My Wingman Stole Seven Women Chapter 2

My apartment became a war room.

Seven dates. Seven women.

I booted up my laptop and started building a master timeline. Text logs, social media screenshots, dates, timestamps, and Thomas’s corresponding alibis.

Date Number One. The banker. March 2019. After one meeting, Thomas labeled her "toxic." I cut contact. Three days later, Thomas posted an Instagram story tagged at a high-end sushi lounge.

I hate sushi.

Thomas had always complained about raw fish, too.

But that specific restaurant? It was the exact place Date Number One had raved about during our dinner. She said their salmon sashimi was to die for. I had even sent Thomas a screenshot of her recommendation at the time.

Date Number Two. The architect. May 2020. Thomas called her "slick." I stopped texting her. The very next week, Thomas bailed on our weekend plans, claiming he was buried in paperwork. Yet, that weekend, he posted three separate times—from a trendy mall, a boutique movie theater, and a Michelin-starred bistro.

Did he go to a romantic bistro by himself?

Date Number Three. Tech industry. August 2021. The day Thomas came as my wingman and showed up forty minutes late. The girl ghosted me. I had spent two years believing I was just that uninteresting.

But thinking back on it now... the day he showed up late? He was wearing a brand-new jacket.

His hair was freshly styled.

He smelled like expensive cologne.

Who gets dressed to the nines just to play wingman for their buddy?

I dragged the data points across the screen, lining them up.

Out of the seven women, I could definitively place Thomas in the immediate orbit of four of them.

Always right after I walked away.

Always right after he promised he was just looking out for me.

I sat back in my desk chair, staring at the glowing mosaic of screenshots.

Outside, the city had gone completely dark.

I hadn't bothered to turn on the lights in my apartment.

A quiet, devastating thought bloomed in the back of my mind.

In ten years of friendship, Thomas had never posted a single photo of me on his social media.

Ten years. We were supposedly closer than brothers.

Not one photo.

I had scrolled through his entire grid. There were group shots with his coworkers, throwbacks with other college buddies, endless photos of his wife.

But no Daniel.

He had an excuse for it once. "Dan, you hate having your picture taken. I’m just respecting your boundaries."

It was true. I wasn't big on photos.

But in a decade? Not even a candid?

I closed my laptop.

The apartment was suffocatingly quiet.

I could hear the slow, rhythmic thud of my own pulse.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

It was remarkably steady.

I wasn't consumed by fiery, blinding rage.

I just felt impossibly, hollowly cold.