I lift a hand and press the cuff of my sleeve to my lips. They’re very nearly numb. “Being around the office in such close proximity day in and day out.” I hadn’t realized how much of a toll it was taking, not touching her, until this moment.

Jenny nods, glancing away and back again. “Yeah. Much easier.”

I open my mouth to explain that I don’t mean just the one kiss—I could never mean just the one kiss—when there’s the rattle of a tray behind us.

The waiter leans over the table five feet away, looking studiously down at the silver trays he’s uncovering.

It’s time for the main course.

13

Jenny

I do what anyone would do the first time they get kissed by Roman Bliss on the balcony of the resort’s most exclusive suite in the golden light of June’s finest sunset so far. I sit down across from him at a table intimately set for two and eat the greatest filet mignon of my entire life.

What choice do I have? I’ve crossed over into a fantastical world where something I’ve done has gone according to plan. Wildly according to plan. Not that I fully believe it. Yes, I felt it in his kiss. Yes, it made me want to melt straight through the balcony and spend my final moments as an evaporating glisten on the sand below. All of that seemed so real.

Seemed so real.

I could also be high. Endorphins can have a drug-like effect on the brain, which is why you want to do everything you can to encourage that rush when you meet someone. I researched it extensively when I decided to stop living a disastrous life as Genevieve and reinvented myself.

There’s a complicating factor, too, and that’s the steak itself.

As a lovesick teenager I always thought that if Roman Bliss kissed me, I’d go on a hunger strike so as not to replace the taste of his lips on mine with anything else. As a mostly rational adult, I know better than to turn down an expensive filet that’s been butterflied and cooked to an exquisite medium-well. It’s an island in a delicate pool of peppercorn sauce. One quadrant of the plate is taken up with miniature potatoes cut in half, swimming in the same sauce. It’s all so perfect that I don’t have to add salt.