The dogs had distracted them most of the flight. They’d barked on takeoff, then needed, understandably, some petting and comfort once airborne. Still, he wasn’t entirely sure what to say next to Casey. Or if anything needed to be said. He knew his way around women, but this project with Casey was a little . . . unconventional. Should he ask when their next lesson would be or simply tell her the time to arrive and what to wear?

Tight leather skirt, no panties, and heels. Oh hell, there went any semblance of concentration.

“When you get this mutt of your own someday, what will you name him?” she asked, twirling a strand of her hair around a finger. Maybe she was nervous, too. Wait, was he nervous? Hell no. Nate didn’t get nervous.

“Fred,” he said dryly.

She rolled her eyes. “How about Paul?”

“Or maybe just Mark. I always thought it would be funny to give a dog a completely human name, and then when you’re in Central Park to call him back to you. Not with C’mere Fido, or C’mere Max, but C’Mere Mark. Come on now, Ethan.”

Casey smiled and laughed, kicking her leg back and forth, like a pendulum. Okay, she was nervous. He needed to say something.

Instead, his brain tripped on the name he’d just shared. Ethan. “That reminds me. I haven’t seen Ethan Holmes in a while.”

“Ethan at the Victoria Hotels, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah. We worked together at the Luxe, back when I was VP of biz dev. He was in operations, and we were both up for the top job. Good guy, but I haven’t talked to him much since he left when he didn’t get the CEO gig.”

“I hear Victoria is trying to revamp its image a little. That the chain is seen as a bit stuffy, and they want to appeal to a younger crowd.”

“Yeah. I heard that too. I should check in. See if he wants to catch a Yankees game. We had a vendor who gave us tickets to his box seats. I’ll have to give him a shout when I get back.”

“So Ethan’s a no-go then for your future dog’s name,” she said with a wry smile.

He snapped his fingers. “I know what to name my future dog. Jim, after the comedian,” he mused, and her eyes lit up.

“His show was so great. Remember?” she said, nudging him. “We were laughing all night when I took you to see him.”

For his birthday last year when he’d turned thirty-two, she’d taken him to a Jim Gaffigan stand-up show, and they were nearly doubled over during his Hot Pockets bit. It occurred to him then that he was hunting for any sort of connection, and that even suggesting he’d name a dog someday after a gift she’d given him was his roundabout way of tying this conversation back to them.

But he didn’t plan to psychoanalyze the fact that he wasn’t sure what to say to the woman he’d made cry out his name last night. Deep down, he already knew why he was struggling to broach the topic. Because he could talk to her about anything—about dogs, and books, and business, and women, and men, and he’d been able to do that long before he’d seen her beautiful body bared just for him. He didn’t want last night to have messed up their ability to talk.