“You’re both trying,” she corrects. “And how’s work,besidesDaniel hitting on you?”
“He’s not hitting on me.” I smirk and add, “But he did say I am the engine of the firm.”
Her eyebrows rise. “Did he now? The engine, huh?”
“Stop.” I laugh, shaking my head. “He’s my boss. And my friend.”
The waiter sets down our drinks and two small plates, one with the crab dip and the other with the mousse.
“How was the date with the tech guy?” I ask.
She makes a face. “Not good. He was boring. And bad in bed.”
“That’s a bad combination.”
“Tell me about it. Remember that accountant? He was boring, but he had moves!”
I spread some mousse over a slice of toasted baguette. “You put up with the boring for six weeks for those moves.”
“The sex was off the charts.” She scoops upsome of the crab dip on a toast point. “But eventually, the sex just couldn’t compensate for his inability to speak. And he didn’t want to be a booty call…so….”
We talk about her work and mine.
Her clients and mine.
The kids. She’s taking Finn to a creative tech seminar at Johns Hopkins.
“My son is such a nerd,” I say it with pride. Finn does the usual teenage stuff: video games, soccer, and YouTube, but he’s also into tech and science.
“Hey, teenage boys who code are teenage boys who can afford therapy later,” Iris jokes.
“Who said that?”
“The boring tech guy who was bad in bed,” she deadpans.
When the plates are empty, we move to a table by the window.
The skyline glows outside, the city alive with possibility.
“You know.” Iris swirls the last of her martini. “I like seeing you like this.”
“Like what?”
“Content.”
“I am.” I look down at the mahogany grain of the table. “But….”
She arches a brow, amusement flickering in her gaze. “There’s always a but with you.”
“But,” I continue, sheepishly, “I worry that it’s abubble that will burst soon enough, and we’ll be back in thebadplace.”
She looks at me with fondness and exasperation. “If you’re gonna wait for things to go south, they will.”
I glance out of the window. “It’s a feeling I can’t shake.”
“So, you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop?”
I glance at her, a flush of guilt creeping up my neck. “It sounds terrible when you say it out loud.”
