My phone rang on the way to the diner—Kate. Wait until I told my best friend about my meet-cute in the lobby. She’d die.

After I’d brought her up-to-date, she squealed. “Dead. I’m dead! This is so exciting. You’re totally channeling a Hallmark heroine!”

I winced, turned the phone off speaker, and whispered “I’m sorry” to the passing pedestrian on Main Street.

The middle-aged man glared, then continued walking. How rude. Was this Pleasant Hollow or New York City? I swallowed down the urge to shout, “I said I was sorry!” and focused on Kate. “If you mean ‘woman leaves big city for small town in search of career-making story and a permanent journalist gig,’ then yes.”

I paused my walk to sit on a wooden bench in front of Miller’s General Store. I’d already gotten off on the wrong foot with one local by having a private conversation in public. Best not to risk doing it again, especially since the townspeople were critical to my story.

“And falls in love with small-town man,” Kate added.

I laughed. “Stop it. I’m not here to meet someone.” But Kate knew me too well. Friends for twenty years, we took our first no-adults subway ride together at eleven, sat through our mothers’ embarrassing co-sex-talk at twelve, and snuck into our first bar in tandem at sixteen. These and other joint milestones bonded us for life. She was the Lane to my Rory.

“So does Finn look anything like Andrew Walker or Wes Brown?”

“He’s hot, but no.” Finn favored neither of our two favorite Hallmark movie actors, but he was more than worthy leading-man material. “I’m pretty sure Andrew and Wes are busy on a movie set in Canada or something.” Most Hallmark movies were filmed near Vancouver. “Anyway, you’re being silly.”

“I’m jealous, but I can’t really complain. At least Diego doesn’t resemble the movie version of the workaholic boring city boyfriend.” She chuckled.

“You mean the one with bad hair the heroine trades in for the hot, flannel-wearing, Christmas-loving dude? Not at all. Diego is a workaholic city boyfriend, but he’s not boring, he doesn’t have bad hair, and most importantly, you love him.” Kate had met her boyfriend a year earlier when they kept bumping into each other at the Starbucks by their offices in the morning before work. Coincidentally, their law firms were located in the same building in Midtown. It was a real-life meet-cute. Kate and Diego were the rare success story. When you heard the urban legend about “the friend of a friend” who actually met someone great in Manhattan, fell in love, and lived happily ever after—or at least for now—it was probably Kate.

“All I’m saying is Pleasant Hollow would be the perfect place to meet the anti-Leo.”