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Jo considered inviting Emma in, instead. Extending some kind of olive branch to make sure they were okay. But she didn’t want it to be misconstrued. She left her door open, though, just in case.

—

“We’re going out tonight.”Evelyn breezed into Jo’s office that afternoon.

Jo didn’t look up from her work. “Are we?”

“Of course,” Evelyn said. “Early birthday celebration.”

Jo finished the paragraph she was reading before turning to Evelyn.

“I hate celebrating my birthday.”

“You hate celebrating it with your family,” Evelyn corrected. “You hate celebrating it publicly, with people who only care it’s your birthday because you’re a celebrity. Good thing you’ve got your best friend here to celebrate with instead.”

Evelyn wasn’t wrong, no matter how much Jo would like to say she was.

“Come on.” Evelyn dragged the words out. “Let me take youout and get you drunk and make you forget about how you hate yourself for—”

She cut herself off but glanced toward the open door, outside of which Emma worked at her desk. Jo glared at Evelyn, but there was no real heat behind it.

“Plus,” Evelyn said, “I had a great idea. We’ll go out with Sammy.”

Jo had to admit that was actually a good idea.

“Fine,” Jo said. “But you’re not telling anyone at the restaurant it’s my birthday.”

Evelyn rolled her eyes. “That’s a terrible condition, but I accept.”

Sam was thrilled to go to dinner with them. It was more fun than Jo had had in weeks. Evelyn flirted her heart out the whole time, and still all the tabloids talked about the next day was how Jo and Sam were dating.

—

Jo and Evelyn spentthe weekend kicking around their old haunts, realizing they were both probably too old for most of them. It was a great time anyway.

Evelyn came back to work with Jo Monday morning. Emma smiled sweetly at her.

“I would’ve gotten you a latte if I’d known you’d be here,” she said.

Evelyn chuckled.

“She’ll live,” Jo said before Evelyn could say anything rude.

She closed the door behind them. She wondered what Emma thought of Evelyn visiting. Was Jo being obvious—needing her best friend after she and Emma had almost kissed? Maybe it was tipping her hand, but it was keeping her sane.

“You picked a good one, you know?” Evelyn said, lounging acrosswhat Jo had come to think of as Emma’s couch. “Loyal, obviously. And certainly not bad looking.”

“Shut up.”

It wasn’t like Jo didn’t know Emma was attractive. She’d always known, really. Since back when Emma was hired on props. She was a beautiful woman, objectively. Jo knew that, and it never used to matter.

She hated that it mattered now. Hated that she noticed it, at random times, even before her father’s visit. Emma would be telling her about a meeting later, and Jo would get distracted by the way her hair fell in front of her face. It made Jo feel dumb, and inappropriate. Emma was still her employee. Emma was her employee who had already been sexually harassed. She didn’t need her boss creeping on her.

Evelyn spent the whole last day of her visit teasing Jo about how great Emma was. Jo couldn’t exactly disagree.

—

“You’re not going totake me to the airport?” Evelyn acted outraged.