I wake at ten o’clock Saturday morning with a faint ache between my legs and the covers tucked securely around me. Stupendously well-endowed and nurturing. Luckiest girl in the universe, right here.

When I go out to the kitchen, there’s a note propped against the coffee maker:

I stare at the note for a long time, tracing the pattern of his name, thinking about … everything, all at once.

The first time I saw him. The first time he called me and we talked half the night. Dinner at Angela’s. The picnic.

Watching him work. Playing pool at Jacks.

The way my heart soared when I realized he could be mine, that there was still a chance for us.

The way he touched me last night, the way he took his time and savored me.

One and done. Not that I’m complaining, but….

“Every Duane Read in Manhattan,” I whisper, and stand there smiling in my kitchen, holding his note and wishing it was Tuesday already.

Then I pick up the phone and do what I wish I’d done a week ago: Call Kari.

* * *

Dot’s is crowded but our usual table is free. I grab a seat and wait for Kari to arrive, which she does only a couple of minutes after me. She sits down across from me just as Dot is pouring coffee for us, and since she’s standing right there, we order our food.

Kari waits till Dot leaves, then folds her arms over her chest and says, “All right, spill. What the hell is going on?”

“Okay, listen,” I say. “We can never fight again, ever, because you won’t believe the crazy shit I got into when we weren’t talking.”

“Is this about the weird message you left for me? About Mitch?”

“Yes, but … I think I’d better start at the beginning.”

I run through it quickly: Petrosino Square (“Oh, Jenna, you didn’t!”), the Spin Doctors montage, the Fan Club Weekend phone call. Soapzone—and she laughs herself half to death at that part. My resolve to be just friends, for real this time.

The studio. Wet, shirtless Mitch at his apartment. Jacks.

“Okay,” she says, forking up a bite of scrambled eggs, “so you’re ogling my boyfriend with his shirt off, and then you think, Hmmm, let’s go play pool, that sounds like a great idea?”

“Well, that’s not exactly how it was, but close enough.”

“Regular pool, or sexy pool?”

“Well … I thought it was regular pool, but it turned out to be pretty sexy.”

“You trollop.” She takes another bite of her eggs. “I don’t know how the hell you thought any of this was going to work.”

“I really did think I could pull it off. I was trying so hard to do the right thing. Why do you think I called you?”

“Yeah, I thought you were nuts when I got your message. You’re all ‘I hope it’s okay with you if I hang out with Mitch tomorrow?’ and I’m over here like Uh, sure? Have fun?”

“Why didn’t you call me back?” I spread a little jam on my toast, take a bite. “I was in agony at Jacks, trying not to jump all over him. At which I succeeded, by the way, even with Joe Cocker on the jukebox. That’s how much I love you.”

“Yeah, well, good job on that. I’m gratified to know it. But can I just say….” She pops a grape in her mouth, chews it thoughtfully. “I love you like a sister. I’d give you a kidney, Jenna. But if I did have a boyfriend, and you spent the whole day at his work with him and then went out to play sexy pool? You’d be dead, and I’d be in jail.”

“Kari!”

“I’m serious. When they came to arrest me, I'd be wearing a cute little wrap I made from your back skin, and eating candy out of a bowl I made from your skull.”

“Duly noted.”

“Good.” She eats another grape. “I didn’t call you back that night because I got home late, and then I meant to call you at work yesterday, but we had an issue with a case file going missing—it almost made me late for an event on Long Island. By the time it was all cleared up, I didn’t really have time to call you, and anyway you were already off to the studio.” She points her fork across the table at me. “You know, and then off to play sexy pool with my boyfriend.”

I throw one of my grapes at her. “It wasn’t like that, you jackass. I totally thought—admittedly because I’m not very bright—that we could be friends, and play pool, and drink beer, and I was like I have totally got this.”

She snorts. “You absolutely did not have this.”

“I sure didn’t. It was awful. I had to bail quick, fast, and in a hurry—because holy shit, Kari. He’s unspeakably hot.”

