My first assignment is to go into my office and call Mitch right away. Not a moment to lose, Ryan said, so here I am, hand shaking on the phone.

It rings three times, and I think I’m going to get voicemail again, but then he picks up.

“Hey.” His voice is flat.

I’ve heard what feels like a thousand variations of that voice, but I’ve never heard this one, and I hate it. When Mitch talks to me, he’s smiling. Even if it’s on the phone, I know just by the sound of his voice that he’s smiling.

He’s not smiling now, and I miss it more than I could ever have imagined. There’s an ache just behind my breastbone. I’m not sure I can go through with this.

But I have to. He’s put up with a lot of shit from you, Ryan said, and he’s right.

So I say, “Hey back. I was just calling to see how you’re doing.”

“I’m good,” he says, shortly. “I’m between takes, though. I can’t talk.”

“No problem,” I say. “I just wanted to hear your voice. Go break your legs or whatever, and I’ll call you later.”

“Sure,” he says, and hangs up.

I set the phone down and look up at Ryan, who’s watching from the doorway.

He shrugs. “I didn’t say it was going to be easy.”

* * *

The next three days are basically a mid-90s movie montage set to a Spin Doctors song. “Two Princes,” probably.

I call Mitch on Monday evening, and he answers my questions in monosyllables, and after about ten minutes he says he has to go. Okay.

Tuesday morning, I confab with Ryan, who assures me that’s normal, and I’m only just beginning. “It’s going to be a long slog, Jenna,” he says. “Don’t get into this if you’re not ready to do the work.”

So I call Mitch again late Tuesday morning, and ask if he wants to get together for lunch. He’s busy. How about dinner? Also busy.

I tell him I’ll call him later. He says he might be busy and I say okay and we hang up.

Ryan shrugs. “Told you,” he says, and sits down across from me to strategize some more.

We’re not getting a lot of work done so far this week, but whatever.

Tuesday after work I call Mitch, and casually mention that I’m going down to Jacks that night and does he want to come? He makes some noncommittal noises, and I take that as a good sign. At least he didn’t just say no.

But he doesn’t show. I sit by myself all night, nursing a Guinness and turning down several propositions. I guess I don’t usually go out to bars alone; I had no idea how sketchy it was.

Wednesday morning I feel a little hopeless, but Ryan gives me a pep talk.

“It’s been two days, for God’s sake. Stop whining and make some kind of grand gesture.”

Okay, not so much a pep talk as a verbal beat-down. Close enough.

I ponder my grand gesture—and when the brainstorm comes, I’m amazed at my genius. I call a deli around the corner from the ABC studio and order lunch delivered, in a picnic basket. Basically the same thing we had at our picnic lunch, with a note that says Picnics for two are more fun. Maybe next time?

Ryan nods when I tell him. “That’s what I’m talking about. Nice.”

Just before quitting time on Wednesday, he pokes his head in.

“No calls,” he says. “Cell?”

I shake my head. “No, but I know he got it because I called and they said they gave it directly to him, not the front desk.”

“Well, call him now. Invite him out again.”

My shoulders slump—this is very discouraging—but he’s right, so I pick up the phone.

Mitch is notably less surly, though still not what I’d call friendly. “Thanks for lunch,” he says. He doesn’t mention the note, or even the picnic basket. Touchy subject, maybe.

Or he doesn’t care.

I tell him I’m headed to Jacks again. “It was pretty slow last night,” I say. “I ended up drinking all by myself and fending off douchebags.”

“Luis would have kicked them out if you told him,” he says, and it’s the longest sentence he’s said to me since he walked out of Petrosino Square.

“I’m a big girl,” I say. “I can take care of myself. But if you want to come down and keep them off me, you’re invited.”

“Maybe,” he says. “We’ll see. I gotta go.”

I hang up and Ryan raises his eyebrows at me. “That was inspired,” he says.

“What?”

“Making him feel jealous,” he says, “and like he has to protect you.”

I stare at him for a couple of seconds.

His shakes his head. “You didn’t do that on purpose, did you?”

“No,” I say. “Is that what you think happened?”

“Someone has got to teach you how guys work sometime.”

