Inspecting her perfectly manicured nails, Jules says casually, “Okay, if you’re so happy, when’s the last time you got laid?”

I glare at her because she knows the answer to that. We’re twins. We tell each other nearly everything. “You know I’m enjoying an extended abstinent streak.”

Jules snorts loudly and drops her hand. “Enjoying? BeeBee, honestly.”

“Okay, fine!” I mist the glass top with Sula’s homemade cleaning spray and angrily wipe it down. “I’m happy except for the fact that I haven’t had a lay in forever.”

“Right. Which means you’re really not happy at all. And that’s why I need your phone. I have a solution.”

I clutch the essential oil–based glass cleaner, hoping against hope. “You’ve found me a sexual partner who wants to do the emotionless mattress merengue with frequent reckless abandon?”

“Sex? Yes. Emotionless? Probably not. He doesn’t strike me as the casual type.”

My hope pops like a balloon shot out of the sky. “Which means you expect me to date this guy. And I do not date anymore, Juliet.”

“You do this Saturday.” She unearths her own phone from her jeans and leans away so there’s not even a contortionist’s chance that I can read her screen as she types. “Just one date,” she says, before pocketing her phone, then holding out her hand again. “That’s all I’m asking of you. Starting at ten a.m. The park bench across the street from Boulangerie.”

I stare at her in disbelief. “I’m sorry?”

“No need to apologize. I knew it would come to this. You go through a bad breakup two years ago—”

“Eighteen months, I’ll let the record show!” I breathe deeply through my nose. “Jules. We’re misunderstanding each other. I’m not going on a date, not on Saturday, not on a bench, not at a bakery that’s—”

“French?” she says sweetly, bopping my nose with the tip of her finger. “Okay, Dr. Seuss. Except you are. Because you’re unhappy, and that’s got to change.”

I batten down the hatches. Gird my loins. Wear my scowliest scowl. “You are despicably pushy, you know that, right?”

“Of course I am. I’m the oldest.”

“Not this again!” I yell.

“BeeBee, hand over your phone. I’m giving you his number. He’s being given yours as we speak.”

“What?” I sputter. “How could you just pass out my number to some stranger—”

“He’s not a stranger per se.” Taking advantage of my shocked state, she lunges and deftly plucks my phone from my skirt pocket. “He’s someone who’s right for you. A One True Pairing, I can feel it. Do you understand how many romance novels I’ve read? I know what I’m talking about.”

“Well, with that robust expertise guiding you, how could I say no? This is absurd. I’m not going on a date.”