He’s at the end of the long, dark-stained wood bar, wearing his weekend jacket over his weekend T-shirt and jeans. To anyone else, I’m sure his posture looks out of place: upright, overly formal. But I realize I know Reid’s body so well that I can see how his broad shoulders hunch, ever so slightly, over the short glass of amber-colored liquid in front of him, the fingers of one hand curled around it.

That doesn’t look right, I think, ridiculously. It should be a cup of tea.

It’s this final incongruity that propels me forward, no thought to whether this’ll end in a confrontation. I only want him out of here, out of this place where he doesn’t belong. I take the empty stool next to him and right away he turns his head to me, his eyes widening briefly, those barely hunched shoulders straightening immediately.

“Meg. Hello.”

He seems all the drunker for pretending not to be. His voice is extra deep, extra stern, and I should not be attracted to that, given that he’s probably compensating for an inclination to slur. But there’s no helping it: He sounds great.

“Hey there, Reid.” I catch the bartender’s eye, give her a wave of acknowledgment that I made it. She smiles and makes a discreet gesture to the register and I nod, indicating that I’ll take the check.

“You’ve got cats all over you,” Reid says.

I look down, remembering the gold Hello Kitty faces. I truly wish I was wearing something less absurd, but when I look back up at Reid he doesn’t have the perplexed furrow in his brow I expect. Instead he’s got a sloppy version of that swoonsh, as though he is entirely charmed.

As though we haven’t fought at all.

And I admit—I’m tempted to give in to it. Yes, part of me is thinking, look at my silly dress and forget about Prospect Park. Finish your drink and we’ll walk it off, look at some signs together. We’ll forget this ever happened. We’ll never talk about it again.

Instead I ask him the most direct question I can think of at the moment. “Did you lose your phone?”

He meets my eyes, his crooked smile fading. “No, I left it at home. I needed a break from it.”

I swallow, feeling stung. Three calls isn’t that many. Still, I stay in my seat.

I stay.

“From work,” he clarifies, seeming to read my mind. He turns his glass a quarter-turn, but makes no move to pick it up. “I called in sick today.”