Page 11 of The Best Part of Breaking Up

“My notes on the case so far. I trust you can bring yourself up to speed? Assuming you even know family law. If you don’t, ask one of the interns. I don’t have time to hand-hold you.”

“And yet I seem to recall you being perfectly content holding hands with me the other night.”

“We weren’t holding hands, we were dancing. Under false pretenses. But don’t worry, it won’t happen again.”

The longer he looks at me, the more it seems to dawn on him that I might be serious. Of course it’s taken him this long. He’s probably not used to women doing anything but falling at his feet.

“Are we really going to be adversaries on this?” he questions.

“What would you prefer we be?”

“Friends,” he proposes. “Allies. The kind of coworkers who also happen to have a mature, consensual relationship outside of the office.”

I grimace. God, did I actually think he was attractive? With his devil-may-care hair and his I-spend-too-much-time-flexing-in-the-gym-mirror body? I have to stop skipping lunch. That’s exactly what’s to blame for this. All I feel now when I see his hopefully playful smirk is prickly rage.

Prage.

“Are you planning to pursue the partnership opportunity?” I ask.

His gaze shifts over my features, and I watch his smirk fall. The defined shape of his cheekbones make him look suddenly serious. It’s a welcome shift, as if anything personal that could ever have been between us is slowly dissolving, leaving only business.

“I’d be stupid not to,” he admits.

I give him a curt nod.

“Then perhaps you should forget that we ever exchanged numbers. You might also want to brush up on the agency’s very strict policy against interoffice relationships, while you’re at it,” I say, swiveling towards my computer.

I’m opening emails and typing at top speed within moments. I can feel him watching me for a few beats. Weighing. Assessing.

“Adversaries,” he says, peeling himself out of my doorway and inclining his head. “As you wish.”

***

The overcrowded aisles of Nine Lives thrift shop is my safe space. When I was a kid, I ended up here almost every afternoon and all day most summers. I would sink into a beanbag in the corner and speed through my homework so I could slip into the latest paperback thriller from the local library. By high school, I spent much of my time rummaging through the latest haul, hoping to rediscover long-forgotten treasures, the kind of things I could repurpose and – more importantly – afford.

In college, I found my way here when I’d burned myself out on studying, those days when I was in search of a sympathetic ear and a meal that didn’t come from the microwave. Picking up shifts here is also how I met Meg, who came in every week for a month to obsess over a set of vintage casserole dishes before she finally pulled the trigger, at which point we’d already exchanged phone numbers, life stories, and an endless string of commentary about our favorite binge-worthy TV shows.

This little midtown shop with the upstairs apartment that smells faintly of lemons and incense has always felt like my second home, a place I can show up exactly as I am.

That is, until we started discussing Quentin Maxwell.

“No,” Meg gasps. “The fake dating guy! At your office?!”

The late afternoon sunlight glints off the mannequins in sequined dresses lounging in the front window display. This is usually my favorite kind of afternoon, wandering the winding aisles with Sam Cooke on the record player. We stopped by to peruse cutesy teapots, retro coffee cups, and other one-of-a-kind decor that Meg could incorporate into the cafe – assuming she can ever get the suggestions past her ultra-modern business partner. If I had known she was going to sensationalize my work news and turn it into romantic news, though, I might have passed.

Auntie Lena pops her head over a rack of platform heels.

“You’re fake dating someone?” she asks.

“No,” I say, at the same time Meg says, “Yes.”

Auntie Lena sweeps around the corner with the posture of someone who is perpetually about to rearrange something: her hands always moving but never quite touching, her warm, dark eyes always scanning.

“You know that fake dating almost always leads to real dating, right? It’s been thoroughly documented.” When I give her an incredulous look, she adds, “There are movies.”

“My life is not a movie. I’m not fake dating. I just had a momentary lapse in judgment.”

“The sexy kind,” Meg clarifies, waggling her eyebrows.

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