“You and the Novelist are done, huh?” he asked.

That’s what I called Jeremy on the blog when I wrote about him. And since we’d just broken up—again—I’d written about him recently.

“Yep,” I said, looking down at my notes, praying I’d thrown a secret Hail Mary in there somewhere. “We’re done.”

The Novelist. What a dumb non-pseudonym. Maybe Jeremy was right about my writing skills.

After all, he was actually a novelist, with a highly anticipated first novel under contract. I maintained a navel-gazing blog and interviewed celebrities. Badly.

“Our sensibilities are too disparate,” he’d said when we broke up this time. “We’re going in opposite directions.”

“Good,” Gabe said.

My head popped up.

Gabe shrugged. “He seemed like a jerk.”

“He had his moments,” I said.

I didn’t know why I felt I needed to defend Jeremy when all I’d done recently was defend myself to him.

“Sure,” Gabe said.

Weirdly, it didn’t make me feel better that Gabe Parker thought my ex-boyfriend was a jerk. After all, Jeremy had broken up with me. So what did that say about me that I dated and got dumped by a jerk?

Probably that I was pathetic and naïve.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

Who did Gabe think he was, judging my relationships?

“What about you and Jacinda?” I asked, knowing that everyone and their mother had been trying to get confirmation that they were dating.

Gabe might have been the unexpected choice for Bond, but no one had blinked an eye when Jacinda Lockwood had been announced as his leading lady. The British-born model was elegant, glamorous, and pursuing an acting career. Though the press hadn’t been surprised, they had definitely been snarky, declaring her “overly ambitious.”

“Jacinda and I are just friends,” Gabe said too quickly and flatly to be even remotely believable.

“Sure,” I said, and took a bite of a cold fry. We both knew he wasn’t being entirely truthful.

I didn’t get it. If Gabe and Jacinda were dating, why keep it a secret? There was nothing the tabloids loved more than two beautiful people sleeping together. Even if they were both single.

If I could get confirmation of their relationship or some quote acknowledging that they’d been more than just friendly, then that could make the article. It wouldn’t be special but it would have something new, at least. It would make people read. It would probably get me another job.

“She’s a friend,” Gabe said.

I tried to remember all the times I’d been photographed with a friend’s hand resting on my ass while we stumbled out of a bar in Paris. I’d also never wound my arms around a friend’s neck, pressing my face against his cheek. Nor had I ever nibbled a friend’s earlobe while sliding my hand into his shirt.