I believe they posted this earlier on their website (I might be mistaken) but reading it again gave me the same feelings, lmao. 2nd leads move the story forward but it's unbelievably dumb when authors make 2nd leads play this specific role (and ALWAYS fail).
Like, did they think making advances and being forward about their feelings would make the FL like them? They either think the FL is easy and has no principles OR they believe they got enough rizz to separate the two without the FL having conflicting feelings. It's so dumb 😭😭