I open my laptop and pull up QuickBooks, the accounting software that shows our expenses, our sales numbers, and what’s left in our company bank account. I swivel the laptop to face Sophie and come around the table to lean on the arm of her chair. I tweak the data in the document to reflect projections—how much money we’ll need to pull in by the end of October in order to re-sign the lease at the higher rate. I optimistically increase our sales numbers, too, explaining that we’ve been on the upswing for weeks and can logically expect to maintain a certain level of growth. If the math is right—and I think it is—this proves that we’ll be able to squeak by just fine, as long as our sales continue to grow exponentially.

“That’s a big if,” Sophie points out.

I take a deep breath. “I promise I won’t let you down. I want to make this work—it has to work. For both of us, and Jess, and Mom and Dad, too.”

She finishes her slice of pizza, brushes the crumbs from her hands, and closes the laptop. Her eyes aren’t red-rimmed with tears anymore.

“I want to trust you,” she says.

“I don’t want to lose this place any more than you do,” I remind her gently.

She hugs me tightly. “I know, I know,” she says.

On my phone, I key up a disco playlist on Spotify. The pulsing opening notes make her grin and groove in her seat. She knows exactly what I’m doing. I heap another slice of pizza onto her paper plate, swirling the dripping strings of cheese around onto the tip. And for the first time in a long time, we relax together—not talking about work, or money, or my fake engagement, or her long road to conception. Instead, we’re just two sisters on a mellow Tuesday night in, trading gossip about people from back home and pulling up photos of fluffier and fluffier cats on Instagram until it’s dark outside and our bellies are full.

• Chapter 10 •

I always thought I’d want a guy to make a grand, romantic gesture. It turns out that’s only because I’ve never had one. In reality, grand, romantic gestures catch you unpleasantly off guard. I learn this the hard way at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, when I’m hunched over my laptop in the front of the shop and the bell over the door dings. Blake sails through the door holding a bouquet of unwieldy proportions, stuffed with tulips and orchids and miles of greenery—and I’m wearing nearly thirty thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds on my left ring finger.