Page 73 of If the Stars Align

I laugh. “That literally describes 75 percent of the books I’ve read.”

“I feel sorry for you,” he says with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, not everyone enjoysastrophysicsthe way you do,” I tease.

Jeremy smirks. “You’re never going to let me live that down.”

“I mean—who brags about reading astrophysics for fun within five seconds of meeting someone?”

He smiles with his eyes. “I’m a pretentious asshole, I know. Yet, here you are three-and-a-half years later, so…you must see something underneath my stony exterior.”

I shake my head. “You’re not stony, Jeremy.”

“But I’m not the sensitive, guitar-playing type from those terrible books you read, either.”

“Most of them aren’t terrible. You know…I used to dream of writing romance novels. Feels like a long time ago, now.”

“You’re a great writer, Sunny. You could probably write the next Great American Novel if you wanted to. Why limit yourself? Leave the romance-writing to the miserable trophy wives whose CEO husbands can’t get it up.”

I chortle. “You sound like my mom. Andpleasedon’t joke about men who can’t get it up.”

He laughs. “Speaking of your mom, tell her I said hi.”

I shake my head and smile. Jeremy and I have this running joke that my mom’s obsessed with him—because she is. She’s never met him, but they once had a lengthy phone conversation when he and I were celebrating after we passed the bar exam. I was several beers in and too tipsy to talk to her, so I handed him my phone, and they talked for no less than a half hour about some study he’d come across while reading theNew England Journal of Medicine.

As I’m polishing off the last of my fries, a young woman comes up to our table and looks at me first, then Jeremy. “Um, hi,” she says to him.

It takes a second before a wave of recognition washes over his face. “Hey, there. How’s it going?”

She glances back at me, then at Jeremy again. “Good,” she says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

When she examines me a third time, I put the pieces together. “Hey, I’m Sunny,” I tell her. “Jeremy’s friend.”

She instantly looks relieved. “Oh, great! Hi.” Then she turns back to Jeremy. “I um, had fun hanging out the other week. We should do it again,” she says.

He nods. “Yeah, definitely. I’ll call you.”

“Cool.” She smiles at both of us, then walks away.

I try hard to suppress a smirk, but it’s not working.

“What’s so funny?”

“Come on, Jeremy. Is she even old enough to drink?”

He rolls his eyes. “She’s a senior in college, thank you very much. Goes to…DePaul, maybe? I don’t know. Somewhere local.”

“Wow. You seem really into her,” I joke. “What’s she studying?”

“Communications?”

I snort. “Do you even know her name?”

“I’m almost positive it’s Nicole.”

“You really should go back to dating women your own age.” I take one more sip of his vodka soda and pass it back to him. “Was the sex good, at least?”

He finishes his drink. “It wasn’t mediocre.”