Laura took an even deeper breath and hit FaceTime. She hated texting with Nick; he liked to send multiple short texts instead of one longer one, which meant she would start to answer the first whatever he’d said, then a second one would come in so she’d have to erase the first one and write an answer that addressed both whatevers, and then he’d do it again. And it wasn’t like he couldn’t see she’d started to answer; he could see her dots! Laura once told her grandmother this single personality trait would have been the final straw had his habit of calling her irritating nicknames and telling her what to do not already done the trick.

However, when his sleepy but familiar face loomed up on her screen, she smiled despite herself. This was the difficulty with Nick; he was charming and largely harmless, but also spoiled rotten and convinced of his own arguments. Everything was easy with him except, it turned out, achieving escape velocity.

“Hey, dollface,” he said. “You look as gorgeous as ever. Burning the midnight oil?”

Laura frowned at him. “No, that would be you.”

“Really?” He checked the time. “Oh, yeah. What time is it there?”

“Three hours earlier than you.”

He grinned at her. “Sweetie, please tell me. Don’t torture me.” He snuggled down, and Laura realized he was in bed, which shouldn’t have been a surprise. “You know how bad I am at math, honey bunches of oats.” This was an old joke. His father had won the Fields Medal when he wasn’t much older than Nick was now, and the fact that Nick was getting his PhD in biophysics had been viewed by his family as a compromise because he couldn’t handle “real math.” They still referred to him sometimes as “poor Nick.”

She shook her head. “I mean it, Nick. Yes, we’re friends, we’ve known each other forever, but we’re not going to stay friends unless you back the hell up. If I can quote Taylor Swift, ‘we are never, ever, ever getting back together.’ ”

Nick rubbed his face with his hand and pouted. “Yeah, yeah, so you keep saying. Look, I can’t help it if I want to try.” He smiled, one of his melting smiles that made grandmas hand over their babies and babies hand over their ice creams. “You can take all the time you want, sweet cheeks, I’ll wait patiently till you’re certain.”

“I’m certain,” said Laura firmly. “This is what certain looks like.”

“Who knew certainty was so sexy?”

Laura frowned at him. “Quit it. Seriously.” She paused and sighed. “OK, seeing as we’re on FaceTime . . . can I see him?”

Nick grinned and gently lifted the duvet.