Annie looked at her, surprised, and Kim winked. You couldn’t get much past her all the same. “Well, who’s to say it’s the same fella?” she boldly quipped with a wink back.

Colette sat down opposite, looking mildly shocked at this, and Annie resisted the urge to pat her on the head. She really was too sweet and naive sometimes.

“So you’ve slept with the guy you’ve been meeting?” she asked her timidly.

“I wouldn’t say that we...slept much,” Annie replied wickedly, and she and Kim guffawed as Colette turned a brilliant shade of red.

“But you barely know him...”

Her friend’s words stuck, especially in light of what she’d discovered (or thought she had—there could easily be an alternative explanation) at the restaurant the other night.

OK, Colette was right, she barely knew Harry, but yet it felt as if they’d known each other a lifetime.

“I know it may seem that way, especially since you guys haven’t met him yet,” Annie conceded, “however, he’s different. He’s together, more mature, and I suppose a little more serious than most guys I know. Most importantly, he’s serious about me.”

“How do you know?” Colette asked.

“Know what?”

“That he’s serious?”

Annie paused to think it over. She didn’t know how to explain how she felt or where to begin. She just knew. But if she’d known she’d be asked to prove why he was different, she would’ve made a list in advance to save her tired mind the effort now.

“Well, right from the beginning we had a connection—before you guys arrived, actually,” she said, reminding them that she had in fact known him even longer than them. “Just...the stuff he does and says when we’re together, I suppose. Even when we’re out with his friends his attention is still always on me. And when he looks at me...well, no one has ever looked at me that way,” she continued, smiling a little.

“But what happens when he or you go home? Won’t everything come to an end?” Colette persisted. But Annie got the sense that she wasn’t quite as concerned with Harry’s true intentions than perhaps with Luca’s.

Aha.

“He says he doesn’t want to think about that. He just wants us to enjoy now. What?” she asked, noticing Kim’s dubious expression.

“Nothing,” she replied, but Annie knew she wasn’t really buying it.

Well, she thought defensively, Kim will change her tune once she sees us together. Not that Annie needed to convince anyone. It was nobody else’s business after all.

“Nothing, my foot. What’s that’s look for?”

“It’s nothing, honestly,” Kim replied. “You’re a big girl and I’m sure you know what you’re doing.”