My cell phone drags me out of a miserable restless slumber the next morning. It’s playing The Battle Hymn of the Republic, which means it’s Kari. She programmed it in herself, and forbids me to change it.

It feels early but, when I open one eye to squint at the clock, it says ten-thirty. My body, on the other hand, says No way am I getting up right now. I roll over and pull the blankets over my head till the music stops.

But Kari doesn’t give up so easily. Ten seconds later my house phone starts ringing. I resolve to ignore that one, too.

Then Kari’s voice, via the answering machine, says, “Bruuu-uunch.”

Oh, yes to brunch.

I grab my cell phone off the nightstand and call her back, because I’m just that lazy.

“Hey,” she says. “Are you still in bed?”

“No.”

“Are you lying?”

“Yes.”

“Well, get up,” she says. “We can meet up and I’ll tell you all about striking out last night.”

“Did you really?” I ask, more than a little surprised. Kari, as I mentioned, is cute as hell; she doesn’t strike out often.

And is it weird that I’m sort of glad to hear it? Probably, since it doesn’t have anything to do with me.

“Eh, only a little,” she says. “I did some very mild throwing myself at him, and he turned out to be a terrible catcher.”

“What is with the baseball analogies? You don’t even like baseball.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” Kari’s last boyfriend was a baseball fanatic, and I’m sure she hopes she never sees another baseball. “That Luis was cute, though.”

“Agreed.” And I guess I do agree, but—as Kari would say—Eh.

“So, brunch? Dot’s?”

Dot’s is an authentic old-style New York City diner—with precisely the kind of food and decor that implies—and is located almost exactly halfway between my neighborhood and Kari’s. So of course it’s one of our favorite places.

“Sure,” I say, dragging my sorry self out of bed and over to my dresser. Last night’s drinking is wreaking havoc on my head and stomach, and some toast and juice would go a long way toward making me feel human again. “Meet you there.”

She hangs up without saying goodbye, which is an irritating habit that I swear she picked up from those damned soap operas. I put the phone down and stare out the window at the flaking paint on the fire escape.

I can’t help puzzling over the strike-out. Kari’s instincts about guys are pretty much infallible. She wouldn’t have made a play for him—great, now I’m speaking in sports analogies—if she didn’t think he was kind of into her. So what happened between the successful introduction and the derailed pickup?

Is it that he met me? I might not have instincts like Kari’s, but I think I’ve got enough mojo to be able to tell when someone is interested in me. Especially when they decide subtlety is not an issue.

No. I’m being ridiculous. I probably misread his signals completely. And it’s irrelevant, anyway, as I don’t care about him one way or another—except in a What Not to Wear kind of way.

For one thing, he was Kari’s discovery, so to speak. We’ve managed for two decades to avoid that unpleasant way women have of stealing their friend’s dates or mates—it seems to happen in so many female relationships, and I’m proud that Kari and I have always been supportive of each other’s respective love lives.

For another, if he didn’t respond to Kari’s advances, she’s hardly going to be going back for more. So chances are good that neither of us will see him again. Jacks is located a little outside of our normal bar-prowling area, and I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve been there since the breakup. So it’s pointless to be doing all this speculating.

And anyway, totally not my type. I had a lot to drink and overreacted to a very nice voice.

And a great jaw.

And the eyes…

But that kind of thing is only to be expected after all that unpleasantness with Drew and Gertrude. Even Mr. Wrong looks good when you’re heartbroken, right?

Plus the guy is an actor, even if it is just on a soap. He’s trained to have an effect on people. He makes his living being compelling to an audience. It’s really that simple.

Glad to have settled that with myself, I pull open my closet and grab a pair of jeans without really looking. This isn’t like me, but Kari is notoriously impatient; if she gets there before me she’ll order for both of us and I’ll end up with sausage or home fries or something similarly stomach-turning. Kari eats the same way whether she has a hangover or not: the more calories the better, and pass the butter please. And even though we’re the same height—5’5”—she weighs a good fifteen pounds less than I do. It’s grossly unfair.

Jeans on, I hurry into a t-shirt and grab a jacket in case it’s colder than it looks. It looks gorgeous, though; it’s obviously going to be one of those days when fall forgets what season it is. I twist my hair into a knot and clip it into place, grab my nicest pair of strappy low-heeled sandals—I’m in a rush, but not too much of a rush to pick out good shoes—and run for the elevator.

* * *

I needn’t have rushed. I claim our usual table and nurse a cup of coffee for almost half an hour, enduring the glare of the middle-aged proprietress the entire time. Dot doesn’t take kindly to customers taking up tables when they’re not ordering food. Actually, from what I’ve seen over the years, Dot doesn’t take kindly to customers at all, and I think it’s only the necessity of paying the bills that leads her to even unlock the doors in the morning.

