“Or what about one of my clients? You could have their numbers. Or one of my buddies?”

“Eliot—”

“Or one of my neighbors? One of them is really chatty, but she would love to talk to you. Like it would make her year. She’d probably never let me forget it. But that’d be worth it, in the end, if it reassured you.”

“Eliot—”

“Or my mom? I mean, obviously she’s not very impartial but—”

“Eliot!”

“Yeah?”

“What are you talking about? Why do you want to introduce me to these people?”

“For character references.”

“Why would I need character references?”

“Because you don’t really know me. And you’re obviously worried about getting to know me better. Probably because I’m mostly a stranger to you and men are generally terrible. But I thought that if you picked someone who knows me a little and asked them about me then you might have some reassurance that I’m not an axe murderer or a fuckboy or anything like that.”

“. . .”

“JD? You still there?”

“First off, I really love that you put axe murderer and fuckboy in the same category. Very astute.”

“Just trying to, as the kids say, keep it real.”

“Wow.”

“Are the kids not saying that anymore?”

“Anyway . . . Secondly, I’m not scared of you, Eliot.”

“Well, that’s good. And you aren’t, like, wary or suspicious of me, either?”

“No. I’m really not.”

“Then . . . can I ask . . .”

“Yes. You can ask. Whatever it is.”

“Are you hesitant to let me know who you are because you know me too well?”

“Huh?”

“Like maybe you already know that you don’t want to meet in person because of the way I am? I mean, I know I’m a good person. But I definitely have some attributes that could be really, ah, frustrating to someone.”

“Like what?”

“Like, I can be completely scatterbrained and thus make huge, messy mistakes.”

“Really? Because it seems to me like you really have your shit together.”

“Ha. Thanks. So then you definitely don’t know me from before five or six years ago. Because back then, I was a total train wreck.”

“I find that really hard to believe, Hoffman.”

“I used to be really . . . disorganized.”

“Well, you must have really gotten your act together because you come off as, like, the most organized person I’ve ever met in my life.”

“Really? No way.”

“Let’s do a quick quiz to prove my point, okay?”

“Okay.”

“What do you wear to meet with clients?”

“A suit, mostly.”

“Anything in the front pocket?”

“You’re trying to get me to admit to wearing a pocket square, aren’t you?”

“If the penny loafer fits . . . Okay, how about on your coffee tables? What do you put under your drinks?”

“A coaster, obviously.”

“How many coasters would you say you have in your house?”

“I don’t want to say.”

“Because the answer is incriminating?”