“Oh, you sweet dummy.” She rolled back toward me in her chair, an overly sympathetic look on her face, playing it up for effect. “We had plenty of those too. I asked Tyler not to include them in the document.” Eleanor reached forward to pat me on the head, but I swatted her hand away and ducked before she could get to me.

“I really came across like a jerk, huh?” I slouched forward to lean my elbows on my knees. For the last few days, I’d been replaying my conversation with Franny in my head, which was something I rarely did, even after a terrible business meeting.

“I’ve definitely seen you have better moments,” Eleanor said with a laugh that was full of affection.

“Thank god the audio from our coffee date wasn’t recorded,” I said with a sigh. I didn’t normally get hung up on stuff, and it was starting to annoy me that I couldn’t shake the weird feelings our fifteen minutes of fame had stirred up. “It was so uncomfortable. I asked her what books she read.”

“And?” Eleanor asked.

“I don’t know. She said something about a cult book, and I kinda froze,” I said.

Eleanor cringed, her shoulders shooting up to her ears. “I love books about cults,” she said, and while Eleanor’s reply didn’t surprise me, I was still having trouble wrapping my mind around Franny and cults. The fact that I was trying to was worrisome in and of itself.

“Well then, you should go on a televised coffee date with her,” I replied, the snark evident in my tone.

“I would,” she said as she sipped a can of seltzer water. “We could discuss wallpaper. She seems supercool. Definitely my type.”

Eleanor raised her brows at me, waiting for my reaction. Instead, I just took a giant bite of my food, not giving her the satisfaction of getting a rise out of me.

“Maybe you just need to go on a real date,” she suggested. “Like a palate cleanser.”

I shook my head. “I can’t deal with dating apps right now.”

“Let me set you up, then.” She perked up at this idea, a smile on her face. “It’ll be fun. I still have some cool, hot friends you haven’t met yet.”

The idea of recalibrating sounded appealing. I needed to get rid of this awkward, restless feeling, and fast.

“Go for it,” I said. Eleanor relished a challenge. “Do your best.”

We ate quietly for a minute until I realized we hadn’t actually discussed her bad news. “Hey,” I said through a mouthful of food. “What was the other thing?”

Eleanor sighed, a resigned look on her face. This wasn’t a good sign. “Damien Yi just quit.”

My stomach dropped. “What do you mean, he ‘quit’?”

“He got hired to go do some socialite’s new apartment in London,” she explained, clearly annoyed.