“Now.”
“I’ll just be off then,” I say, checking my watch. We’re not meeting Betty for another forty minutes, but I clearly need to be elsewhere right now.
“Where are you going?” Ada asks, leaning around Jake as he blatantly sniffs her neck.
“To be very, very single downstairs.”
“You could call Davis,” Jake’s voice is muffled against Ada’s skin.
I pause. “He didn’t go home this afternoon?”
That gets his attention. He turns and stares at me. “Are you joking?”
“What? No. Why?”
“Is she joking?” he asks Ada.
She shakes her head. “I know. It’s painful to watch.”
“Cece,” Jake says. “Straight up, do you wanna be with Davis?”
I look at Ada’s exasperated face and know there’s no point denying it anymore. “Yeah…”
“And have you ever thought about telling him that?” Jake asks.
My cheeks heat. “Well, no.”
“I swear the two of you are as bad as each other. Why the hell not?”
My face is on fire now, and I stare at our unwashed wine glasseson the coffee table to avoid Jake’s piercing gaze. “Because… I don’t want to make him uncomfortable.”
“Christ,” he mutters.
Ada bounces on her toes, her tits jiggling through her sheer dress. “Can I tell her? I want to tell her. Should I tell her?”
“Do whatever you want, babe,” Jake says, deeply distracted by her cleavage.
“Davis loves you,” Ada singsongs. “Davis loves you.”
My heart beats a jagged rhythm in my chest. For a moment I wonder if this is another anxiety attack, but the electricity crackling in my veins is the good kind, not the thick kick that comes with gripping a boundary fence. This is the kind that you feel standing at the edge of the diving board, excited to jump.
“He loves me?”
“Of course he does, you sweet oblivious dumdum.”
“He said that?”
She hesitates momentarily. “Hebasicallysaid that. To me, and to Jake.”
My eyes flick from Ada to Jake, who looks away from her boobs long enough to give me a short nod.
“He’s my employee,” I blurt. “He wrote me a business plan. And he’s twenty-four.”
“Probably has great stamina,” Ada says.
“I have great stamina,” Jake mutters.
“We’re all very aware of that, Jacob,” I inform him.
