Page 28 of November

“I wanted to do something nice for a first date. Sue me. Her idea involved bird poop.”

“She’s your brother’s competition, and you want to go out with her?” Molly asked.

“I didn’tknowthat she was going to ask me out. And she doesn’t know that Colter is my brother. He barely is, anyway, when you think about it. Even Fin would agree with me on that one. ”

“You haven’t told her?” Molly asked.

“No, because it didn’t matter. I thought she was cute and nice, but I wasn’t looking for anything. I just got out of a really long relationship. I’m sure you two remember that.”

“But you like her?” Finley asked.

“I just told you that I think she’s cute and nice,” India replied.

“Sheiscute,” Molly added.

“Sorry?” Finley asked, looking over at her girlfriend.

“I’ve been in love with you for literal years. Remember that?” Molly said.

India reached for a mini candy bar from the giant bowl next to the coffee maker and got to unwrapping it.

“I want to see for myself,” Finley stated as she smiled at Molly. “Is she there now? Let’s go check her out.”

“What? No. Don’t you dare,” India said before she put the candy into her mouth. “And she took back the whole bird poop date thing, so there’s no need. Let’s just go about our workdays like normal people in an office and pretend like we don’t know way too much about each other.”

“Please stop saying, ‘Bird poop.’ And come on. It’ll be fun,” Finley said.

“Oh, I highly doubt that,” she replied.

But there was nothing she could do to stop them, so five minutes later, India was following Finley, who was like a dog with a bone, and Molly, who was tagging along, probably to make sure that Finley didn’t do anything stupid, which India appreciated.

“Donotsay anything about Colter,” India said when they hit the sidewalk outside the bookstore. “I don’t want her to know that I’m related to him. She already thinks I’m pretentious.”

“Youarepretentious,” Finley replied, pulling open the door. “After you, babe.”

India almost walked in first, still used to that term of endearment applying to her, but then she remembered that Finley had a new babe now and let Molly walk in first.

“Maisie, hey,” Molly greeted instantly.

“Molly, hi. Haven’t seen you in a while,” Maisie said and looked behind Molly toward India. “Oh. Hi.”

“I told Molly that I’d been over here, and she insisted on visiting,” India lied.

“Yes, thatiswhat happened,” Molly covered for her. “And this is my girlfriend, Finley. Sorry, I haven’t been herein a while. I’ve been busy.”

“Hi. Nice to meet you,” Finley spoke, holding out her hand over the counter for Maisie to shake.

“You too.”

“I’ve never actually been in here. Do you have books on coding or computers?”

“Not really, no,” Maisie replied.

India smiled because Maisie looked totally taken aback, as if they had just invaded her territory and she hadn’t been prepared for it. And, technically, they had, so India felt bad about that, but she’d known that there had been no stopping Finley, who was probably trying to make up for the night they had been supposed to hang out alone and hadn’t by getting India together with Maisie.

“Oh, okay,” Finley said, sounding disappointed as if she had actually planned on buying a book.

“So, you just wanted to stop by?” Maisie asked Molly.