“Yeah, I’ve got eyes,” she says. “So much for your iron self-control.”

“Well, yeah, but the thing is? I knew it would be okay because even if I couldn’t control myself—which for the record I did, by removing myself from the situation—I knew he would never cheat on you.”

She shrugs. “Who knows, with sexy pool? Things can get out of hand.”

“Not in a million years. I’d have stabbed myself in the eye with that pool cue first.” I polish off a piece of bacon. “That’s no lie, Kari. I would never. And, if we hypothesize for a moment that I’m not one hundred percent trustworthy—which I totally am—I knew he would be. He has this crazy thing about cheating.”

“That doesn’t sound particularly crazy to me.”

“Well, no, I mean … cheating is terrible. You know my feelings on that. Although, if it had been anyone other than you, while we were playing sexy pool….” I filch another piece of bacon off Kari’s plate. I’m starving. “But he’s got, like, a big thing about it. Previous girlfriend issues.”

“That part’s good, then. But how do you go from busting out of Jacks all sad and alone, to calling me this morning with ‘I’ve got something to tell you’?”

“I called him,” I say. “I couldn’t sleep, and by midnight I couldn’t stand it any more. So I called him.”

“You called my boyfriend at midnight after a sexually-charged game of pool?”

“Stop calling him your boyfriend!” I laugh. “You’re making me feel guilty and I didn’t even do anything wrong.”

“Except call my boyfriend”—she lingers over the word—“at midnight and invite him over for sexytimes.”

“I did not invite him over for sexytimes, or for anything at all. I called and told him we couldn’t be friends anymore.”

She straight-up laughs at me. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“And what did he say to that?”

“After some hemming and hawing on my part, and him telling me he wasn’t seeing anyone right now—which, since you are someone, meant I was wrong about you two—he got frustrated and stormed over to give me a piece of his mind.”

“A piece of his mind,” she says, and waggles her eyebrows at me. “I just bet.”

“No, seriously, though. He gave me chapter-and-verse about what a crazy bitch I am—without using those exact words, which is admirable on his part—and said I was either in or out, and he wasn’t putting up with my shit anymore.”

“Sounds like a well-deserved reaming.” She grins, wickedly. “Followed, I assume, by a well-deserved reaming.”

I laugh helplessly. “Yes,” I say, when I catch my breath. “Yes on both counts.”

“Well, you can’t just leave it at that,” she says. “I’m gonna need a whole lot more information on this.”

“You aren’t going to put this on the internet somewhere, are you?”

“Hell, no,” she says. “But as your best friend—and someone who is currently not getting any—I demand all the gory details.”

I look around, make sure no one’s close enough to hear. “Oh my god, Kari. He’s hung like a rhino.”

“Well, good for you,” she says, and it’s clear she means it. My BFF really rocks.

“And he just … I mean. Wow.”

“That good?”

“That spectacular. I mean, that other part’s good and all, but if it’s all you bring to the table….”

“Boring,” she says.

“Boring,” I agree. “But he had a few tricks up his sleeve. And he’s just … wow.”

“You’re eloquent this morning.”

“Yeah, it’s hard to explain. It’s not like we did anything revolutionary—though we did manage to hit all the major milestones. He’s just really exceptional at … everything.” I push my plate away. “And, of course, there’s the voice.”

“Okay,” she says, and stacks her plate on top of mine. “Now I’m jealous.”

And we laugh as Dot stomps over to clear our plates.

* * *

Saturday night, when I go to bed, I can smell him on my sheets, and it makes me smile. If I wrap my arms around the pillow he used, can anyone really blame me?

Sunday, I pick up the house. I scrub the shower tiles—who knows, we might have shower sex—and throw away all the leftovers growing interesting new life forms in my fridge. Later, I go to the grocery store and stock up on stuff we might want if we hole up in here this week and spend our evenings doing what I hope we’ll spend our evenings doing.

And when I go to bed, I can still smell him, faintly, and I fall asleep with a smile on my face.