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“Assuming he ever actually agrees to become one.”

“Give me a week. He’ll sign a contract, follow my rules, and meet a woman who finally shuts him up.”

Her phone buzzes again.

Tom Voss: You’ve gone quiet. I assume you’re checking whether Saturday works for you.

Chloe looks at the message. “Maybe two weeks.”

We play one more game. By the final frame, the drinks have caught up with us. Chloe sends another ball into the gutter, and mine knocks down three pins because I’m laughing too hard to aim.

She stares at the scoreboard, then looks around the bowling alley. Colored lights flash across the polished lanes. Our rented shoes pinch, and two lanes over, a group of children cheers every time anyone hits a pin.

“Maybe bowling isn’t as romantic as I thought,” she says.

“You think?”

“I might move it to the third-date list.”

“Why the third date?”

“By then, they’ve already seen each other in nice shoes.”

Chloe drops onto the velvet bench and starts pulling at her laces. My phone buzzes on the table between our empty glasses.

Eric Voss.

I grab it before Chloe can see his name. I should let it go to voicemail and call him back later. But Eric is the reason I’m here instead of closing the Hartwell before midnight.

“I need to take this,” I tell Chloe. “It’s about the insurance.”

I walk to the quieter hall near the restrooms.

“Hello,” I say.

“Hey. What are you doing?”

I glance back through the doorway. “Bowling.”

“You bowl?”

“Not well. What are you doing?”

“I’m at home. In bed.”

I picture him stretched beneath dark sheets, his hair untidy and his chest bare, holding the phone to his ear. Heat creeps into my face before I pull the phone away and check the time.

“It’s eight o’clock.”

“I have an early meeting.”

“How early?”

“Three.”

“That isn’t early. That’s the middle of the night. Why aren’t you asleep?”

He’s quiet for a moment. “I wanted to talk to you.”