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Cat giggled. “Okay, you do that.”

Elena smiled at her. “Thanks for talking about this with me.” She tilted her head and stared at Cat for a moment.

“What?”

“Thanks for being my friend. You have no idea how much I needed you when I walked into your bookstore.”

“It is becoming clear to me that I needed you, too.”

“It’s your turn to ask me out on our next friend date,” Elena said, taking the last bite of her brownie.

“Deal,” Cat said, holding out her fist.

Elena bumped her fist to Cat’s and grinned.

“I love this room. Thanks for sharing it with me,” Cat said.

“You’re going to help me fill it.”

“If I had a room like this, I’d be sitting in it all the time. It gives me calmness and excitement all rolled into one. That doesn’t sound possible, but it does.”

“I feel peace in here, but also excitement with how the room will take on a life of its own. So, what you described isn’t any less impossible than me thinking a room can live.”

“Maybe a room is full of memories that were made in it and that’s what brings it to life. I think I hear laughter because you and Nicolas have been in this room together,” Cat said.

Elena chuckled. “He really knows how to tell a story.”

Cat sighed. “I must be the most boring person alive.”

“What? Why would you say that?”

Cat shrugged. “I’m not athletic like Cory and I don’t love to socialize like CeCe. I just really like books. And who gets off on a room with empty bookshelves in it? Talk about boring. Even though they are beautiful.”

“I do! Why do you think I had them built? I wanted a room I could sit in and simply enjoy being in it,” Elena said. “Not many people would understand that, but you do.”

Cat smiled. “I do get it.”

“You know, I had to attend social events with Dean and occasionally hosted clients and some of his partners in our home, but I never enjoyed it. I had nothing in common with those people. Don’t get me wrong, most of them were lovely people, but we didn’t share the same interests. As for athletics? That ship sailed long ago,” Elena said. “I enjoy walking.”

Cat chuckled. “Walking? Care to elaborate?”

“I like walking through an interesting area. It can be in nature or simply along a quaint street.”

“You don’t mean hiking?” Cat asked.

“No. I mean walking along the lake or perhaps along tree-lined streets of a neighborhood.”

“That sounds nice.”

Elena smiled at Cat. “That would be boring to most people.”

Cat narrowed her gaze. “So you’re trying to say you’re boring, too?”

Elena laughed. “No, we’re not boring. We happen to like a lot of the same things. Don’t you agree?”

Cat nodded. “I do. However, you didn’t mention vibrators.”

“That’s between you and me, my friend.”