I jumped straight out of my skin. Then, lungs heaving, I felt myself assemble again. I stared up at the library’s IT guy. “Josh Hadden,” I said severely, trying and failing not to pant like a frightened rabbit. “Promise you won’t ever scare me like that again!”

He shrugged. “Okay. But it’s not like it was my fault. You were the one not looking where you were going.”

“True, but why didn’t you say anything before I got a foot away?”

“Did. You didn’t hear me.”

This conversation was clearly going nowhere, so I diverted. “What are you doing in the great outdoors, anyway? I thought IT guys had to stay inside to keep their eyes from adjusting to bright light.”

On a normal day, that type of friendly insult would have been met with an insult at a slightly higher level, and gone up from there until one of us missed a turn and victory would have been declared. This time, however, it seemed that things were going to be different.

“What?” Josh looked left and right but didn’t focus on anything going on around us.

“Never mind. Were you out for lunch?”

Once upon a time, Josh had eaten many of his meals out of the library’s vending machine, and any other food he ingested had come from restaurants. But when he’d bought a house, he’d arrived at the stark realization that his disposable income had been reduced significantly, adjusted his eating habits, and even become interested in cooking. He’d also lost some weight in the process, though he never wanted to talk about that.

“Yeah. Lunch.”

We started walking back to the library. I couldn’t think of a time that Josh had ever, in the history of our coworkership, talked to me outside the building during working hours. After work, sure, when a group of library staffers would gather together for some occasion, but not one-on-one. Clearly, he wanted to say something, and just as clearly he was uncomfortable and unhappy.

Which could mean only one thing.

Darn it.

“So how’s Mia?” I asked.

“What?” His head whipped around. “What makes you think there’s anything wrong? She had lunch with me, so we’re good, right? That’s what that means. She wouldn’t go out to lunch with me if she was about to break up, would she?”

I tried to remember exactly how my relationships had ended. Had I hemmed and hawed while still going out with whomever? My memories were thankfully foggy. But anyway, I wasn’t Mia, and Mia wasn’t me, so my experiences didn’t count. “Has she said anything about breaking up?”

“Well, no, but—”

This was starting to feel familiar. “Are you pressuring her to decide about moving in with you?”

“I asked her weeks ago!”