I pick it up and someone calls my name. It’s Aisha. Uh, why is it Aisha?

“Oh my God, he doesn’t . . . make you . . . deliver the champagne?” I squawk.

“It’s a gig economy—what can I say?” She grins. “Just kidding, I’m strictly photography. This happened to arrive at the same time as me.”

“What are you doing here?”

We meet each other halfway, between Miles’s place and mine. “This is where my brother lives! I’m watering his plants while he’s out of town. He’s taking one for the team; whenever one of us visits a set of parents, it buys the other one at least a month of no guilt.”

“Your brother is Miles?” Mind. Blown. To hell. Though now that I look more closely at her, I can see the family resemblance.

“Cousin, actually—I’m so used to thinking of him as a brother that I always slip up. But yeah—he asked me to keep his orchids alive while he’s away.”

“He’s capable of keeping something alive? Huh . . .” My cheeks warm because against my own free will I’m thinking about that kiss. He’d certainly made me feel alive. And Aisha should probably never know that.

This is too weird. I’m going to ignore it until it goes away. Drinking should help . . .

I hoist the champagne bottle and tilt it toward her. “When you’re done, want to join me?”

She grins. “I probably shouldn’t, but . . . yeah, let’s do it!”

Fifteen minutes later we sit on the couch and clink our coffee mugs together: “To the gig economy,” I offer.

“To family members always willing to send you job listings,” Aisha adds, raising her mug in the direction of my shared wall with Miles.

“Did he help you get Sweet Nothings?” I ask, surprised.

“The job beforehand, actually, which led to Sweet Nothings. Thank goodness, or I’d have been asking him for a loan,” she admits with a rueful smile. “Of course, he would never work there. Anyway, I take it this means your latest client fell in love?” Aisha asks. “Congratulations.”

“Yes, unfortunately.”

“Unfortunately?”

“I sort of . . . developed feelings for the guy. The match. So unprofessional, right?”

“You know, I think it’s understandable that you’d start to feel things for the people you’re meeting or helping. When you’re flirting that hard, I’m sure it’s not always easy to turn it off.”

“Thanks for saying that. It’s just—he was so clever and just really nice and—” Easy on the eyes.

“If you’re looking for clever and nice, honestly, I’m not just saying this, but M—”

While she speaks, I take my first sip of the champagne and dear LORD it’s foul.

“Oof, I’m sorry, I—” I race to the sink and spit it out. “Undrinkable.”