“You’re rebelling. You’re following your own path. That’s all I ever wanted for you. I’m ecstatic!”

“You are? Then what the heck are we yelling for?” I want to know.

“You were pissed that I assumed I knew what was best for you. That’s a pretty bad look for me, huh?”

“It’s okay,” I say, meaning it.

“As for Miles . . .” She waits until my gaze meets hers. “You didn’t come here to meet a guy.”

“But I did meet a guy—”

“There’s a whole city out there—a whole life—that has nothing to do with that café and nothing to do with this building, and if it’s too tough to live here anymore, we’ll find you a new place. It won’t be as good as this place, but . . .”

“He isn’t going to make me move. I was here first,” I snap.

“True. I’ll raise his rent sky-high, just his, and—”

“No, we’re not kicking him out either. If it’s a ghost he wants, I can be a ghost. Check this out.” I make a big show of opening Miles’s contact info on my phone and hitting “block” with a flourish. And then I even go over to Aisha’s and do the same thing—from now on, my life is Ibrahim-free.

“That’s the spirit! Take what you’ve been given and rewrite it. Change the plot, switch the dialogue, make it work. Be your own script doctor; you’re in charge of what happens next, not him.”

With Frank on her shoulder, feather boa wrapped around both of them, she gets up and makes her way to the exit. “Let me know about those tickets.”

“When did you find out your show was going to happen?” I ask, as something clicks into place in my mind.

“Hmm?” she says absentmindedly, securing a new cigarette in her mouth. “March, I think. Why?”

March. The month she abruptly fired me and sent me to New York.

“Mary . . . did you send me here so we’d still be in the same city?”

“That would be crazy,” she says, her lip curving up, and a second later, she’s gone. I laugh out loud, and between that and the release of tears earlier, I’m feeling slightly better.

Just because Miles won’t be with me doesn’t mean I can’t explore the city on my own.

I’ll start by expanding my café horizons.

CHAPTER 33 - MILES

CHAPTER 33

MILES

“To the groom and groom!”

Everyone is still holding up his or her champagne glass but I have already downed mine.