Our dinner tomorrow night will be the first time Gabriel and I have gone out with others as a couple. He hasn’t even met my father yet. At least not as my boyfriend, although they crossed paths during the investigation into Charlotte’s murder. But Lauren is family too. She’s much more than an ex-boss. She’s my mentor, my role model, the woman I admire most. My mother died when I was still in college, so I never got to see her through adult eyes.

“Then I’d better be on my best behavior,” Gabriel says as he flashes his A-smile, the one that never fails him with members of the opposite sex, including me.

“You’d better,” I say. “If she doesn’t approve, you’re history, my friend.”

After dinner we go back to my apartment. I suggest we take a cab, as the temperature has dropped to near freezing, unseasonably cold for pre-Thanksgiving New York City. Gabriel says the walk will be fun. He takes my hand, which, as cheesy as it sounds, is truly all the warmth I need.

We’re at the point in our relationship where even though the sex is not new, it’s still implied when we spend the night together. If my past is prologue, though, soon enough one or the other of us will claim to be too tired, or will have to wake up early, and that streak will be broken. For now, I try to enjoy the certainty of knowing it’s going to happen.

I need to shed the last vestiges of Cassidy first. It’s a hard-and-fast rule with me. I don’t pretend to be her when I’m not at Lava, having learned the hard way never to blur that line.

I turn the shower to its hottest setting, letting my closet-size bathroom steam up before regulating the temperature so I won’t be scalded. Then I step under the spray and wash Cassidy away. I watch the black mascara swirl around the drain.

4. DANA GOODWIN

4.

DANA GOODWIN

I give serious thought to calling in sick, even though no doctor or test would have validated my self-diagnosis. Still, I don’t see how I can possibly function at work in my state. I feel certain everyone will be better off if I stay home today. Yet, at 7:15 a.m., when my snooze alarm goes off, I haul myself out of bed and into the shower.

Stuart always gets up earlier than I do. In the mornings, he’s on “Jacob patrol,” which is how we refer to getting our kindergartner ready for school. After I’m dressed, I cross paths with Jacob and Stuart in the kitchen. They each have bananas up against their ears.

“Mommy! Daddy and me have banana phones,” Jacob says.