I shrug. I don’t want to talk about our exes.

It was almost a year after Gabe’s marriage to Jacinda that I went to New York. Just for a visit. For work.

Jeremy and I had kept in touch, and he had invited me out to dinner.

He’d changed. I’d changed.

Dinner became late night drinks at his place and then brunch the next morning. The weekend became a week and then I was heading back to L.A. to pack my things. We were engaged a year later.

I didn’t think about Gabe at all.

“You’re back now,” Gabe says.

I shrug again.

“I like the newsletter,” Gabe says.

“Thank you,” I say, because it seems rude not to.

I’d switched from blogging to a monthly newsletter about three years ago. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wonder if he kept reading my blog after that weekend. And I’d also be lying if I said I didn’t occasionally check the emails of people who subscribed to my newsletter to see if he had subscribed.

I’d never seen his name, but then again, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had a private email account that he used.

We both eat our burgers, and when I’ve finished my fries, I push the remainder of them toward him. He finishes them without a word.

“So,” I say, wiping my fingers. “The Philadelphia Story.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Someone once told me it was a movie that needed an update.”

I know what he’s doing. I know he’s hoping I’ll make some cute, flattered comment like “Oh, did they?” and he’ll have an opening and we’ll laugh and things will be friendly and casual.

I can’t do that again.

That girl—that brave, brash, bold, stupid girl—has to protect herself. This interview has to stay professional. From start to finish.

“This is your third movie with Oliver Matthias,” I say.

“With Ollie, yeah,” Gabe says.

“No hard feelings it seems,” I say.

“He’s more forgiving than he should be,” Gabe says. “I don’t know if I’d do the same thing in his shoes.”

“Yes, you would,” I say.

He smiles.

I almost cave—his smile is just that good, that familiar—but I remind myself how I felt when I heard about him and Jacinda. I remind myself how it felt seeing him in New York.

I pay for lunch and I already know that Broad Sheets is going to be disappointed with the interview I turn in. It will be fine—it will be competently written and flattering to Gabe—but it won’t be anywhere near the article that I wrote ten years ago.

Because we’re not the same people we were ten years ago.

That’s just going to have to be good enough for Broad Sheets. For the world.