Page 63 of The Seven Year Slip

It made my stomach knot in a way I couldn’t exactly describe.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

I inclined my head.

Drew had been snacking all evening, but I’d been so nervous I couldn’t eat at all. It was probably a bad idea to cross any sort of professional boundary, but this was just food. It wasn’t a marriage proposal or anything. Besides, he was such a mystery to me, I couldn’t really resist. And I was, in fact, starving. But maybe not for the thing I thought...

I canceled my Uber and asked, “What do you have in mind?”

He pointed with his head down the sidewalk, and tipped his body a little, before he began to walk in that direction, and it must have been the way New York City felt at night—the glow of possibility, shrugging off the heat of the day to bright, glittery evening—but I followed.

26

Washington Square Arch

My aunt used totell me that summer nights in the city were made to be impossible. They were as brief as you needed them, but never long enough, when the roads stretched into the darkness, the skyscrapers climbed into the stars, and when you tipped your head back, the sky felt infinite.

“So...” I began, because the silence between us was becoming a little awkward, “did you plan on what to sayafteryou asked me to dinner?”

He flashed me a bashful smile. “Not really. I’m pretty bad at planning.”

“Ah.”

We walked another block silently.

Then, he asked the worst possible question—“How’s your aunt?”

The question felt like a punch in the gut. I put my hands in my pockets to keep them from shaking, and I steeled myself to answer. “She passed away. About six months ago.”

“Oh.” He rubbed the back of his neck, ashamed. “I—I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t expect you to.” We stopped at the next intersection, and glanced both ways before we crossed, but there were no cars coming either way. “It’s been seven years.”

“And you look like you haven’t aged a day.”

I leaned back on my heels, and started walking backward in front of him. “Do you want me to tell you my skincare routine?” Because I doubted he’d believe the truth. “I could give it to you in crystal-clear detail.”

“Are you saying I look old?”

“Distinguishedis a much better spin on it.”

His mouth dropped open, and he pressed a hand to his chest with a gasp. “Ouch!And here I thought we were trying to get off on the right foot.”

“You were,” I reminded, unable to bite in a grin. I turned on my heels again and waited for him to catch up with me. “I’m joking, by the way.”

He pressed his hands against his face, as if he could smooth out the crow’s feet around his eyes. “I feel like I need to get Botox now...”

“I was joking!” I laughed.

“Maybe plastic surgery.”

“Oh,please, and ruin your perfect nose?”

“Am I balding, too? Maybe I can just get a new face altogether—”

I grabbed him by the arm to stop him. “I like your face,” I told him in good humor, and before I could stop myself, I reached up and cupped his cheek, my thumb tracing over the laughter lines around his mouth. A blush rushed up his throat to his cheeks, but instead of leaning away, he closed his eyes and leaned into the palm of my hand.

My heart stuttered brightly. The skin on his cheek was rough with fine stubble, and as I looked at him—reallylooked—there was so much the same about this man I didn’t really know, that it almost felt like I did. But for everything that was the same, there were small bits that were different. His eyebrows were groomed, his hair trimmed neat. I ran my thumb down his nose, feeling the crooked bump there.

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