“Yeah. I don’t—I haven’t gone there. I pay a cleaning service to go in every two weeks, so I know it’s ... nice. The way he left it. How he’d want it.” That memory doesn’t hurt, for some reason. It almost makes me smile. “Mess and clutter drove him nuts.”
“Oh no.” Ren brings her palms to her cheeks. “He’d have hated me.”
“No,” I say quietly. “He wouldn’t have.”
She rolls her eyes, finally lifting her head off the back of the couch, patting the cushion beside her. “Is that where you wanted to go to play catch?”
Nodding, I brave the few steps across the living room floor to drop down beside her, careful that my thigh doesn’t brush hers. Or god forbid, one of her fucking knees.
“We should talk about our lists, actually.” Ren swings her feet up, crossing her legs.
“Why?” I ask, worried she somehow wants to scrap hers and change it from five to four and she’ll leave my life way sooner than she planned.
“Oh, it’s nothing bad.” She shakes her head, offering me an encouraging smile. “We’ve just been really focused on mine ... I know most of mine were activities and some of yours were more ... ongoing. But you have three things left, and I only have one.”
“I don’t mind,” I answer in a rush. “It’s ... helped me, to help you.”
Something flashes behind her eyes, but she gives a tiny jerk of her head, leaning forward. “But that’s not what we talked about.”
“I guess not.”
She lifts up three fingers. “We’ve got catch,” she starts before she puts on an exaggerated whisper, “Dating.” And she holds up the last finger, voice softening. “And your cottage.”
“You’ve got one left, too. Dating.” I almost choke on the word. “If you’re, uh, swapping out school.”
She deflates, and I break my no-touching rule, placing a hand on either shoulder to force her back up. “Ren. You don’t have to, if you don’t want to. They’re just ... lists.”
She starts to nod, but then her eyes light up—crystalline, again, when she asks, “What if we went?”
I do choke this time. “What?”
“Oh, not—not like that! I don’t like, have a crush on you or anything.” She lets out a weird sort of maniacal laugh I’ve never heard her make before, and she sets her shoulders in a straight line. “On a practice date. That way we could do something on your list at the same time.”
She keeps going before I can say anything.
“Unless you wanted to go on an actual date? In which case, never mind, it was a stupid idea, anyway, I just thought—”
“No,” I interrupt. “I don’t want to go on a real date. We can ... go on a practice date.”
She blinks, nodding, and her mouth pops open when another idea lights up her face. “We could do it at the unveiling!”
“The what?”
She frowns. “The unveiling? We’re getting a new collection, and when we do we ... unveil them for our philanthropic partners. It’ll be like the gala, except Graham will make a speech about the importance of our donors so we can preserve history, not one about educating young minds.”
“I don’t keep track of those sorts of things. My publicist takes care of that.” I hold up my phone uselessly. Yas does keep track of that sort of thing—we have a shared calendar—but I don’t remember the last time I checked it.
“Then she’ll love my idea.” Ren lifts her chin when she smiles. “A practice date, and people can take photos of us to their hearts’ content. It’ll really sell the whole thing. Seal the deal for your trade prospects.”
Deal’s already sealed, sort of.
I exhale, scrubbing my face. “When, uh, is that?”
“The last weekend of July.”
“Before the, uh, trade deadline. Good timing.” I nod, but dread eats at the back of my throat. “Olson, uh, he called me into his office when I got home this week.”
“Oh?” Her bottom lip extends into a pout.
