“Hey, so, I’ve actually been meaning to contact you about something.”

“Okay.” She had her MetroCard already in hand. “What’s up?” Her gaze narrowed. “Is something wrong with your suit jacket?”

“What? No.” I had hung it up in the back of my closet after she handed it to me and hadn’t touched it since. “The jacket is fine.”

She wiped fake sweat from her brow with a smile and then dropped her hand, eyeing me expectantly.

The words were bottlenecked in my mouth. My brain tried to force them out, as if it were slapping the bottom of a ketchup bottle. “I wanted to apologize if I was weird, when we did the interview. I mean, I was weird. Not if. I was. And for what I said about you not being my type. I just felt very out of place, and my words got all mixed up. So. I’m sorry.”

She studied me, sucking her cheeks in, shifting her frown into a scowl. Just as my stomach started to twist with nerves, her face blossomed into a smile.

“We’re cool,” she said finally, giving me a playful push on my shoulder.

“Yeah?” My face flushed with relief.

“Of course. That whole morning was weird.” She fiddled with her MetroCard in her hands. “Well, obviously not for some of us.” Her eyes widened, and she ran a hand through her hair, tucking it behind her ear. It was shorter than I remembered. Darker too.

I realized I was staring, and blinked to recalibrate. “Oh, you mean my cousin and…”

“Lola,” she said.

“Lola, right. Yeah, they’ve only made it weirder.”

She laughed at this, which felt like a win.

“Well, hey, I accept your apology—again.” She leaned toward me and gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze. “And I hope you have a nice life.”

It was a funny thing to say, yet her voice was completely sincere.

“I hope you have a nice life too, Franny. And a nice night.”

And then, with a swipe of her MetroCard, she was off through the turnstile, lost back to the city that had given her to me.

*  *  *

Franny was still on my mind the next morning, our conversation on replay in my brain, ready for me to analyze and obsess over. I couldn’t stop thinking about her, and that alone felt off for me. Even work wasn’t distracting me like it normally did. And so I texted Serena and asked if she was able to bump up our first date by a few days and meet after work today instead. We’d talked briefly on the phone last week, introducing ourselves and making plans to meet in person. Talking with Serena had been easy and familiar, which was exactly what I needed right now to quell this off-balance feeling Franny had stirred up in me.