“This is a lot of work in order to have sex,” she said as she power-walked—she was running late—down Second Avenue to the Upper East Side brunch place Logan had suggested. It sounded like something she would say to Max. It was something she would say to Max—and then he would remind her that he could be on an airplane within two hours. She and Max, to her continuing surprise, had settled into a real friendship. They talked on the phone every few days, reporting in on their New Year’s resolution progress and shooting the breeze about life in general.

But she wasn’t talking to Max now; she was talking to Leo. She hadn’t taken Max up on his offer to be the person she checked in with before and after her date. For some reason, she was perfectly comfortable joking with Max about her sex problems, including him being the solution to them, but when it came to reporting in to him about actually having sex . . . not so much. It felt weird. Just like when she’d talked to Max on the phone on New Year’s Eve and she suddenly hadn’t known what to say when it became clear he’d been entertaining a guest earlier that evening.

“Maybe you need a friend with benefits,” Leo said.

She pushed thoughts of Max aside. “Maybe this guy can be that. How does one broach that subject?”

“Wait until after the deed is done. No need to sign him up for the gig until you know if he has the right qualifications, if you know what I mean.”

That made sense, but she hoped Logan worked out. It had taken her so long to find him. Honestly, she’d thought the whole point of Tinder was that it was easy. Apparently if you had standards, it wasn’t any easier than the real world. When she’d talked to Max about New Year’s resolutions, she’d expected “get divorced” to be the hard one. But here it was the end of February and she’d had a promising initial meeting with a lawyer, but she still hadn’t had sex.

She thought about Max’s rule about singular encounters only. That might be smarter, if less efficient, than setting up a regular thing with someone. Less risk of anyone getting too attached. Not that she was in danger of doing that. That was why she had her list. She’d perused it on the subway, in fact. Even though she had it memorized, she liked to look at it with her own eyeballs sometimes, to see it there in black and white.

She slowed as the restaurant came into view. Logan was on the patio. He looked exactly like his photos, which was something she’d been led to believe often wasn’t the case. “Oh,” she said to Leo, “I am going to have fun.”

She did not have fun.