“I’m never smug.”
“You’re smiling right now.”
“That’s warmth. I tested well.”
She frowned.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Bad meeting?”
“Excellent meeting. I’m wholesome.”
Claire looked at my boots, my smudged eyeliner, and the fading mechanical-bull stamp still visible on my wrist.
“I’m sorry. What?”
“Wholesome. Authentic. Relatable. Possibly butter-adjacent.”
She took the wine from me.
“You fell off a mechanical bull twelve hours ago.”
“Apparently, we’re suppressing that information.”
“Cowards.”
She poured two glasses and leaned against the counter.
“What did they want?”
I considered lying.
Not because Richard had asked me to.
Because the truth would walk into the room and sit between us, and I had already spent the morning watching what happened when too many people tried to manage a difficult thing at once.
Claire saw the hesitation.
Her expression changed.
“Annie.”
I hated how quickly she knew.
“They want me to keep saying I’m single.”
Claire went still.
Only for a second.
Then she took a sip of wine.
“Well,” she said. “Technically, we never updated Facebook.”
I laughed.
