Bryan looked at the Dachshund, and shook his head. “I’m a man with a hot dog now. And my friend won’t even score Yankees tickets for me.”

“Hey, that’s a prize dog. Don’t put Indiana Jones in the middle of your mid-life crisis,” Nate joked, pointing to the pooch, who happily trotted towards the park.

“So what’s the latest with you?” Bryan said, wiping off the sweat on his brow with his T-shirt. “I trust you have stories to tell me of your trip to New Orleans? Regale me with your tales.”

Nate laughed, but didn’t plan on giving up any intel on the woman he’d spent the night with in the Big Easy. “Hardly.”

“Oh, c’mon. You falling down on that score?”

“Never,” he said, and his mind was right back to Casey, on the look on her face on the airplane yesterday. The way her eyes floated closed, how her breath hitched, how she bit down hard on his hand when she came. He glanced at his palm, almost wishing there were imprints from her. Evidence of her passion.

Nate’s phone buzzed. He grabbed it in case it was an urgent work call. He needed to return to the office tonight anyway. The message was from Ethan, who he’d reached out to earlier in the day about grabbing a beer.

“Beer is always good. I’m free tonight or tomorrow.”

He gestured to the screen. “Ethan Holmes. I need to reconnect with him.”

But he needed to reconnect with Casey too. And he’d been mulling over the best way to take the next step with her. Even though he wasn’t wooing her or courting her, he wanted to rock her world with this sexual boot camp.

And that’s when he realized what was needed next. Supplies for their training.

“Hey, I gotta take off,” he said, and turned tail, texting Casey to let her know she’d need a new email address for him to use as her “teacher.”

“You should ask for her number,” Nate said later that evening, gesturing to the very pretty bartender at Speakeasy, the bustling midtown establishment where he and Ethan had knocked back a few beers and talked shop. Ethan was high up at Victoria Hotels, and had peppered Nate with some questions about how to tackle the image issues his company faced. The classy hotel was no longer cutting it on the gold-plated ambiance and needed to go younger, hipper, cooler, Ethan admitted. Nate offered his advice where he could, glad that the two were back in touch. They'd been work friends at The Luxe, but hadn't talked much when they were both candidates for the top job. That had been a tense few weeks, both men vying for one spot. When Nate had landed the coveted position after an exhaustive internal and external search, Ethan took him out to toast, but it had been a strained night, and the man had remained in a bit of a funk for the months that followed. Nate was glad that they'd both moved on now, and could chat again about work and women.