“Right. Do you need help with that?”

She smiled. “Brownie points for asking. But you’re off the hook, mainly because your handwriting is abysmal.”

“Can you please write Mrs. Kerry and tell her that? She was always giving me crap about my penmanship, but I would like her to know that that particular lack of skill has served me well by getting me out of wedding tasks. I’d do it, but she wouldn’t be able to read the note.”

“Absolutely,” Audrey agreed absently. “I’d love to! I don’t have much else going on in the next couple of weeks. Just three dress fittings, figuring out my wedding makeup, finding a last-minute harpist since ours double-booked, finalizing the wedding programs, getting facials to try to ward off this pimple, and trying to convince my mom to go with the dress option that’s not 100 percent glitter. I’m basically bored, so, yes, I’ll make time to write your third-grade teacher and update her on your chicken scrawl.”

“Yep. Sarcasm in the morning is definitely my future. More coffee?”

“Sure. Please,” she said, distracted by trying to remember whether Clarke’s friend Paul from college had neglected to call Jess Thomson after a one-night stand or Jen Thomson. Remembering incorrectly could lead to fireworks. She tapped her lip. She decided to put Paul between the two women and hope they’d all learned how to be grown-ups.

“All right,” Clarke said, returning to the table, setting the coffee carafe next to her Post-it notes, and wrestling the plastic wrap off something. “Train me.”

“Train you to do what?” she asked, not looking up. “I mean, I’ve got a list, starting with teaching you how to fold laundry in something other than a ball shape.”

He shoved a small bottle in front of her face. “How much of this goop do you put in?”

Audrey glanced at it, then sat up straighter. “Where’d you get that?”

“Online,” he said, lifting the bottle to his mouth and using his teeth to break the seal on the plastic wrap. The packaging was a bitch to open. Audrey knew from experience because she ordered it in bulk.

It was her favorite chocolate syrup. The kind she put in her coffee.

“Where online?” she demanded.

“From…” Clarke pulled the bottle away from his mouth and looked at the label. “However you pronounce this place. Their website.”

Audrey’s heart was pounding. “How’d you know the name?”

“Because I took a picture of the bottle last time I was at your house,” he said, giving her an exasperated, puzzled look. “What’s with the inquisition? Are you giving up chocolate or something?”

“No!” Audrey said, quickly swiping at her eyes. “No, it’s just… I didn’t realize you’d noticed how I drank my coffee.”