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Wyatt waves his hand. “Romy’s…Don’t worry about Romy. I’ll deal with her. She just wants you to be happy, you know? Sometimes she just has a weird way of showing it.”

I don’t know to what extent I’d say Romy’s weird about our friendship, but okay. I’m tempted to prod Wyatt further but end up dropping it. Gotta focus on the here and now.

“And you guys would stay the whole time if I chicken out?”

That way, if I truly am not ready, we never have to broach the dating thing.

“But you’re not gonna chicken out,” he says. “What’s bugging you about this?”

I rub my arm. “You know I’ve never been with a girl before. Or flirted with one.”

Wyatt grins. “Well, hey, I can show you how to do that.”

My eyes light up. “Really?”

“Yeah. Come on, that was the one thing I was good at with you, right?”

It was.

“You were good at other stuff…” He was always good at flirting. So much so that I was spared months of does he like me? stress that I was not appreciative of enough back then.

He waves me away. “It’s all about accidental touching. When she reaches for a drink or the karaoke book…”

He reaches over and brushes his hand over mine, immediately pulling away.

“Or when she’s looking at the songbook you say you want to see, you…”

He scoots in, bridging the space between our legs.

“Then, when the night starts getting long and everyone’s had something to drink and it’s just getting lazy, you just keep closing the gap until you’ve got as much skin touching as possible.”

Wyatt puts an arm around me, his leg between my legs, head on my shoulder. It’s a blast from the past. I’ve been thinking about girls so much lately it’s like I forgot that guys are nice to be this physically close to too. It used to be my favorite part of being with Wyatt, having all our skin touching, sharing each other’s heat and heartbeats and breath.

“Then you just lean in,” he says.

It makes sense on paper, but we’ll see if I can pull it off. “Thanks. That helps.”

I push his limbs off me. It was nice, but it’s not what I want right now.

He smiles. “This is gonna be so great.” He fidgets with his shirt. “By the way, thank you for that organizational system. Steven says he’s talking to the higher-ups about promoting me.”

I pull Wyatt into a hug. “Wy, that’s amazing! Congratulations!”

But as I’m hugging him, that excitement fades into anxiety about my own career path. There’s nothing more I can do with Brendan. I feel good about my prospects there, but should I be applying for more jobs? And Jesus, what happens when Wyatt has no connection to Steven? Will I have any means to check in on Valeria if this date doesn’t work out? I’m obviously sad about a very fun P.A. job ending, but in addition to looming unemployment, this separation from Valeria is barreling toward me. I’m far from ready for the hit.

Maybe Julia and I had the “not ready” thing wrong. It’s not that I’m “not ready” to be with Valeria. It’s that I’m not ready to lose her.

With God, Wyatt, and Romy as my witnesses, if Valeria likes me as much as I suspect she might, there’s no way in hell I’m not getting with her tomorrow night.

Everything has to be perfect.

chapter seventeen

I told Valeria to meet me at Pharaoh Karaoke Lounge at eight, and it’s seven thirty and I’m in my bathroom. I’ve completely lost the ability to apply makeup.

“Luna? You almost out?” Romy asks, knocking softly on the door.

I take a deep breath. In all honesty, I’m not even sure what set me off. Romy came on board with Wyatt’s new idea without any protest. Valeria seemed excited when she texted me earlier today. Sure, I didn’t sleep well last night, and I haven’t been able to eat much today, but it isn’t like anything happened. I picked out my outfit without any issue—black overall shorts with a crop top, which leaves a whole lot of side waist and cleavage on display. Hell, I was excited picking out an outfit.