After work, I go home to change. I finally got around to my dry cleaning, so I can wear the floaty, flowery D&G tank again. It’s chilly, but it will be warm in the bar, and I look seriously good in this top. And it’s what I wore on our first date—our only date—so it makes me feel happy, something I sorely need. I don’t seem to be making much headway.

Still, Ryan said it wouldn’t be easy.

When I get to Jacks, I sit at the bar. Luis brings me a Guinness without being asked, bless him, and I sip at it and watch the minutes tick by on the clock over the bar.

One hundred thirty-seven of them have ticked by when Mitch slides onto the stool next to me. I smell him first, then the stool creaks. I turn to look at him—to drink him in, really, because no matter how much Ryan assured me I would wear him down, I wasn’t entirely sure I would see him again.

Jeans and boots, that goes without saying. But he’s also wearing the shirt he was wearing the first night I met him, and it strikes me that I’ve known him less than three weeks, but I already can’t imagine what it would be like if he wasn’t around.

My heart squeezes in my chest, like a fist, and I look at him while he very carefully looks at everything but me.

“Hey, stranger,” I say.

“Hey.”

He says nothing else. Luis drops off his drink; he takes a long swallow and stares at the bottles in back of the bar.

“How have you been?” I ask. “How’s work?”

“The usual.”

“Still up to shenanigans with the stepsister?”

He nods a little. “Yeah, that’s good. Ratings for my first couple of weeks were high.”

“Of course they were,” I say. “Kari and her legion of online pals swarming over to watch, no doubt.”

He doesn’t reply, just turns his glass around and around on the bar.

“I’m glad you came down,” I say. I feel like I should say something about protecting me from the constant propositioning—Ryan would probably tell me to, to nurture that territorial instinct—but I can’t do it.

He shrugs. “Sure. So what’s up? Two weeknights in a row.”

“Nothing. Just didn’t feel like sitting at home.”

“Same,” he says, nodding. “It’s good to get out.”

“Yeah, I’m trying to get out more.” I don’t have Ryan here to tell me what to do, and it’s probably too soon, but I can’t help it. “Would you … maybe want to go out for dinner or something this weekend?” I ask.

“This weekend’s no good,” he says.

My heart sinks—just sinks right down into my shoes. “Doesn’t have to be the weekend,” I say, and there’s a plaintive note in my voice that I don’t exactly like, but what am I supposed to do about it? I’ve never been good at hiding anything, and everything in me right now knows that I’ve messed this up so bad, and I don’t really know how to fix it. “I just … I really miss you.”

He takes another long swallow of his beer, then sets it back on the bar and stares at the glass for a few seconds. Then, without looking at me, he says: “What about lunch tomorrow?”

Talk about a hollow victory. Lunch won’t work either, and I’m afraid if I say no he’ll just stop trying.

“I would really, really love that,” I say, “but I’m going to be swamped tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

“And I also kind of want to be around the office, for the sake of making a good impression. I’ve been screwing up really badly.”

I hadn’t intended to tell him that, actually. I was just trying to keep talking until I came up with a better plan.

He turns his head and looks at me, brows drawn together over those tawny eyes. “Screwing up how?”

Since he seems legitimately interested, and I consider that a small miracle, I give him a quick summary: losing things, being late, missing emails.

He’s quiet for a moment after I finish, then: “Is your job at risk?”

“I don’t know,” I say, honestly. The very thought is terrifying. “I’ve never had anything like this happen before, so I don’t know? I mean, I got a little verbal spanking from my boss earlier; is that all there is, or what? I just don’t know. I’m never in trouble.”

“Then what’s going on?”

“I’ve been very distracted, I guess?” I drink some of my beer, and think about it. “I don’t mess up at work. I don’t lose things. I don’t forget things. And I don’t get lectures from my boss, because I don’t do anything to deserve a lecture. But lately I just seem to be … falling apart.”

“I don’t know, Jenna,” he says. “That sounds weird to me.”

“How so?”

“Did your work suffer when you … after your breakup?”

I notice he avoids Drew’s name. Fine by me, but I wish he hadn’t come up at all, now that Mitch is finally talking to me again like a regular human being.

“I don’t think so,” I say. “I don’t remember anything like this. And no one said anything at the time.”

“That’s something to think about,” he says.

