I pitied people who didn’t love their bosses, whose Sundays were filled with worry and regret about what the coming week would hold. Huda always said that we grew together; when she’d hired me three years earlier, we had been a team of three: her, me and Landen, who took care of all the back-end stuff for the website. Now we were a team of ten. I’d had an intern the previous summer for the first time. There were talks of a brick-and-mortar store opening up in Soho. Though I had less work-life balance than most, it didn’t matter. I loved what I did.

“It’s so lucky you have a passion. That’s what most people need to get through this life. Money is nice. A family is better. But having a passion is what really makes you tick.” He stirred his cocktail. We’d moved on from wine.

“So what’s yours?” I asked, letting my sandaled foot touch his under the table, a childish but intimate gesture.

“I think that’s my problem. I don’t have one. I never had one. I just wanted to work as hard as possible, make a lot of money.” And he locked eyes with me, holding my gaze as the waiter brought us the check, took our empty glasses.

When we slipped out into the cool April air, he asked if he could hold my hand. He asked if he could kiss me, his lips soft and welcoming. He asked if I’d like to go home with him. He got a yellow cab and I held his soft-knuckled hand as we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. It was sweet. He was sweet.

We only had two more dates after that.

4

Present day

“Bitch, you keep getting mail,” Quinn chirps over FaceTime, giving me a great view of his chin.

“Bitch, just throw it out. It’s all junk, anyway.” I lean the phone against a bedpost and lie on my stomach.

“No, like legit mail. Not just from, like, Spectrum. Come down here and get it.” Quinn pouts, his bottom lip looking enormous from this angle. Quinn has the sweetest face, puffy lips and brown emotive eyes, close-cropped dark hair to show it all off even better.

“It’s probably more love letters, from all my fans.” I smile. There had been a lot of those in the early days. The paparazzi got wind of where I lived in Crown Heights, and thus the public suddenly had access to me, too. When I moved out, I told Quinn to find a place in Washington Heights or something, move to the opposite end of the city. But he refused; he liked our apartment, his ensuite toilet and the skylight in the living room. Who cared if a few weirdos showed up once in a while with death threats for his old roommate?