Page 48 of Sugar

Duh.

“You have a hot date,” I surmised.

“I have a date, yes. It remains to be seen whether it’s hot or not.”

Greer’s eyes narrowed. “Why all the secrecy? Is it someone we know?”

“No.”

Her guarded answer made us both go on alert.

She must’ve known we weren’t going to drop it because she sighed before tugging us closer. Her voice was barely above a whisper. “I met him while student teaching.”

“And I’m guessing he’s not another college student. Parent?”

“Teacher. I’m assigned to his class.” At our expressions, she rushed to tack on, “Don’t worry, he’s only five years older than me.”

That wasn’t my concern. I had no room to judge since I’d spent the night—and a full battery charge on my vibrator—fantasizing about a man fifteen years older than me.

My worry was that it could mess up her degree if something went south. I weighed my words, trying to decide whether to say something before deciding against it.

Unlike me and my string of failed relationships, Wren was lucky in love. She didn’t get bored. She didn’t attract jerks. She didn’t move on quickly because nothing ever feltright. All of her relationships ended amicably.

Greer must’ve also decided that she wasn’t in a position to say anything considering she had a not-boyfriend who she still spoke to nearly daily. “What time is he picking you up?”

“Six,” Wren said, barely holding back a giddy smile.

“Tell us everything,” I ordered.

Greer held up a hand to stop her as she looked back and forth between us. She paused on me first. “I still want to hear about the interview.” She looked at Wren. “But this sounds juicier, so spill.”

She has no idea how wrong she is.

Like the gossip gods were smiling upon us, another small group left and freed up some of the plastic chairs. We snagged three before Wren launched in. “He’s sweet, funny, and amazing with the kids. Less important, but he’s also really hot. Like, he could easily be a model or actor.” She flicked her wrist dismissively. “I know, I know. That’s most of LA. But I mean that literally. His dad is some studio bigwig, but Chris is happy being a teacher.”

We peppered her with more questions, and Greer did the proper best friend thing by looking him up on every form of social media.

To our delight—and shock—there were zero red flags. No dodgy pages or porn bots that he followed. No reposts of podcast bros who thought they were high-value men. He had pictures and interactions with friends, not a page of drunken pics and insta-baddies.

“See?” Wren sat back with a sigh. “He’s really great.”

“Is this your first date?” I asked.

“Yes. We’ve been texting. And flirting. And trying not to do either because… you know. But last night he said—” Her words cut off abruptly as her cheeks flushed.

“I don’t think we need the specifics,” Greer said.

“Good because you’re not getting them. All that matters is we decided tocarefullygo for it. Hence the need for my favorite dress.”

We spoke for a few minutes more before Wren got up to switch her laundry into the dryer.

Greer shook her phone. “I’m glad he checked out.”

“And I’m glad her urgency to do laundry was because of a date. I thought I was going to be stuck with two of you neat freaks.”

“Haha. Very funny.”

“I thought so.”