When they lock eyes, Hannah bites her lip. “Maybe Caroline can sit with us another time, Ab. It’s Valentine’s Day, remember? I’m sure she has a date.”

Well, she definitely doesn’t, but she takes that to mean Hannah doesn’t want her here. Which, okay. And that’s why not to get personally attached, she reminds herself, refusing to feel disappointed. Because clients aren’t friends, and that’s the way it should be.

***

But perhaps it’s not the way it’s destined to be for them.

She thinks as much when she hears her name shouted the following week, spotting Abbie exuberantly waving at her from about twenty feet away, outside of the entrance to the Franklin Park Zoo.

Next to her, of course, is Hannah, who is standing shock-still in what she thinks is surprise.

“Who’s that?” Zach, her nephew, asks as she leads them over.

She makes the introductions – Zach is Todd’s son and Norah is Jared’s daughter, ages eight and ten, respectively. Abbie lights up at the prospect of spending the day with other kids, so the decision to spend the day at the zoo as one group is sort of made beyond their control.

They stroll about twenty feet behind their small gaggle of children and Caroline nods slowly to herself as she buries her hands in her pockets. She loves her nieces and nephews probably too much, because if she had any sense she wouldn’t have agreed to take them to the zoo on President’s Day, when the weather is only forty degrees.

Hannah is strangely quiet as she walks next to her, which makes her a bit uncomfortable. She hasn’t really been this reticent with her before. Then again, she opened up to Caroline as her lawyer. And maybe that’s it, she realizes.

“I can tell Zach and Norah we have to get going early, if you want,” she offers, breaking the silence that’s been between them for the last ten minutes.

Hannah’s forehead is crinkled in that intense thought, the one she so often gets that makes her a mystery to read, as she turns to look at Caroline. Before she looks back to Abbie, who is chattering away with a smile.

“No, it’s okay.” She purses her lips, before she huffs out a breath. “You didn’t have to pay for us.”

Caroline looks at her, eyebrows furrowing in surprise. She hadn’t even thought twice about stepping up to the entrance booth, stating that they had two adults, three kids.