He leans down by her ear and says, “The only reason I asked for this date is because I know who your mother is.”

Link approaches the table. “Hey?”

Aidan turns around and smirks at him. “She’s all yours, bruh.”

Bess is so angry she wants to dump her palau all over Aidan’s gorgeous lobbyist head. Instead, she stares at the table and waits for Aidan to leave the restaurant; she can’t make a scene, not here. She wants to ask Shamin to wrap everything to go so that Bess can eat it alone in her apartment. Link was on the phone with Stacey for so long that all Bess can imagine is he’s about to offer an excuse to cut dinner short so he can meet her.

How can she live in a city filled with men and still not be able to meet anyone suitable?

When she raises her head, Link has retaken his seat. He’s leaning forward, staring at her. “Friend of yours?”

“That was Aidan,” Bess says. “The lobbyist.” Aidan was the last man on earth she should have chosen off Bumble. Now that I’ve seen you in person, I don’t think I want to bother. The only reason I asked for this date is because I know who your mother is.

“He seemed like a real peach and I’m sorry you missed out on spending the evening with him, but I’ll try to make it up to you.” Link reaches for Bess’s hand again.

Link doesn’t seem like he’s in a particular hurry to rush out, but Bess is wary. “Everything okay with your phone call?”

Link shakes his head. “It was my uncle’s girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend? Almost fiancée? The woman who turned down his marriage proposal, which was what made him want to organize the Nantucket weekend? Yeah, that was her. She’s had time to process, she’s decided she wants to marry him after all, so she showed up at the house but he wasn’t there so she called him and it went straight to voicemail and she’s convinced he blocked her, which he probably did, because what else would you do to the woman who turned down your proposal? And she wanted to know if I knew where he was.”

Bess is overcome with relief. Stacey isn’t Link’s girlfriend. Stacey is his uncle’s girlfriend! “Did you tell her?”

Link shrugs. “I said I wasn’t sure but I thought he’d made plans out of town with a friend.”

“Aaaaahhhh!” Bess says. “Did she think you meant a female friend?”

Link squeezes Bess’s hand, then lets go so he can dig into the palau. “I don’t want to worry about Coop’s romantic life,” he says. “I’d like to focus on my own.”