would do that?" I asked my colleague Maria Chevalier.
"Office politics is a sport," Maria said. "Standby and watch."
But the accusation did not stay small. It became a whisper, then a roar. A formal internal investigation was called, then an internal hearing. Emails circulated. The culprit who filed the complaint wanted Farrell gone, and they were willing to tarnish him to do it.
That is when I decided I would not do nothing.
"Don't quit," Farrell said one night as he handed me a cup of tea.
"I'm not going to let them push you," I said. My heart was ferocious. "If you get eaten by this company, I will bite back."
He looked at me like he had just been shown a small, solid moon. "Dani."
"Promise me you won't do anything rash," I said.
"I won't," he said. "I'll let the truth come out."
He tried to be brave in a way that made me both proud and unbearably nervous. An internal legal meeting was set. Farrell's future—so carefully crafted—hung like a painting in need of a frame.
*
The day of the hearing, the conference room felt like a courtroom. Lawyers in gray suits sat around, their faces impassive. Earl Coleman, the vice-president, sat at the head with a pile of papers that seemed to bristle. Bruno Martin—a senior analyst with a reputation for being slippery—sat across with a stack of carefully printed "evidence."
"You brought witnesses?" Bruno asked, voice sweet as funeral flowers.
"I did," Bruno said. He opened with a calm that suggested his hands had been washing for this moment all week. "This is a pattern. We have documentation of transfers and communications."
Farrell sat quietly. His jaw was a line. His eyes were not angry. They were patient.
I sat in the back with my tea and an idea that felt like a fuse lit under my ribs.
When they started, Bruno unfurled a narrative. "Mr. Mustafa had access to proprietary designs," he said. "He was observed transferring files offsite. This must be addressed."
"These are allegations," Earl said. "We need facts."
Bruno smiled. "Facts are here."
He presented logs and emails. He presented a convenient trail. People nodded. Someone in the room clicked their tongue like a judge who already had the gavel.
Farrell answered calmly. "Those transfers were part of a sanctioned test protocol," he said. "I have written permission from the project lead, and the files were destined for a secure external partner. If you look at the timestamps and the chain of custody—"
"I did," Bruno said. "And there are irregularities. There are shadows."
The room hummed. I felt cold. I also felt something else: a solid desire to tear through Bruno like paper.
"Earl," I found myself saying aloud before I thought. "May I speak?"
All heads turned. Farrell's eyes widened a little.
"Who are you?" someone asked.
"I'm Dani Pinto," I said. "I work in Administration. I prepared many of the binders that cleared for this room. But more than that, I was here when Mr. Mustafa arrived. He cooked for us sometimes. I know him."
This was stupid. This was emotional. This was not legal.
Earl looked at me like a man deciding whether to let a small fire spread.
"Go on," he said.
I stood because I couldn't sit. "I have access to some internal logs that weren't meant to be part of the official trail. I can bring them, and I can explain the calendar entries that look like transfers. They were not secret skullduggery. They were part of a research-sharing program. If you check the grant documents, you'll—"
"Earl," Bruno cut in, coiling his voice. "We don't need gossip."
"Gossip?" I snapped. "These are email headers and timestamps. They will show who asked for what and when."
"Earl, I'm the one who will be asked to bring in evidence," Bruno said, crossing his arms. "We can't simply indulge a junior staff member's hunches."
Everyone looked at me like I was a comedic interruption.
"I don't need indulgence," I said. "I need a fair process."
At that, Earl leaned forward. "You have access to these logs?"
"Yes," I said. "I can retrieve them."
The room shifted. Bruno's smile thinned.
"You cannot," Bruno said. "You are not authorized to reveal internal legal documents."
"Then authorize me," I shot back. "Authorizing me is better than firing an innocent man."
Anyone could call this bravado. I called it desperation.
Earl clicked his pen. "Bring them," he said. "If you have something, bring it now."
I ran. I bolted out, fingers shaking. I fumbled a thumb drive only because my internal control panel remembered all the odd little things I'd filed away. In my head I recited the path: admin/archive/meetings/—it was ridiculous to know, but I did. Maybe being an admin for years had taught me how secrets liked to hide in plain sight.
When I walked back into the room and sat, I felt hair on my arms like static. I opened my laptop and projected the files.
"There are email chains from the project lead—" I said, fingers moving like nervous birds. "They confirm handoffs. They show Bruno's nominee asking for access only after the lead had signed off. And—" I swallowed—"there are receipts and permission logs that show Mr. Martin's claims are false."
The room had gone very quiet. Bruno's false smile frayed to a twitch.
"Who gave you those?" Bruno hissed.
"The system logs," I said. "Anyone with admin rights can see that chain. You fabricated portions of your claim. And more than that—" I paused, plucked up what I had saved: an archived copy of a chat. "You made a deal."
I hit play. The chat lighting blinked on the screen. It was a thread Bruno had thought scrubbed: his messages to a vendor promising favor in exchange for silence. He wrote: "Make sure those files 'vanish.' I'll cover costs. We both know what happens when projects stall."
The room didn't move; it convulsed. There was a small, charged noise—the sound of a group having its assumptions torn in half.
"Bruno," Earl said, cold now, "how do you answer to that?"
Bruno's face changed in fractions. It moved from composed to startled, from startled to hedged denial. "Those messages are doctored," he said.
"On what basis?" I asked. My voice was unexpectedly level.
"Because—because—" Bruno stuttered. He saw the cameras, the witnesses, the emails pinned out like butterflies. He had counted on fear, not a sudden person with a drive and proof.
People began to talk. "Is that true?" "He was trying to get paid off?" Maria whispered. Someone else pulled out a phone. A face lit up in blue light as a photo was snapped.