Finally, Kari shows up. She drops into the chair across from me and says, “So this is weird.”

“What’s weird?”

“Guess who called me?”

“George Clooney.”

“Like I’d be here now?” She shuts up as Dot slides a coffee cup onto the table and walks away—friendly as always—then says, “Mitchell Cole.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, like … I was heading out to meet you—sorry I’m late—and the phone rang. I grabbed it in case it was you, but it was him—Jenna, that voice. Mother of God, it just stops you in your tracks.”

She’s not wrong, but I don’t say anything.

“Anyway, he makes a little small talk and I’m not sure if he’s ever gonna get to the point—or if he even has a point—so I said I was heading out to meet you for breakfast.” She takes a sip of her coffee, sets it back down. “And he asked if he could come, too.”

Well, there: I was wrong. He is interested in Kari. For whatever reason, he didn’t go home with her, but this is probably better. It proves he’s not in it for the sex.

Or at least not just for the sex.

My God, am I jealous? I take stock and decide that I am. Not of Kari, you understand. Just the concept.

“I think I’ll probably just be a third wheel,” I say. “Plus this whole thing is just weird. Who calls for a breakfast date? This isn’t how breakfast dates work.”

“What do you mean?”

“Generally when your boyfriends join us for breakfast, they … haven’t slept well, shall we say?”

She rolls her eyes and grabs a menu from the tabletop rack. “You have such a low opinion of me.”

I roll my eyes right back at her. “Oh, I’m so sorry. You’re practically the Virgin Mary, aren’t you?”

She scowls, but wisely drops it. She knows that I don’t just know about the skeletons in her closet; I could, if called upon to do so, catalog them. Bone by bone, if you catch my drift.

“Anyway, do you want me to take off?” I ask. I’d be more than thrilled to take off. Delighted, in fact.

“No, not at all,” she says. “I’m just curious what he wants.”

“Probably to get in your pants,” I say, and suppress the pang that accompanies that. What the hell? “Kari, I’m not dressed to meet anyone.”

I should have taken more time to get ready; no one but Kari ever sees me just thrown together like this. And of course she’s radiant in an old pair of Levis and what looks suspiciously like a two-dollar Hanes t-shirt.

I’m not naturally gorgeous; I have to try harder than she does.

“Oh, you look fine,” she says, “and you’ve already met him. And no way is he trying to get in my pants. I’m telling you, there was just nothing there.”

“Still, I—”

“Plus I told him you’d be here, so you can’t leave or he’ll think I was making it up, or that I ditched you so we could be alone.” She disappears behind the enormous menu. “To hell with it; I’m going to get the Behemoth. It’s amazing.”

The Behemoth is like a full Irish on steroids: bacon, sausage, eggs, waffles, beans, toast—hell, I don’t even know. Everything back there in the kitchen, I guess.

I’m opening my mouth to remind her that it’s literally something like six thousand calories, when the door swings open and Mitch strides in, resplendent in faded jeans—with cowboy boots, of course—and yet another plaid shirt. This one isn’t flannel, but it makes up for that, saints preserve us, with mother-of-pearl snaps.

Not buttons. Snaps.

“Speaking of amazing,” I say, and nod at the door.

Kari turns around and waves Mitch over—unnecessarily, since he’s already walking toward our table.

Walking, though, doesn’t really begin to describe what he’s doing. His advance isn’t quite a strut, and it isn’t quite a swagger. It’s somehow both of these and neither of these and something in between. Perfectly, sexily in between.

There’s that word again: sexy. It’s so incongruous, but good Lord, the voice isn’t enough? (And the eyes, I can’t help thinking. And the jaw.) Does he have to exude overwhelming masculinity and raw pheromones with every step as well? It’s insane. I can’t look away.

I’m not too caught up in watching his progress to note, however, that every other woman in the diner—even Dot—has stopped what she’s doing to watch him make his way across the floor.

Finally, validation! I’m not imagining things.

While this is a relief, it doesn’t speak well for the taste of the women in the diner—myself included. I mean, really. Mother-of-pearl snaps?

He stops when he reaches our table, and favors each of us with a smile. I stare at him, bemused. That smile is as much a killer as the voice and the eyes, exposing perfect straight white teeth even as it show off those eye crinkles I noticed last night. And it shows off his dimples, which I did not have the privilege of seeing last night.

Great. Dimples, too. I wonder what other surprises he has in store for me.

Our usual table against the wall normally seats two, but he snags a chair from the next table over, turns it around and—of course!—straddles it, crossing his arms over the back. He doesn’t seem to notice that his knee is now resting against mine, though I can’t seem to notice anything else.

Actually, that isn’t true. I’m also spending a lot of time noticing the way his jeans stretch over his thighs.

“Good morning,” he says. “Have you ladies ordered yet?”

