“I know you don’t have unlimited time, but I’ll make a decision soon, I promise. Soon.”

“Thanks,” I say, exhaling.

I lie flat on my back next to him, but I feel too exposed. So I roll away from him, onto my side, where he can’t see how crushed and hopeless I feel.

• Chapter 28 •

According to a wedding-planning magazine I glanced at once at a bridal salon when Sophie was trying on dresses, there’s a frighteningly long checklist of things to do the week before you tie the knot. If you don’t have a wedding planner, which, of course, I do not—the last thing I need is to pay a stranger to ask nosy questions about who, exactly, the groom is—the tasks all fall to the bride: performing a complicated twelve-step skincare routine, calling vendors to confirm call times, and writing out a day-of itinerary to give to my photographer (an Instagram influencer’s Instagram boyfriend who offered me a deal if I offered him a discount on an engagement ring). There’s just one problem—it’s difficult to get through these tasks with any gusto if you’re not entirely sure the wedding will actually take place.

But it’s not like I have anything else to do. Raj left my apartment quietly and quickly this morning. Running through my usual set of tasks at Brooklyn Jewels feels useless, given that there might not be a Brooklyn Jewels by next month. At least not in the way I’d want it to exist. I can’t stand the uncertainties creeping up from every side. I have to do something. So I put on my most no-nonsense jeans and the first top I grab from my dresser drawer and I head downstairs to get some goddamn work done.

Jess is already at the shop when I walk in the door.

“Morning,” she says, glancing up from her work organizing a case of jewels.

“Morning,” I reply.

The sight of Jess triggers an uncomfortable realization. There’s a terrible conversation that I need to have with her, and I’ve put it off for as long as I possibly can.

“Do you actually have a minute to talk?” I ask.

She looks up from the velvet tray that she’s loading with necklaces. “Yeah, what’s up?”

I sigh and take the seat next to hers. “Look, there’s no easy way to say this, but our finances are in rough shape,” I say.

Her eyes go dead. “Oh,” she says heavily.

“As things currently stand, I can’t say for sure that we’ll be open past mid-November first,” I explain.

“But the holidays are the busiest sales season,” she protests. “You can’t close right before then.”