“Yeah. You met up with her, right? You’ve barely talked in the group chat, so I assumed you two hit it off and were spending time together because it went well.”

“There’s been a snag in the plan.”

“Define snag. Everything okay?”

“Uh, yes. And also no. A mix of both. The woman is Emma.”

Jack’s hand freezes, the burger he’s about to inhale stopping short of his mouth. His eyebrows raise. “Wait. Like, Emma Emma?”

“Yup.”

“Emma, who you work with?”

“Mhm. That’s her.”

“Emma, who you most certainly do not have a crush on but you sure like to talk about a lot? That Emma?”

“Hey!” I exclaim, licking a drop of mustard off my thumb. “There is no crush.”

“It’s funny you think I don’t know when you’re lying, Dawson. When you hired her, are you sure you didn’t know it was her?”

“No! When I walked into the coffee shop and saw it was her who was wearing the overalls and pink shirt…” I trail off, trying to string together my words in a coherent way without sounding like a total sap. “My heart fucking fluttered, man.”

“Fluttered, huh? Are you still going to try to lie out of your ass about no crush?”

“Shut up.”

“Okay, what’s the problem? It’s good you were happy, right?”

“I guess so. She agreed to stick to our plan but refused to take my money.”

“Whoa, hold up. I thought you were joking about monetary compensation.”

“Nope. We decided on a price weeks ago. I want to honor it, but she’s insistent.”

“I’m sure there’s a whole bunch of legal shit that might encompass this which I’m clueless about. You aren’t paying her for sex, are you? Just want to make sure we’re on the same page.”

I snort. “Believe me, there’s no sex. She’s made it abundantly clear it’s off the table. Even if we talked about… things… in our messages, it’s not going to happen.”

“What kind of things?”

“When we were still communicating under our aliases, I told her I wanted to hear what she sounded like when she came.”

Jack drops his burger onto his plate, ketchup landing on his shirt. “I beg your pardon?”

“Yeah.”

He whistles. “What did she say?”

“That she wants those things, too.”

“So intimacy was off the table, but you talked about it, so it was potentially back on the table, but now it’s probably off again because it’s you and her. Am I understanding this correctly?”

“Nailed it.”

“Are you attracted to Emma?”