Haunted tours, eh? I ain’t afraid of no ghost. But seriously, what a cool idea. I’ve been in New York for two years now and I haven’t even thought to do one of those yet. (Do you think there’s one that includes that guy from Twitter whose apartment is haunted? I mean, honestly, some guys have all the luck. Why couldn’t a terrifying poltergeist choose my building to plague for all eternity so that someone could snatch the rights to my life story. As always, I blame the co-op board . . .)

The café door jangles and I inadvertently look up. It’s Miss Flo Rida herself. I see her eye the large table first, her face falling as she registers the full-blown toy shop that seems to live there now. Then she scans the café and stops when she sees me.

I give her a sort of half smile and a shrug. Guess it’s a stalemate today. But I can’t really read her expression back. Within moments, she’s looking away, eyeing the only other empty table in the place. She looks at her bag, clearly wondering whether it’s worth putting it down and risk getting it stolen or better to possibly lose the table.

Don’t do it, I immediately think. Sure, this is expensive AF, $7.99 latte, Million Dollar Listing New York . . . but it’s still New York. I keep looking at her, sort of trying to will her not to part with her belongings. She walks over to the table anyway though, hesitates, and then takes off one of the arm warmers she’s always wearing and places it over the chair.

She doesn’t look at me as she walks back to the counter, but I almost smile at her again. That was pretty clever.

With impeccable timing, I hear a whoosh informing me of a new company-wide memo from Leanne, and I’m transported back to the whole reason I’m in this café to begin with: to work, save my career, and prove to everyone—most importantly myself—that I am not just a shell of a man.

I reread what I’ve written so far to Bree. It’s a little out there. It could possibly turn someone off.

The Sea Lord sends his regards, I type in the next paragraph. And he’d absolutely love to conspire further with you.

~ Jude

I stare at it for a moment and then, before I can second-guess myself, I hit send. It is out there but the truth is . . . my instincts for this stuff are pretty good. At least, when it comes to other people’s love lives.

I’ve just copied the message into an e-mail that I’m about to send Jude, along with a brief intro telling him I think Bree is a good choice, when I get a little ping.

Bree has just jumped online and lobbed back.