Just when Tessa thought she couldn’t walk another block, she spotted a funky SoHo café with an unpronounceable French name. She nudged Jenn. “Mocha time?”

Jenn grabbed her elbow and pulled her toward the door. “You read my mind.”

At a tiny table beneath a striped awning, she savored iced coffee as decadent as chocolate cream pie while an eclectic assortment of people and dogs paraded for their entertainment.

Jenn licked whipped cream from her straw. “I know you have men falling all over you back home, but Adam invited Dennis, a friend from work, to dinner. We’ll meet at eight, and then Dennis’s roommate is playing in a band at a midtown bar, so maybe we’ll stop by after?”

A piece of ice crunched between her molars. “I do kind of have a boyfriend.”

Jenn waggled the straw at Tessa’s left hand. “No ring on that finger yet, missy. Seriously, no pressure. Let’s just have some fun.”

She rolled her shoulders, stretched aching legs, and gave Jenn the thumbs-up. With no idea how she would survive until eight pm without eating, she swiped on her new Macy’s lipstick in the cramped café bathroom. All right, universe, bring on the blind dates. And the second iced mocha.

A little after eight, she and Jenn met the guys in front of a pocket-sized Italian restaurant in the East Village. Smelling of stale cologne and whatever he ate for lunch, Dennis smothered her hand in a clammy handshake. Instantly, she knew. This man was not a love connection.

Dennis was undoubtedly smart. He discussed current events with an exhaustive knowledge that excited a modicum of awe, though nothing else. He was also redheaded, with the sallow complexion that sadly plagued some men of their shared coloring. Her order had barely passed her lips when Dennis launched into a lecture predicting the inevitable extinction of red hair from the planet.

He raked his fingers through stringy strands at his temples. “My views are controversial but supported by the Oxford Hair Foundation, who claimed red hair could vanish by 2060.”

She ignored him and counted the light fixtures. Jenn and Adam also took no notice of Dennis’s lecture. Oblivious to the world, they cuddled in the corner, smooching and giggling. Mildly nauseated, Tessa sipped her seltzer, even while something in her belly pulled, and her mind’s eye lingered over Jonas’s taut, tanned cheek.

“Most people presume the redhead is of Celtic descent,” Dennis droned.

She dipped a piece of crusty bread in olive oil and slipped it into her mouth. Divine. Could she possibly fit a dozen loaves into her tote? She offered Dennis the basket.

He waved her off and kept talking.

You snooze, you lose, dude. This baguette’s mine.