Bruno's mouth worked. "I never said—"
"Everyone," Earl said, and the sound of his gavel-like voice quieted the room. "This appears to be a case of internal manipulation. We will call in an independent auditor and HR. Mr. Martin, we will be suspending you pending an investigation."
The color drained from Bruno's face. He looked around the room and suddenly found himself in a spotlight of attention he had desired but not the kind he now faced.
"You used the company system for private negotiation," I said, and my voice was quieter now. "You tried to bury a scientist to further your favors."
People began to murmur loudly. Someone close by said, "He burned everyone."
Another voice: "He looked a bit too eager last month."
The room moved like an animal sensing blood. Phones came out. Heads turned. The humiliation spread across Bruno like a stain.
He looked at me then, and there was a flicker—anger, embarrassment, an animal's last grin. He stood, palms splayed.
"You have no idea what you're doing," he said.
"I know what I saw," I answered. "And I know what it's like to watch someone you care about get bulldozed for greed."
"You're a temp," Bruno sneered suddenly, thinking to wound.
"I'm a human," I said. "And I'm tired of being quiet."
He tried to retort. People were no longer on his side.
Then someone on the back row, a quiet colleague named Jaylah Hawkins, stood up and said, "I have copies of Bruno's messages too." Another person, Hailey Cochran, flipped open a laptop. "And here's an invoice," she said, and she'd found the payment sketch. "He did ask for money."
Bruno's face crumpled. He looked small. His mouth opened and closed. He stood in a conference room that had been his stage, but now the stage had turned on him.
"Earl," he whispered desperately, "it's all a mistake."
"It's not a mistake," Earl said. "This will go to formal review and law if needed."
They asked people to leave. As people filed out, heads turned and phones flashed. The corridor outside became a current of low voices, camera lights, and the sense of a man once polished now being flayed in public eyes.
Bruno went white and then a shaky red. He tried to salvage dignity but dignity was a fragile thing in a corporate storm. In the elevator he muttered, "You didn't have to do all of this."
"Yes," I said into the closing doors. "I did."
The punishment was public and absolute. Bruno was suspended the next day; his promotion vanished; a rumor mill replaced his old power. The humiliation had volume. People whispered and saved screenshots. They replayed his messages. People who had trusted him stepped away.
That day Bruno's mask fell off in front of colleagues who had admired him. He left with his suit like a shell and a silence that was its own kind of punishment. Cameras from other departments recorded him walking out. For the first time since he'd sat in conferences letting others play, he found he could no longer command the room.
When the dust settled, Farrell's name was clear. He rejoined the project; his supervisors apologized; his résumé recovered. And I learned that sometimes bravery looks like a temp with a thumb drive and a willingness to speak.
*
Afterward, people were kinder to Farrell—success had always been hiding behind that face—and kinder to me in weird, small ways. Maria teased me in the lunchroom. "Who knew Dani had detective skills?" she said, and she high-fived me as if I had passed some secret test.
"Your move next," she told me.
I laughed. "My move?"
"You made a spectacle," she said. "Now go collect."
I did not collect trophies. I collected something better: Farrell's attention. He began to look for me in the hallways. When he found me he cracked a joke or left me a note. The domesticity returned—little meals, texts that were private and soft, a hand that lingered at the small of my back in elevators.
One night, as we sat on the couch with TaoTao asleep between us, he turned to me.
"You were loud in that meeting," he said.
"I was loud on purpose." I leaned my head on his shoulder. "I couldn't watch you get trodden."
He put his arm around me and pulled me closer. "You didn't have to risk your job."
"I wanted to," I said, honestly.
He pressed his forehead to mine. "Then you are mine for trouble and for tea."
I laughed. "That's a binding contract."
Later, after we had learned how to fit our lives like puzzle pieces on the same table, Farrell said, "Do you remember the blue box TaoTao carried?"
I snorted. "Which blue box?"
"The one he took from under the couch the first week," he said. "The one with your name on the sticker."
I remembered it then—the little blue package that had been Elliana's 'helpful' gift. We had laughed about it later, wrapped in the aftermath of catastrophe and victory.
"I remember," I said. "It was ridiculous."
He drew me close.
"Those ridiculous things led to this," he said. "You being brave. Me being stubborn. TaoTao making the first move."
"And Elliana?" I asked.
"Elliana is loud and unrepentant," Farrell said. "And a saint because she gave me a sister."
"She is also guilty of many crimes," I warned.
"We'll forgive her if she brings cake," Farrell said.
I smiled and thought of all the strange, noisy, improper pieces that had been put together to make a life. I thought of a cat named TaoTao who loved blue boxes, of Elliana's ridiculous texts, of my brother Clifford calling from another city with a dry "Congratulations" that said everything and nothing.
We laughed about it, and then he kissed me. Not a long, moviehearted press but a slow, steady sealing like a stamp—solid, sure. When he pulled away he smiled.
"I like you like this," he said.
I said the three words in the way I had always wanted to say them—not a performance, not a plan, not a plea. Just true.
"I like you too," I said.
TaoTao jumped up and knocked over the blue box again. We both watched the little flaps fall open.
"Do you think it's expired?" Farrell asked.
"Some things only get better with age," I said.
He grinned. "Good. We'll not throw anything away quickly."
The blue box sat on the coffee table like a ridiculous monument to beginning. The city hummed outside. My phone buzzed with a message from Elliana: "So? Succeed?"
I typed back three words and hit send.
"I told you first."
And this time, Farrell smiled in a way that made me think the five years of small, failed tactics had been rehearsal, not waste. We were finally onstage together. The curtain rose when it wanted to, messy and late and perfect.
The End
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