Settlers of Girlfriend

Roy kept his gaze fixed on the empty intersection, fingers tight around the steering wheel. The engine hummed. Morning light washed the dashboard in pale gold. Breath moved in and out of his lungs in controlled measures.

Agnes was done.

The physical satisfaction still hummed faintly through his body, a residual warmth in his muscles, but his mind felt scraped raw. Sex had been the mechanism. The lever. Pull it, and the relationship would shift.

In theory.

What if the next one was worse?

A stop sign brought him to a halt. No traffic. No pedestrians. Just the quiet hum of suburbia waking up.

Then the air changed.

A static ripple travelled over his skin. The tiny hairs along his forearms stood upright. The world seemed to misfire for half a second, like a skipped frame in a film reel. His stomach dropped.

Here we go again.

The passenger door opened.

Cold air swept in, along with the faint scent of vanilla lip balm and coffee.

Roy turned his head slowly.

She was short. That registered first. Not childlike, simply compact, self-contained. Curves softened her silhouette beneath a fitted violet cardigan that strained slightly at the buttons over a generous chest, highlighted by what looked like a vintage NASA pin on her left breast. High-waisted dark jeans hugged rounded hips. Not gaunt. Not slim in that angular, magazine way. Solid. Feminine. Warm.

Short black hair framed her face in a slightly messy pixie cut, longer on top, tucked behind one ear on the side. A pair of black-framed glasses rested on her nose, lenses catching the morning light. Behind them, dark brown eyes sparkled with restless intelligence. Her skin carried a golden olive tone, unmistakably Middle Eastern in ancestry.

She smiled.

The seat dipped. The door closed with an easy, familiar thunk.

"Morning, babe. Thank you again for picking me up. I swear if you hadn't, I would've been late and Farid would've absolutely weaponized it in the staff meeting."

Roy stared at her. It had happened again.

She leaned in without hesitation and kissed his cheek, soft and quick. "You, my love, are officially my favourite person."

He blinked.

Her eyebrows knit together. "You okay?"

A horn blared behind them. He hadn't moved.

"Oh my God," she laughed, glancing in the side mirror. "Go, go, go. You’re going to trigger someone's road rage."

His foot jerked to the accelerator. The car rolled forward into the intersection. Traffic swallowed them.

"So I was thinking, tonight? We could do something low key. I mean, I know you've got that meeting at nine (you're going to crush it, by the way, I don't care what you say) but after work we could grab groceries, and I could make that lentil stew you like? Or we could try that new board game café on King. They have Settlers and, like, obscure German strategy games, which you'd secretly love even though you'd pretend you wouldn't."

Roy's mind scrambled to catch up.

Meeting at nine. Lentil stew. Board game café.

She pushed her glasses up with one finger and continued, momentum building. "Also, I was thinking: it might be time for you to meet my mum."

That word cut through the noise.

"Mum?"

"Yeah." She shrugged, then grinned, a little nervous energy peeking through the chatter. "She doesn't know about you yet. But I feel weird not telling her. I mean, we've been together long enough, and we're serious enough that it's not a casual thing."

Long enough. His grip tightened. With the other women he'd been able to ease himself in, find where he was in the relationship. This one, though, was an onslaught.

She ploughed ahead. "Not like, a huge dinner or anything. Just tea. She'll pretend it's casual and then interrogate you about your job and your family and whether you eat enough vegetables. It's a cultural sport."

A truck cut in front of them. Roy adjusted automatically, eyes locked on the road.

Her hand found his on the centre console, fingers lacing through his like it was muscle memory. Warm. Slightly calloused at the tips, as though she typed constantly.

"You're really quiet," she observed. "Like, even for you."

"I've got a lot on my mind," he managed.

"Work?"

"Something like that."

She nodded, unfazed. "Okay. We can talk about it. Or not. Your choice. I support emotional processing in all its forms. Either way I'm here for you. Nobody ever said Zara Azizi wasn't a good listener. Or whatever."

A smile tugged at his mouth despite himself. Her rapid speech, her overly excited energy, and clueless assessment of his emotional state, it all added up to one thing: cute. That was the word. The other women he'd been with had all brought something to the table, but this one, Zara, was definitely the cutest.

"Zara," he said aloud, testing it.

She lit up. "Yes?"

He grinned. "You are definitely a good listener."

"You dork," she teased.

Zara.

It fit her. Short. Bright. Quick.

She shifted in her seat, tucking one leg slightly beneath her, then got going again. "Okay, so plan. We finish work. We grab groceries. We cook. Maybe we finally watch that documentary you've been meaning to show me. Or we don't, because we'll get distracted debating whether aliens are statistically inevitable, which they are, and you're wrong about that, by the way. Then..."

She barely paused for breath.

"...we could start planning a weekend trip. Not a big one. Just somewhere drivable. I need to get out of the city sometime this year, sometime before winter. Oh, and I was hoping I could give you a bit of a fashion show. My cousin's wedding is coming up and I'm not sure what to wear. You're going to be my plus-one, right?"

Information flooded him in waves. She was a torrent. Each detail suggested history. Shared time. Intimacy. It was overwhelming.

And yet.

She was charming. Endearingly. And so very cute.

The way her hands moved when she talked. The way her nose crinkled when she teased him. The way her glasses slipped down and she pushed them back up mid-sentence without breaking rhythm.

Roy felt the earlier revulsion from Agnes recede slightly, replaced by something softer. Confusion, yes. Fear, certainly. But not disgust.

Zara kept going.

"Also, I was thinking you should have me over one of these nights. I want to reorganize your bookshelf because it's chaotic. It's just messy. And if we're hosting game night next month, because we are, don't argue, we need a system."

She finally paused, mid-breath, as though just remembering something.

"Oh, I mean..." she said lightly, almost as an afterthought, "...unless you have other plans. With, like, you know. Elaine. Or Michelle."

Traffic noise filled the silence as she waited for him to respond.

Roy turned his head slowly toward her.

"Wait," he said. "Michelle?"

Zara blinked behind her glasses, expression open and entirely unbothered.

"Yeah, you know," she replied casually. "Your other-other girlfriend?"