Page 59 of Only Lovers in the Building

“I’m just surprised, that’s all.”

“I know Allison,” he said. “It’s probably the champagne talking. She might regret sending the text in the morning.”

Unfortunately, regretting decisions in the morning was a thing Lily knew all too well. If anything, Alison’s interest proved that she and Ben made a good team. They didn’t have to go pro with a podcast, but they could keep things professional. She got up and collected her bag, keys, and hairpin. “Good night,” she said. “I think we’ve all had a little too much champagne.”

Ben looked up at her. A current of understanding passed between them. They had a plan, a good one, to rest and heal over the summer, not to overheat, crash out, and burn. Now they had to stick with it.

“When will I see you again?” he asked.

“Tomorrow morning, obviously,” she replied. “To wrap up our next review.”

“All right,” he said. “Tomorrow night I’m covering for Roxanna. Will you come up for a drink?”

“I will.”

“Good. I’ll make you a martini.”

“Make it extra dirty.”

“Anything you like.”

With that, he walked her out. Lily crossed the hall while he waited at the threshold of his apartment for her to supposedly make it home safely.

“I made it!” she announced.

“One more thing,” he called out before she closed her door.

“Yes?”

“When you enter this last kiss into the record, make sure I get full credit.”

BOOKTAP @LegalLyon in collaboration with @Ben_Romero

Spring Fever, by Ella Green

Couple: Celine and Clive

Trope: enemies to lovers

REVIEW: Celine Campbell, 31, chief of staff of a powerful US senator, falls for Clive Brown, 39, a washed-up reporter out to make a name for himself. Clive unearths the long-buried secrets of Celine’s boss. The published story reveals corruption on a scale that Celine could not have imagined and paints her as either complicit or clueless. When the senator resigns, Celine loses her job and her reputation. Regretful, Clive offers to write a puff piece on her for a leading magazine. He shadows her around for two weeks in March. Their attraction blooms with the first cherry blossoms.

Lily’s Rating: 3 stars

Clive sucks as a reporter and sucks even harder as a potential life partner. After profiting off Celine’s misery, he circles back—like the vulture he is—to pick on the ruins of her career. Our girl Celine is destined to be roadkill, left on the side of the road to rot, when Clive runs her over in a fevered rush to land another scoop.

Ben’s Rating: 2.5 stars

Spring Fever is a thinly veiled political thriller with a wild sex scene tossed in at the halfway mark to spice things up. However, by the end of this sluggish saga, I lost my faith in America and my interest in this couple. I question Clive’s integrity and Celine’s intelligence. It might’ve been best if these two had never met.

Chapter Seventeen

The bar was nearly empty when Lily arrived, but even if that hadn’t been the case, she wouldn’t have had to compete for the hot bartender’s attention. She took her regular seat, and within minutes, he placed a martini in front of her.

“Dirty enough?” he asked with a wink.

She brought the olive pick to her lips. “It’ll do.”

She now shared inside jokes with the man who’d so intimidated her only two weeks earlier. What a seismic change! Her reflection in the smoky mirror glowed, the person she was striving to be staring back at her. Gone was the tense, awkward woman who’d arrived at The Icon with a suitcase full of anxiety.