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“Okay, fair.”

“Now,” she’d said, placing the cake down on the table and shrugging off her leather jacket. Even when she wasn’t in school, Vanessa wore those black cat ears on her head. Rory loved it. “Where are those designs?”

So there they were, plates with leftover crumbs cast aside, rifling through designs. The yearbook was broken into three major sections—club and sports pages, class and faculty picture pages, and the senior section. Right now, they were focusing on the first two, because the senior section was turning out to be a whole feat in itself. Between the superlatives, the special senior events like the picnic and prom, and the tribute pages that parents purchased, the designs were bound to get tricky.

So for now, it was clubs, sports, and class pictures. All of which were already giving Rory a headache.

“It’s hard to imagine what the print versions will look like when all we have are minimal sketches,” she admitted.

“We could ask the team to draft them up,” Vanessa said.

“That feels like a waste of their time.”

Vanessa shook her head. “I actually had to do that for the lead designer last year.”

“Did you have twenty-six different designs?” She scrubbed a hand down her face, defeated.

“How about we nail down our favorite three and ask editors to get us mock-ups by Monday’s meeting?”

Rory frowned. “We’re really going to make them work over Thanksgiving weekend?”

Vanessa shrugged. “Time is not a luxury we have.”

“You’re just as much of a shark as Penelope.”

“You know, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

There was a soft knock on the door.

She tilted her head. Why was her day of wallowing in bed turning out to be a rather busy one? Who else could possibly be bothering her today?

Then she remembered who just got into town, and she raced for the door.

Jay stood on her porch and smiled, his chest and shoulders visibly relaxing at the sight of Rory. He didn’t waver before he stepped into the house, throwing his arms around her waist and pulling her in for a tight hug. He tucked his face into her neck and brushed his lips against her collarbone. “Missed you, baby.”

Vanessa coughed, and then Rory heard papers shuffling over near the coffee table.

She turned around. “Going already?”

Vanessa flushed. “Don’t want to get in your way.”

“You’re not in the way,” she said, prying herself from Jay’s tight grip. “Jay, this is Vanessa, we’ve been working on the yearbook together.”

Jay grinned at first, but then cocked his head in Vanessa’s direction. “You have ears on your head.”

Rory swatted him, widening her eyes, but to her surprise, Vanessa smirked at him.

“Thanks, glad they’re still there,” Vanessa teased back, reaching for her human ears instead of her signature headband, giving them a tug. She shuffled the papers again, trying to pull them into a pile.

“Wait,” Rory said, approaching the table again. “Let’s narrow down the designs now so we can send them over. By Tuesday. I’m not a monster like you.”

Vanessa hesitated, then nodded. “Okay, boss. Which ones?”

“Boss?” Jay said, a grin plastered on his face.

Rory ignored him as she spread the papers out, then pursed her lips in thought. She’d felt lost at which designs she loved or hated before, but now that she was under pressure, it became clear.

She pointed them out. “These. I want to see these.”