Page 42

“I need to let Max out,” I tell her. “My neighbor watched him until midnight for me, but he’s been alone for two hours now and he usually wakes up and wants to go potty about this time.”

She props herself up on her elbow.

“You want me to come with you?”

“To let my dog out?”

She nods, and I’m surprised. Does it show on my face? Jessica doesn’t exactly seem like the type of person to get her hands dirty with a dog, but then again, a lot of things have been surprising me about her lately.

“Yeah,” I finally say. “I would like that.”

She gets out of bed, too, and pulls on a pair of pajama pants and a tank top. I slide on the dress I wore to the event tonight. It’s either that or my sweaty shorts and tank from the park earlier today. Jessica’s quiet as we head out to our cars.

“Here,” I reach for her phone and punch my address into her maps app. “It’s not too far.”

She looks down at the address and some emotion I can’t identify crosses her face. Sadness, maybe? Regret? I’m not sure, but soon enough we’re back on our way home, and then we’re inside, and then we’re kissing again.

And then it’s morning.

21

Jessica

When Monday morning rolls around, I walk into the office feeling good. I spent the entire weekend wrapped in Toni’s arms, and it was everything I’ve missed.

And everything that was bad for me.

Now that I’m back in the office, I’m wondering whether it was a terrible mistake to pretend to make up with her for the sake of moving forward, especially when I open my email and I find that I’m slammed with email after email after email.

All of them are about the weekend.

“Patrick!” I yell the name and he comes rushing in.

“Miss Mortimer?”

“Why are you being formal?”

He shrugs.

“What happened yesterday, Patrick?”

“I tried to call you,” he says.

And I didn’t get the message because I was at Toni’s. My phone died and she only had an Apple charger, not a USB C. I didn’t want to leave her to go buy one, and I didn’t want to go home. I figured I’d be okay without a phone for one day. Apparently, that was incorrect.