“Yeah,” I say, but I don’t know what part of it I’m supposed to be thinking about, and I really didn’t even want to talk about work. I steer us back to earlier: “Hey, I just thought—what does your tomorrow after work look like? We could get dinner.” Inspiration hits, and I pivot. “No, I’ll make you dinner.”

“Is it going to be Spaghetti-Os?”

That hits me right in the heart.

“No.” I poke his bicep. Not a lot of give there; god, he’s so sexy. “I’ll make something nice—I don’t get a chance to do that often. Then … we could watch a movie?”

There’s a long pause. “A movie?”

“Yeah, I….” Ah, what the hell. “Remember you told me about that movie you really loved making? Home?”

“I remember.”

“Well, I bought it. On eBay.” I shrug a little. “Figured if you didn’t mind watching yourself we could check it out.”

He doesn’t say anything, just looks at the bottles behind the bar again.

“I mean … I can watch it on my own, but it would be better with you there.” Ryan said I should touch him if he seemed at all receptive—and he’s talking to me. That’s receptive, right? I reach out and touch the back of his wrist. “Please? If you don’t come over I’ll have to have a can of Spaghetti-Os.”

There’s another long pause. I wait it out.

Finally, he says, “Do you need me to pick anything up?”

My heart soars—I mean, seriously, if it literally flew out of my chest and around the bar a few times, I don’t think I’d even be surprised. “I’ll handle it,” I say. “You just be there. Six-thirty.”

He thinks about it. “That’s pushing things. What about five-thirty?”

I’ll have to duck out of work early, and I shouldn’t. But this is important, and I’m not sure I can get away with another no.

“Five-thirty is great,” I say, and give his knee a quick pat. Nothing obtrusive, Ryan said. I feel ridiculous, but okay.

“Sounds good,” he says, then neither of us says anything for a minute.

On impulse, I stand up. I might not know as much as I should about guys, but I know about negotiations. I know how to take a small victory and get while the getting’s good.

“I’d better head home,” I say. “I’m pretty beat, and I’ve got back-to-back meetings all morning.”

“Good luck,” he says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Perfect. I head out the door before he can second-guess himself. Outside, I flag down a cab. I’m going to have to go to the actual grocery store, which I don’t do often, and I really don’t want to be out too late. I was telling the truth about the back-to-back meetings.

But after work … well. I’ll make a nice dinner and then, if I can drum up the nerve, maybe I’ll see how Mitch feels about being a little bit more than friends.

And that thought makes me literally weak in the knees.

* * *

Thursday morning, I give Ryan the run-down and he high-fives me with both hands—high-tens me, I guess.

“That was a lot faster than I expected,” he says, sitting in one of my guest chairs. “I thought you’d have to grovel for another week at least. He must have it bad for you.”

“I don’t know.” I plop into my office chair, my stomach full of butterflies. “I hope so, but … I don’t want to mess it up. What do I do?”

Wow, seriously pathetic.

“Oh, this part’s easy,” he says. “Feed him food. Stroke his ego.” Then he flashes me a wicked grin. “Jump his bones.”

And here come the weak knees again. But—

“Ryan, I slept with another guy like ten minutes ago.”

“That’s forever ago, in ex years.”

“Ex years?”

“They’re like dog years, but the difference is you’re sad if a dog dies.”

It does make me smile, so that’s good. “I’m serious, though.”

“So am I,” he says. “And yeah, that’s not ideal—and I’d be extra sure not to remind Mitch of that, or your date’s going to go south pretty fast.” He leans forward, puts on a serious face. “It was a severe lapse in judgment, and we are going to pretend it never happened. I’m giving you a pass on this one.”

“Okay,” I say, although I think he’s not really the one who gets to decide that. “One last thing, though—I’m going to have to leave early.”

“No problem,” Ryan says.

“Well, could you—” I never do this, so it’s weird. “I need you to cover for me. It’ll only be an hour, but I don’t want to spread it around that I’m goofing off at a crucial time.”

Ryan shrugs. “Whatever. You work ten times harder than a lot of people around here who like to make out like the place would fall down without them.”

I wonder fleetingly what’s got him in such a snit, but mostly I’m too concerned with thinking about the upcoming evening. I’ll have time to shower, put on some nice underwear. Just, you know, in case. Who knows what might happen?

The weak knees—and the butterflies in my stomach—have some ideas.