I’m pretty sure she’s trying not to smile as she puts the stool back and gives me a polite nod.

“I guess we’ll be going now, Eliot.” Frida reaches up to pat my face none too gently. “You should come by for dinner this week. Bring your sister. But don’t bring that Patricia person, please. She was too much for me last time. What a talker. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.”

This time, I’m the one trying to hold back a smile. Patricia was a woman I dated for a few months a few years ago, and she was, in a fact, a talker. Which was the exact reason I brought her for dinner at Frida’s. Call it morbid curiosity, but I’d wanted to see what would happen when two titans clashed. Who would win the race for more words uttered in one night, Frida or Patricia? Patricia won, by a hair, and Frida will never let me forget it. I think every time I’ve seen her since she’s found a way to mention that she doesn’t think Patricia is the right girl for me. Incidentally, she’s right. Patricia was not the right girl for me.

But conceding that point to Frida feels like conceding a little too much power over my dating life. I really don’t want Frida to start feeling like she has influence over who I do or don’t date. I can only imagine the blind dates she’d try to set me up on.

“Uh-huh.” I’m at the door, holding it open for them. “Thanks again for the help.”

The super, schlepping her toolbox, gives me a salute and a friendly smirk on her way out the door and somehow manages to make it look cool. I attempt to salute back and end up looking like a complete tool.

Frida smothers a laugh and gives me one more face slap disguised as affection. “A thumbs-up is more your speed, dear.”

It’s the wickedest burn anyone has ever given me. I can’t help but laugh.

Chapter Seven

“Hey! Hi! I wasn’t sure you’d call tonight, JD.”

“I called to say sorry.”

“For what?”

“For falling asleep last night.”

“You’re sorry for that? Isn’t that kind of the point of what we’re doing here? Killing time before we fall asleep?”

“Oh. Yeah. I guess I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

“In my opinion, the baking show was a winner. Entertaining enough to give us something to talk about and relaxing enough to knock us out. I hope there’re, like, a hundred seasons.”

“I really hope it doesn’t take you a hundred seasons to get your sleeping issues figured out. What’s that noise?”

“I’m washing paintbrushes.”

“What kind?”

“. . . the kind you use for painting?”