“Josephine is singing here on Friday,” Caitlin says. “We’ll make a weekend of it. We can go look at houses.”

“Thanks.”

“We’ll see you tomorrow.” Josephine steps from behind the counter and throws her arms around me. “And every day after that if you need to,” she whispers in my ear.

Chapter Nine

I have the kind of job that doesn’t allow me to daydream too much. My team of researchers are constantly throwing new information at me that I need to parse and evaluate to see if I could base a good question on it. But throughout the day, I can’t stop thinking about the questions I would ask Camille. The ones that would really lay her bare to me. Over the weekend, I’ve asked her many a question already, but often her answer was drowned out by a new onslaught of passion—and experiments that needed to be repeated over and over again.

Every time I think of our possible recorded interview, my mind wanders to what she asked to record. What she wants to take home as a reminder. And what it means that she asked me at all. The thought of recording ourselves while having sex excites me, there’s no doubt. Then my mind gets lost in another tailspin of delving up memories of the weekend.

“Well, well, well.” Jason sticks his head around the door of my office. “Let me have a look. Ah yes, dark circles under the eyes but an unmistakable glint of satisfaction in them. Okay, it was worth being stood up for.” He shoots me a big, toothy grin.

“I’ll make it up to you, Jase. I’ll have all the time in the world as of Thursday.” I hate that, suddenly, now that the weekend has ended, everything seems to have become a reminder of Camille leaving. I will make a point of not having it overshadow the time we have left. We are grown women, not love-sick teenagers involved in a summer fling.

She’ll go; I’ll forget about her; move on.

“I’m counting on it. And a full blow-by-blow as well.” He sits down in one of the chairs. “Though do give me a little something to whet my appetite already.”

I tell him about the batteries, the dreadful meeting with Rebecca, and the forty-eight hours of sheer bliss that followed with Camille after.

“Here’s the best I can do for you,” he says, putting on his semi-serious TV face. “I can falsely predict extremely inclement weather passing through for twenty-four hours as of Thursday morning, keeping all international flights on the ground for at least a day.”

“I wouldn’t want you to violate the weathermen code of ethics just so I can have a few more orgasms, but thanks anyway.” I have to chuckle.

“Looks to me like we’re talking about a bit more than a few orgasms here, Zo.”

“Is it that obvious?”