“I only meant that health care costs are at a premium, and many people in creative industries—”

“Reid.” I turn to face him, crossing my arms over my chest and feeling a fresh mist of rain blow against my whole right side—my clothes, my face, my hair. I never really knew what people meant before when they said someone was “pushing their buttons.” Right now, I am made of buttons.

I take a deep breath, wait for him to look at me. I feel electric.

“Let’s get something straight between us. I don’t feel sorry for you, and you have no reason to feel sorry for me, either. I’m not some manic pixie dream girl who needs your stabilizing influence. I’m good at my job. I built a business in one of the toughest cities in the world that now people are coming to me to expand. I only thought it’d be nice to have a—”

I break off, startled, my face heating. I was going to say friend. Jesus, what am I doing? Why am I saying all these things to him?

“A what?” he asks.

“Company,” I finish, limply. “Like I said before.”

“You do have a company.”

“No—” Oh, my God. This is so . . . it’s so frustrating, how it is between us. How he presses me on every single thing, how he baits me into saying what I shouldn’t say. How he doesn’t let me keep it light.

“That’s not what I meant,” I say.

The whole world seems to quiet around us, the rain suddenly slowing, barely a drizzle now. Fat globes of it drop from the edge of the awning we stand under, and within seconds there’s twice the number of people on the street, emerging from whatever shelter they took during the downpour. Reid watches them, looking tense and handsome and sad, and even in spite of the frustration, I still feel that thing—that sympathy, that connection.

But I’m wrong, clearly.

I step out from underneath the awning. A big drop of rain falls from the edge of it and hits me on the forehead, right where the pimples are. No umbrella, no dignity. What a freaking day.

“Meg,” he says softly, and for a second, I think his eyes might be—pleading? But his mouth closes again. He’s got nothing at all to add. This whole thing has been painful for him, from start to finish.

He tries to hand me his umbrella, but I wave it off.

“This was a mistake,” I say, and this time he doesn’t cough when he hears me say the word. That word.

He only looks at me, holding that stupid forty-percent-chance umbrella, and I guess it’s as good as an agreement.

I turn and walk away, and I feel as if I’m trailing the letters of that fateful word behind me.