“Will you?” she asked, feeling her heart hit her from the inside like a gloved fist.

“I don’t really know any other way to be.” He reached for his water and took a sip. “You asked me before whether this result was an inconvenience. It isn’t. It isn’t an inconvenience, but I admit I’m not sure what to think about it. If I take it seriously, it rearranges my entire life. If I don’t take it seriously, I’m discarding everything I’ve worked for.”

“Which, incidentally, also rearranges your life,” Jess said, laughing.

He laughed, too. “Exactly.”

“Well, in that case,” she said, “I can be on board for Project Be Genuine but Cautious.”

He wiped his hand on his napkin and reached across the table for a handshake. With her heartbeat in her ears, she took his hand, and hers felt weirdly small in his grasp.

“What happens now?” she asked.

“I guess we get together when we’re free,” he said, and her brain took off spinning about how that would work, where this could even go.

And where she wanted it to go.

“Okay.”

“Otherwise, we wait for marching orders from Brandon about any public appearances.”

“Brandon Butkis,” Jess whispered, partly to break the tension of imagining forging a personal relationship with River after tonight and partly because—how could she not say it? “Come on, you have to admit it’s a great name.”

Rama dropped the bill off at their table and River thanked him before sliding the small leather folder into his lap. Never missing a beat, River delivered the next bit of information with an admirably straight face: “His wife’s last name is Seaman.”

Jess gasped. “No.”

Finally, a smile broke across his face. “Yes.”

“Did they hyphenate?” She leaned in. “Please tell me they hyphenated.”

River laughed. “They did not.”

Small footsteps stomped along the sidewalk, and the weight and rhythm registered in Jess’s brain only a split second before a pair of small arms were thrown around her neck. “Did you save me some duck?”

Jess peeked over her daughter’s head to deliver an apologetic-mortified glance at River. Holding her kid at arm’s length, Jess gave the most convincing Mom Face she could manage. “What are you still doing up, honey? You’re not supposed to be out here.”

“I could hear your laugh in the courtyard.”

“But what were you doing in the courtyard?”

“Beating Pops at checkers.”

“Pops?” Jess called out.

“She’s too fast,” Pops replied from behind the fence.

Juno giggled.

“I’ve got her,” Jess said back. She relented and kissed Juno’s forehead before turning her around to face River. Apparently this was happening. “Sorry for the interruption.”

He shook his head and smiled warmly at Juno. “Not at all.”

“Juno, this is Dr. Peña.”

Juno reached out, and he wrapped her tiny hand in his large one. “River,” he said, shaking gently. “You can call me River.”

Settling on her mom’s lap, Juno tilted her head, considering him. “You have a unique name, too.”