Did I actually think I remembered what that voice was like? If so, I was wrong; memory can only capture a pale shadow of that voice. It coats the words like warm maple syrup, rendering me speechless from the joy of listening to it. It’s outright stupid that anyone can sound like that.

I appraise the snaps again.

They’re still there.

“We haven’t had a chance yet,” Kari says. “I just got here myself.”

“Are you feeling better this morning?” he asks, and when Kari doesn’t answer I realize he must be talking to me.

I look up, and find he’s giving me that intent stare again. “Fantastic,” I say. “Never better.”

“You seemed like you might be a little down. The ex, and all that.”

“Not a bit. I’m great—I’m awesome—and Drew and Gertrude can seriously fuck off directly into the sun.”

He goggles at me a little bit, and I wonder if I’ve gone too far.

Kari pipes up. “Dot’s going to kill you for sitting on that chair like that.”

I don’t think Dot is going to do any such thing, and Mitch doesn’t look terribly concerned either. Probably doesn’t find himself on the receiving end of too many stern lectures from the fairer sex, and Dot is still one of us, after all.

“I’m sure she’ll forgive me.” He leans precariously backward to try and steal a menu from the next table over. “I’ll order a ton of food.”

Kari holds her own menu out. “Here, take mine.”

It’s a good thing his back is now turned to the rest of the place, because the smile he flashes her would make Dot—and every other woman there—relive their first orgasm. I want to kick myself. My immediate reaction is to wonder why I didn’t give him my menu; then he would have smiled at me.

My next reaction is to remind myself that I’m really not attracted to him.

“What’s good here?” he asks, and there’s a long pause before I realize that since Kari isn’t answering, he must be talking to me again. I look up and catch the full brunt of those eyes.

Kari kicks me under the table and when I look at her she’s giving me the raised eyebrows. I know Kari pretty well, but I’m not quite sure what those eyebrows mean.

“I’m not hungry,” I blurt, hoping the eyebrows were the Get the hell out of here and leave me alone with the hottie signal.

Kari shakes her head so subtly no one who didn’t know her would notice. Okay, I read the eyebrows wrong.

“I am,” Mitch says. His voice is lower, almost a rumble, and I just about fall off my chair. He’s doing it again! I swallow hard, and his lips twitch. Is he holding back a smile? Is that supposed to be a double entendre? And does it even matter, when he’s wearing cowboy boots and mother-of-pearl snaps?

When he’s got those eyes, and those dimples? And a voice like butter melting on toast?

I try to come up with a snappy reply, and come up utterly blank. I’ve lost my composure, which is unusual—and unwelcome—and this guy has me completely tongue-tied. It’s a bit embarrassing; I have to bail. How am I going to sit here and eat toast or whatever, when he’s sitting there being … appealing.

“You know,” I choke out, “now that I think about it, I’m really not hungry. Would you guys mind if I bowed out of breakfast and left you to your own devices?”

Kari gives me a little eyebrow thing and tilts her head subtly toward Mitch. “Of course not, but—”

“Great! Awesome.” I stand up and sling my purse over my shoulder.

Mitch turns a little to look up at me; his knee grazes along the front of mine and comes to rest against it, so that I’m almost straddling his leg. He doesn’t even seem to notice.

I notice it—so much noticing right now—and my hands are shaking a bit as I fumble some crumpled ones out of my pocket, to pay for my coffee.

Before I can put them on the table, Mitch catches my wrist. “It’s okay, I’m sure we can cover it.”

There’s a tremendous crash and the sound of breaking glass from the kitchen. Whatever it was, it sounded like there was an awful lot of it hitting the floor. Dot flies through the double doors and out of sight, and starts screaming at some poor soul. Across the table, Kari turns and cranes her neck to see through the crack between the doors.

Now would be a great time to make a graceful exit, except that Mitch hasn’t let go of my wrist. Kari’s still trying to see into the kitchen and hasn’t noticed this odd business. I look down at his hand rather pointedly, and when I look back up he’s got that lip-twitching thing going on again.

I’m trying to decide whether or not to pull away—I don’t want to make some kind of silly scene—when I feel his grip loosen. He runs the ball of his thumb over my wrist just hard enough to send a jolt of something like electricity through my whole body; I jump a little, and he lets go and rests his hand casually on his own thigh like he never dreamed of doing such a thing, and squints up at me.

Even his squint is sexy, and those crinkly corners of his eyes that showed up when he smiled are even more devastating.

Dimples. Eye-crinkles. That smile. The voice. That walk.

Just kill me, already.

“I hope to see you again, real soon,” he says softly, and I can only nod stupidly as I back away a few steps and then turn to go.

Kari shouts after me. “Call me later!”

I wave over my shoulder without looking back, and practically bolt for the door.