Drew watched me in awe, shaking her head. “Look at that, not even a tear.”
“I’ve never seen her cry over any guy,” Fiona said to her wife.
I tried to argue that no, I actually had, but then closed my mouth again because . . . she was right. I seldom cried, anyway, and over some guy? Absolutely not. Fiona always said it was because all my relationships had boiled down to calling them some guy—a person not even worthy of a name in my memory. “Because you’ve never been in love,” she once said, and maybe that was true.
“When you know, you know,” Nate had said.
I didn’t even know what love was supposed to feel like.
Fiona waved her hand. “Well, whatever to him, then! He didn’t deserve a financially stable girlfriend who is kicking ass at work and owns an apartment on the Upper East Side,” she went on, and then that seemed to remind her of the other thing I really didn’t want to talk about. “How is it? The apartment?”
The apartment. She and Drew had stopped calling it my aunt’s apartment back in January, but I still couldn’t kick the habit. I shrugged.
I could tell them the truth—that every time I walked through the door, I expected to see my aunt there in her wingback chair the color of robin’s eggs, but the chair was gone.
So was its owner.
“It’s great,” I decided.
Fiona and Drew both gave each other the same glance, as if they didn’t believe me. Fair enough; I wasn’t a very good liar.
“It’s great,” I repeated. “And why are we talking about me? Let’s find this famous chef of yours and woo him to the dark side.” I reached over the table for the last date and ate it.
“Sure, sure, we just need to flag down our server . . .” Drew muttered, looking around to see if she could catch anyone’s eye, but she was much too polite and too meek to do anything more than give them a meaningful look. “Do I just raise my hand or—what do you do at expensive restaurants?”
Drew had been a lot more proactive about finding authors to build her list over the last few months, but I had to wonder if some of these excursions—the concert on Governors Island, the play I regrettably couldn’t make, the opera last month, the TikTok influencer we met at a bookstore in Washington Heights, the gallery exhibit for the artist who painted with their body—were to help distract me. To pull me out of my grief. Except it had been almost six months and I was fine now.
Really, I was.
But it was hard to convince someone of that when they had witnessed you sobbing on your bathroom floor at two in the morning, blackout drunk, the night of your aunt’s funeral.
They’d seen the worst, rawest parts of me and they didn’t delete my number from their phones. I wasn’t always the easiest person to get along with, and the fact that they stuck around meant more to me than I could ever actually admit, and being dragged on these field trips the last couple of months had been refreshing.
So the least I could do was flag down a server for Drew.
“I got it,” I sighed, and raised my hand to motion toward our server as she turned away from another table, and called to her. I wasn’t sure if this was how you were supposed to get their attention at a fancy restaurant, but she quickly came over anyway. “Could we have the, uh—” I glanced at the dessert menu.
Fiona piped in, “The deconstructed lemon whatever!”
“That,” I said, “and also could we perhaps talk with the head chef?” Drew quickly pulled a business card out of her purse to hand to the server as I added, “Please tell him we’re from Strauss and Adder Publishers, here about a business opportunity—a book, actually.”
The server didn’t seem surprised at all by the request, as she took the business card and tucked it into the front of her black apron. She said she’d see what she could do and quickly left to put in the dessert order.
Drew clapped quietly to herself once the server had gone. “Here we go! Ooh, do you feel that thrill? It never gets old.”
Her excitement was infectious, even though I felt very little about this chef. “Never,” I said, and suddenly my phone began to vibrate in my purse. I took it out and glanced at the email notification. Why was one of my authors emailing me?
Fiona leaned over to her wife. “Ooh, how about we set Clem up with that new guy who moved into the apartment next to us?”
“He’s cute,” Drew agreed.
“No, thanks.” I opened my email. “I’m not ready to jump into another relationship after Nate.”
“You said you were over him!”
“There’s still a mourning period—oh, shit,” I added as I finished skimming the message, and popped up out of my chair. “I’m sorry, I have to run.”
Fiona asked, worriedly, “Is something wrong? We haven’t even gotten our dessert yet.”
I took my wallet out of my knockoff Kate Spade bag and set down the company credit card since this was, technically, a work lunch. “One of my authors on tour just got stranded in Denver, and Juliette’s not answering her emails. Put lunch on that and I’ll see you at work?” I said apologetically as Drew took the card.
She looked stricken. “Wait—what?” She darted her eyes to the kitchen, and back to me.
“You got this,” I said as my author sent another panicked email. I hugged them both and stole one last fried goat cheese ball, chased it with the rest of the wine, and turned to leave—
“Watch out!” Drew cried. Fiona gasped.
Too late.
I collided with a server behind me. The dessert he held went one way, and he went the other. I shot my hand out to grab it as he went to grab me, and pulled me back upright. I stumbled and he steadied me, his grip strong on my arm.
“Nice save,” he said warmly.
“Thanks, I—” And that was when I realized my other hand was on his very solid chest. “Oh!” I quickly handed him back the dessert and stepped away. “I am so sorry!” A blush rose too quickly on my cheeks. I couldn’t look at the guy. I had definitely just put my hand on a stranger for longer than necessary.
“. . . Lemon?” the man asked.
“Yes, sorry, sorry, that’s our dessert, but I have to go,” I replied in a hurry. My face felt as red as a cherry. I quickly dodged around him, mouthing to my friends, “Good luck,” as I left the restaurant.
Two calls to Southwest Airlines and four city blocks later, I had the author on the next flight to their final tour stop. I descended into the subway to make my way back to Midtown and to work—and tried to get the feeling of that man’s strong grip, the solidness of his chest, the way he bent toward me—he did bend toward me, didn’t he? Like he knew me? I wasn’t imagining things?—out of my head.