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“I’m going to run home and change!” I reach for my bag that I dropped by the counter. Carter seems interested in his second, or maybe third, pastry. “I’ll pick you up in an hour, Josie?”

She looks from me to Carter and then back again before nodding. “Yeah, that sounds good. I’ll have Mia meet us here.”

“Perfect. Let me know if you need anything.”

“We won’t need anything,” Bryce calls as I open the door. I turn to glare at him, but he just shrugs. “What? I’m serious. It’s your weekend off.”

“He’s right, Kat,” Carter adds. “Just enjoy the day with Mia and Josie. We’ll be fine.”

Nodding, I wave before stepping into the hall and closing the door behind me. Logically, I know they’ll be fine, but I still wish I were there to answer even the dumbest question they could have. This is the first time Carter will see the pool in person since we broke ground, and I’m itching to know what his opinion is. I want to make sure he likes it, that he’s happy with the direction it’s going in, and how can I know that if I’m not there?

I’ll just have to trust that one, or both, of them will tell me if there’s something I need to know. They have to know I’ll fix it; make any changes they need. Whatever it takes for them to both be happy with the result because I care about them more than I’ve ever cared about any client. I want their dream to happen.

“Oh,mygod,”Josiepractically screeches as soon as she slides into the backseat of my car; Mia taking the front seat. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?” I demand, trying to calm my beating heart as I pick a playlist for us to listen to.

“Kat!” she screeches, reaching up to swat my arm. “Stop messing around!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Josie!” I glance at Mia, who looks just as confused, before turning to look at the redhead. “Why are you acting like you’ve just met your favorite boy band?”

“Because you like him!” Dread fills me at her words. I figured she knew or had her suspicions confirmed by Bryce, because that man knows. I don’t know how he knows, but he does. “You like Carter!”

“What?” Mia gasps from the passenger seat.

Okay, well, there’s one person who doesn’t know. Wait . . . does Carter know?

I look back at Mia to see her mouth agape in shock. “How am I just now finding this out? When did Josie find out?”

“I don’t know!” I groan, and then quickly clamp my mouth shut after realizing what I just said. I’d literally just confirmed it.

“Mia.” Josie leans up between the two seats. “Mia, you should have seen them this morning. There were so many sparks flying, I thought our apartment would catch on fire.”

“Oh, shut up.” I roll my eyes. “There were no sparks.”

“No,” Josie insists, “there totally were. Carter couldn’t stop staring at her and she kept peeking glances at him. It was really cute.”

“You forget I have a boyfriend,” I remind them both. I straighten up in my seat, turning back to look ahead of me. If I drive, I’ll be distracted from this conversation. At least, I hope that’s what’ll happen. “There’s nothing happening between me and Carter.”

Mia waves my comment off. “That relationship is over. You’ve been over him for a while. Answer me this: If you ended it right now, would you feel like you need time to move on?”

I stare down at the steering wheel, thinking the question over for just a second before I sigh and shake my head. “No.”

It should bother me more that I wouldn’t need to get over my boyfriend of two years, but I feel like I’ve spent the last six months doing that. Not only is the relationship at a dead end, but I’ve turned around and am actively trying to find a new road to take while he’s still stuck where he is. I need to just end it.

“Then there’s no harm in admitting that you have a crush on someone, or that you find them attractive,” Mia comforts. “If anything, it might mean that you should end it sooner than you initially planned.”

There’s a charity event coming up that Will wants me to attend with him; I could end it that weekend. The only downside is we’ll be under a microscope, both from his colleagues and my parents. Two weeks after that, I’m supposed to drive up so we can go on a date. There’s nothing special surrounding it, just something Will feels like we should do once every couple of months. it’s just a date. I can wait that long to end it.

But I will end it that day. It’s not fair to me, or him, to keep pretending it’s anything more or anything worth saving.

“I will. I’ll end it,” I promise them both. Speaking the words aloud makes it feel firmer, more concrete. Even though I don’t give them a specific date, I have it in my head and I know I’ll stick to it.

“And then you’ll ask Carter out!”

Turning on my signal to exit the parking lot, I laugh, and look at Josie in the mirror. “Calm down, girlfriend, let’s not jump ahead of ourselves. There are a lot of reasons that’s a bad idea.”

“Name three,” Mia challenges.