But first, pie.

This neighborhood had a pie shop that was famous city-wide. It was a cute little establishment with long, wooden communal tables and myriad pies in sparkly glass cases. There were more kinds of pie than Cat had ever even heard of before she’d first become a patron. They had the classics, of course: apple, cherry, pecan. But then there were also chocolate chess pies and salty honey streusels, black oat pies with crust as thick as the September issue of Vogue.

It was a dangerous, dangerous heaven.

In the two years that Cat had lived in this neighborhood, she’d seen plenty of employees come and go through the pie shop, and almost every single one of them quit a few pants sizes larger than when they’d been hired. Cat herself attributed her soft belly and more than a handful of ass to their lemon custard pie. She didn’t mind. She considered every pound a worthy trade for the ambrosia they were selling.

She was just polishing off her slice of pie, standing at the counter in the window of the shop, when she looked up and saw Jared and Quentin walking by, chatting to one another. Quentin was wheeling a bike as they walked, and they paused at the corner, obviously about to part ways.

Here was her chance!

Cat tossed her plate and bolted out the door, but she wasn’t three steps toward them when they waved at one another and Jared headed off in the direction of the train and Quentin started putting his bike helmet on.

Dang! She’d wanted to catch them together because Quentin was easier to talk to than Jared and if she chatted with both of them maybe Jared would see how charming she was. But it was not to be. Should she follow Jared and risk some more of their slightly awkward conversation that they’d occasionally had when they’d run into one another in the laundry room? Or should she catch up with Quentin?

“Hey, Quentin!” she said, coming up beside him on the street corner.

“Cat! Hi.” He was surprised to see her. “Um, on your way to the train?”

“Yup, just stopped by the pie shop for a morning slice.”

He laughed. “You say that like a slice of pie for breakfast is a perfectly normal thing.”

“Isn’t it?”

He laughed again and then spied her gym bag over her shoulder. “So, slice of pie and then you go work out?”

He looked cute this morning in his slacks and button-down, carefully put together for work. His coppery hair, usually very neat, was messy from where he’d put his bike helmet on and then slid it off when they’d started talking. He wasn’t as tall as Jared was, but something about seeing Quentin out in the world, standing next to this man-sized bike, made Cat realize that he was bigger than she’d thought he was. He was wide in the shoulders and probably six or seven inches taller than she was.