“What are we doing here?” Linnea asked nobody in particular. “I can feel my life slipping away, a minute at a time.”

Cooper propped his feet on the coffee table, his hands clasped behind his head. “You think this is bad? Remember the weeks spent in the aftermath of hurricanes? The Internet down, electricity off. I was counting the toes on my feet for something to do.”

“Look out there,” Linnea said, gesturing toward the window. “It’s been like that for days. I think I have seasonal affective disorder.”

“It’s real,” Gordon said, and patted the sofa beside him for her to join him. To the others he said, “I came from spending a few weeks on the Cornish coast on a tank of a boat doing research. We were glad to have a gray day, if it wasn’t raining. I feel right at home.”

Linnea laughed and sat next to him, offering him another beer. She tucked up her legs, then bent to pick up Luna, who was standing on her hind legs, begging with those big brown eyes, to go up on the couch. She placed the dog on her lap and immediately Gordon began stroking her ears.

“Did I tell you my mum has Cavaliers?” he said. “Four of them.”

“You didn’t. What kind?”

“She likes the whole colors. She has two ruby and a black and tan, and a Blenheim like Luna. They’re sweet dogs, but I warn you, they don’t take to house-training readily.”

“Oh yeah,” Anna said, looking up from her book. “I meant to tell you. She left a gift in the bathroom. It’s still in there.”

Linnea groaned. “I told you to keep the door shut. And why didn’t you just pick it up?”

Anna snorted and said, “Not in my job description,” and put her nose back in the book.

Gordon patted Linnea’s leg in commiseration.

Cooper reached for the remote and began flipping through the channels. “Nobody is playing anything. Sports are all canceled. Even NASCAR. Oh, check this out—Bobby Flay. My day is saved.” He smirked.

“Wait, keep it!” Pandora exclaimed, pulling out her earbuds. “I love him. I was thinking,” she said, turning to Linnea. “We should start cooking together. Really fun, fabulous meals. What do you say?”

Linnea glanced at Anna and raised her brows. “I absolutely love that idea. Let’s do it.”

“Fabulous,” she said, using what Linnea was figuring out was her current favorite word.

Cooper was still flicking through channels. “What have you all got against Bobby?” Pandora protested.

“I don’t know. Maybe because I don’t know an oven from a sofa,” Anna said. “I happen to love the news. There’s so much going on.” She turned to Cooper. “Put on CNN.”

“No news!” everyone called out at once.

Pandora said, “With all of us gathered under one roof, better to keep politics to ourselves. Especially in an election year.”

“Uh, Pan,” Gordon said, “I’m pretty sure everyone in this room is on the same side. And I’m not talking Brexit.”