Sophie’s words gave Mira a sense of hope, continuing her streak of giving great advice since they’d met in their freshman year of college.

Mira set to work on writing up the perfect professional and not-too-desperate email. All along, she couldn’t help but wince whenever she heard Jake lathering up the soap, or rinsing, or whatever other visceral sound accompanied someone washing their body. She wondered if he’d gotten back from the store in time to hear her viscerally wash herself, too. The thought of it made her shudder.

“Ready?” he called from behind the plywood panel.

She felt uncertain. “Ready for what?”

Jake slid open the panel and sauntered out. His outfit was a casual getup of a T-shirt and jeans, but somehow, he made it go the extra mile.

And Mira couldn’t help but notice.

He spun around so she didn’t miss a single angle. “So?” He ran his fingers through his sandy brown hair, which he mercifully hadn’t drowned in too much product. “What do you think of Mr. Vodka Sweat now?”

Mira was too busy staring to give him an audible answer.

“Are you really that taken aback by my beauty?” He put a hand on his chest. “I’m flattered.”

“What? No.” She chuckled, smirked, and shrugged, all to restore a feeble sense of nonchalance. “I think I just blacked out for a second,” she added, before heading for the door.

“Blacked out from what?”

“I dunno; jet lag.”

“But we didn’t even go on a plane.”

Shit.

They stood face to face now. There was no escape. “Actually,” she said coolly, “we were at an airport, and studies have shown that simply being in an airport can cause varying degrees of jet lag.”

“I’ve never heard that.”

“It’s true,” she insisted, all the while scraping for more pathological lies. “It’s like one of those sympathetic pregnancies, when a man gains weight and slowly grows boobs just from watching his partner be pregnant.” She shook her head. “Science is strange.”

“Right . . . science is strange.”

The sound of buzzing coming from Jake’s phone spared Mira from spewing more random verbal weirdness. She studied his face as he read the message, but his reaction was impossible to discern.

“Everything all right?” she asked.

“Just a text from a buddy.”

“At six a.m. New York time?”

Either his buddy—like Sophie— had a baby who wouldn’t sleep, or Jake was lying for some unknown reason.

“He’s a trader.”

“Oh.” Mira suddenly remembered that investment banking was very much a thing.

She shifted her attention to the rumbling feeling in her stomach. All the bag-lugging and stress from missing the flight had burned through the calories of the pain perdu, which made her next agenda item more pressing than ever. And, knowing that Jake would be tagging along, she’d specifically chosen a place that could use a little company. “Can I interest you in a bit of a walk for some very important food?”