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“Just till the end of the month. Then you and Grace will both write a farewell piece, and we’ll introduce the next round of HeSaidSheSaid. And you’ll be in Singapore or Cape Town or wherever you wanna be.”
Jake did a quick mental calculation. The end of the month gave him just over twenty days. Twenty days to …
Well, he didn’t know what exactly. But he knew one thing.
He and Grace Brighton weren’t even close to over.
* * *
“He wants to go to dinner.”
Riley, Emma, and Julie immediately ended their debate over which bottle of wine to order and stared at her.
“Who?” Julie asked.
Emma pinched her arm. “Jake, obviously.”
“What do you mean, obviously? Camille said they just had to keep up the casual flirty stuff for a couple more weeks and then they’re done. Now they have to go on a date?” Riley demanded.
“I’m betting they don’t have to,” Emma said coyly.
Grace fiddled with her fork. It was the first time Emma had tagged along for one of these little Love and Relationships after-work outings. Julie had suggested they hit up their favorite wine bar, and inviting Emma along had felt completely natural. Their threesome had officially become a foursome, and Grace was finding she didn’t mind at all.
Except Emma Sinclair did seem to be somewhat of a mind reader, and that was proving to be a bit inconvenient at the moment.
“Wonder what his angle is,” Julie mused as she perused the menu. “You want us to tag along? Do a scan for hidden cameras, Oxford spies, that kind of thing?”
“I don’t think it’s like that,” Grace said tentatively. “His text seemed … straightforward. Genuine.”
“Please,” Riley said. “Like you can tell over text. Lemme see.” She held out her hand expectantly, and Grace handed over her phone. She might as well get a second opinion.
“ ‘Dinner? Just us,’ ” Riley read out loud. She frowned. “Huh.”
“Right? Is it a trap?”
“No,” Emma said, at the same time as Riley said, “Yes.”
“He’s messing with her,” Riley said emphatically. “They haven’t had any time together that hasn’t been documented and analyzed. Why start now?”
Grace pretended sudden fascination with the wine list, lifting it to cover her face. Two seconds later, Julie batted it out of the way. “Graaaace …”
She cleared her throat. “We, um, we may have sort of snuck away and had lunch one day.”
“What do you mean, you snuck away?”
“It was that day when he was supposed to be at Lucky’s …”
Julie’s eyes went wide. “The day you ‘went to the bathroom’ and never came back?”
“Sort of, yeah. We were both trying to sneak away unnoticed in the stairwell and then suddenly we were at lunch. Together. In Brooklyn.”
“You went all the way to Brooklyn just for lunch?”
“Well, it sort of turned into a thing.…”
Riley cooed in delight. “You guys did the nasty in the restaurant bathroom, didn’t you? How was it?”
Julie stared at Riley in fascinatio
