“They named you after the emoji.”
“They named me after the emoji. I have been the eggplant in our team group chat for four years. I get tagged with it. I get sentit. Last Christmas, somebody bought an actual eggplant from the grocery store for the team gift exchange, and I had to open it in front of everybody and their wives. The guys were howling.”
Lauren bites the inside of her cheek, trying very hard not to laugh. “You poor thing,” she says.
“Are you laughing at me?”
“I would never.”
“You’re laughing at me.”
“I’m not laughing.” She takes another careful sip of wine. “I’m filing.”
Ollie’s mouth opens and closes, then opens again. He looks at me like he’s drowning and I’m the lifeguard.
I take a sip of my own wine and watch this happen, and yeah. This is going to be a thing.
He leans back and recovers. Takes another sip of his beer. “Okay. New approach. No lines. You’re beautiful, I’m single, and your best friend is dating my best friend, which means we’re going to see each other at every holiday and team event for the foreseeable future. So we might as well figure out now if we like each other.”
Lauren stares at him for three full seconds, takes a sip of wine. “Buy me dinner first.”
“Done. Tomorrow night?”
“Sure. I fly home Monday.”
“Then tomorrow’s perfect.” He grins, stands, and walks away like the conversation is settled.
Lauren watches him go and then turns to me. “Is he always like that?”
“That’s Ollie.”
“He just—”
“Yep.”
She takes a long sip of wine and looks at the chair where he was sitting. “I’m not going to dinner with him.”
“Okay.”
“Stop smiling, Sydney.”
I’m smiling. I can’t help it.
Later, Winnie pulls me aside near the cooler while the guys are at the grill debating something about sear times that I’m fairly certain none of them actually understand.
“So we set a date,” she says. “September ninth. It’ll be here in the city. Small, nothing crazy.”
“Win, that’s amazing.”
“And I—” She tucks her hair behind her ear, which is how I know she’s nervous, because Winnie is never nervous. “I want you to be a bridesmaid. If you want to. You don’t have to. But you’re, like, one of my favorite people now, and I didn’t have that many friends in New York before you got here, and—”
“Yes.” I grab her hand. “Obviously yes.”
Her face breaks open into a grin. “Yeah?”
“Winnie, I would love to.”
She hugs me, and over her shoulder I can see Banks watching us from his chair with the faintest trace of a smile, which for Banks is basically fireworks.
