“Does Will know you’re reevaluating?” asked Lindsay.
“Not exactly.”
“Was Will at the cat adoption party?” asked Brad.
“No, he had other plans,” said Evan.
“Just curious if I’ve met him.”
Lindsay shrugged. “He is a nice guy. He’s sweet and affectionate.”
“He gets me into good restaurants,” said Evan.
“If that’s your standard,” said Brad, “you don’t need your boyfriend for that.”
Evan raised an eyebrow. “Are you sayingyoucould get me into good restaurants?”
“I meant Lindsay, but… Yeah, I can do that. I have a lot of contacts in the industry. Not everywhere, of course, but I’ve got friends.”
Evan laughed. “All right. I mean, Will is pretty good company at those restaurants. He knows a lot about food.”
“What does he do?”
“He’s a cookbook editor.” Evan mentioned the name of the publisher.
“Wait, your boyfriend is Will Feeney?”
“So you know him.”
“Not well,” said Brad. “We’ve met a few times. He’s pretty well-known among New York foodie types, though. Seems like a nice guy.”
Evan nodded. “He is. I’m just being stupid. And if he were here, he’d try to talk you into writing a cookbook with cat-friendly recipes.”
Brad felt maxed out as it was and couldn’t imagine finding time to write a cookbook, but he said, “That’s not a bad idea.”
“If Paige were here, she’d tell you to go for it,” said Lindsay. “Great publicity for the café.”
“Let’s not mention this in front of Paige, then,” said Brad. “I’ve only been at this job a month.”
Lauren and Paige arrived a few minutes later. Lauren stood at the table for a moment, surveying the scene, before sitting and said, “Well, Brad, I’m glad to see you here, and not your bloodied, mutilated corpse.”
“I think Lindsay and I have made a truce.” Brad looked at Lindsay to verify if this was true.
She shrugged, but he’d take that.
Chapter 11
After her morning routine, Lindsay sat down at her desk with a cup of coffee and yawned as she turned on her laptop.
Fred wandered over and hopped up on the desk. He sat right behind the laptop screen as if to say,If you’re looking in this direction, you should look at me. Lindsay reached over and petted his head. “Hey, buddy. Did you have a good breakfast?”
He rubbed his chin against her hand affectionately.
“I bet your dreams were about nice things like catching bugs and eating fish and not about things like certain ex-boyfriends.”
He started to purr.
She turned her attention back to her computer. Her email was mostly inane, so she clicked over to a newspaper website. And there was the breaking news: New York Forumreports second-quarter losses; layoffs expected.
