A man could get used to waking up in a big soft bed with lots of covers and pillows that smelled like lavender. Even though Paige’s apartment looked like a Vera Bradley catalog come to life, it was homey and comfortable.
He stretched and was about to get up when Paige stirred.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Sorry, I set an alarm so I’d have time to go home and change before work. It’s a little after five.”
“Yikes.” She yawned. “I guess I could get up. I’m opening the café today.”
Josh gazed at her for a moment. He really liked this woman. She was gorgeous and sexy, of course, but he loved talking to her. He cursed his bad luck for meeting her at a time in his life when these too-short spontaneous nights were all he could squeeze in.
Her eyes met his. He felt some pull in his chest, some gut feeling that this might just be the real thing.
“Paige,” he said, “I want you to know, this isn’t just sex for me. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the sex part is awesome, but I don’t, like, want you only for your body.”
She smiled brightly. “Well, thank you. And I agree. I keep thinking, you know, you’re very different from the guys I usually date, but that’s a really good thing. I like you, too.”
“I want to see you again, but I also want to keep everyone’s expectations reasonable. My coworkers tell me after the first year, the work is less crushing all around, but for right now, I’m putting in sixty or seventy hours at work every week.”
She reached over and squeezed his hand. “I know. I understand. We’ll figure it out.”
“Okay, good.”
Paige got out of bed. “You want some breakfast? I can make eggs.”
Josh’s stomach rumbled. “I think you might be my dream woman.”
She shrugged into a robe and laughed as she left the room.
Josh wondered at his luck as he pulled some of his clothes back on. He heard eggs sizzling as he walked out of the bedroom. Bianca, who sat in one of the stools, eyed him warily as he sat at the kitchen island.
“You want your breakfast, too, Bianca?” Paige asked. She pulled a big bag of kibble from a cabinet under the counter and filled the half-full cat bowl on the floor. Bianca gave Josh one last skeptical look and then jumped down to eat.
“Any hot plans at the café today?” Josh asked as he watched Paige lay some breakfast sausages on a plate and put it in the microwave.
“I have a meeting with Diane around lunchtime. She’s the owner.”
“Yeah, Lauren has mentioned her.”
“She wants a postmortem on the fundraiser. We raised enough money to cover everything I want to do, which is good. I’m going to present her with a more formal proposal for the youth programming I want to do at the café.”
“Cool.”
“Everything used to go through Lauren, did you know that? The first year or so I worked at the café, I pitched her all of my ideas and then she pitched them to Diane. But lately, she’s backed off some. I think Caleb mellowed her out.”
“Yeah, she was always kind of a control freak. The last time I had dinner with her and Caleb, they had a little spat about how much time she was spending at the café.”
“Diane makes her take days off. But, basically, the result of Lauren backing off a little is that I’m meeting with Diane directly about financial matters, so I’m going to give her my plan for how to spend the fundraising money after we give half to the animal shelter.”
“Are you nervous?”
“Nah. It’s a good proposal, and I’ve already talked to Diane and Lauren about most of it. The meeting is kind of just a formality.”
Josh smiled as she put a plate of eggs and sausage in front of him. He admired her confidence. She had no hesitation in her voice, and she knew what she was doing at work, which was more than he could say for himself most days.
Paige slid him a mug of coffee and then made a plate for herself and sat beside him.
“Bless you,” he said, taking a sip.
“I’m fueled mostly by coffee, so I assumed you probably were, too. You want some creamer?”
“No, black is good. This is excellent coffee.”
“It’s the same stuff we get at the Cat Café. It’s from a little place that does its own coffee roasting right here in Brooklyn.”
Josh grinned. “You know, you spend a lot of time making fun of the hipster guys in Brooklyn, but isn’t being pretentious about coffee on the first page of the hipster handbook?”
She had the presence of mind to look a little embarrassed. “Well, I guess we all have our eccentricities.”
Josh left a little while later without showering, preferring to do that at home. But there had been a whole series of long, lingering kisses and, “No, really, I have to go…” but he had no regrets about that. He probably shouldn’t make a habit of Paige delaying his leaving for work, but he could do it every now and then.
He was delighted to realize how close they lived to each other; once he got to the Barclays Center, he knew the rest of the way home. He caught himself humming as he walked home in the early morning, as the sun rose. Hardly anyone was out this early, which made the walk home fairly easy.
It reminded him of when he’d first arrived in Georgetown. He’d found a little apartment near the waterfront that was a shoebox but had a spectacular view. He’d get up in the morning sometimes and go out for coffee at a little cupcake shop near his building, then he’d walk around and explore the neighborhood. And fine, he was a morning person. He loved the time just before rush hour when things were open but the masses weren’t rushing to work yet. Such as right now.
He’d kept that Georgetown apartment for all of law school. Megan moved into it halfway through their second year. She rarely got up a second sooner than she absolutely had to, so even after she’d moved in, he’d had those mornings to himself. His heart still squeezed when he thought of Megan, not because he missed her but because the wound was still fresh. He couldn’t say he had regrets about the way his life was going now, especially when everything with Paige was going so well, but it still hurt to think he’d once imagined Megan here, in his apartment, making it a real home and not just the barren place he slept.
* * *
When Evan sat across from Paige at Pop, he said, “I always kind of thought it was a sitcom cliché that people can tell when others have had sex, but…you totally banged Lauren’s brother again, didn’t you? You look like the cat who got the canary.”
“Oh my god. Keep it down.”
Evan grinned. “Lauren sends her regrets. It’s safe to talk.”
“Regrets? I thought she said she was coming tonight.”
“She forgot she had a doctor’s appointment or something. Although I suspect that was a lie and she’s actually making sweet love to Caleb in a closet somewhere.”
Paige screwed up her nose. “They are too much sometimes.”
“Honey, I know. But I was right about them. I take credit for their sickening happiness. So I feel a little good about that.”
Lindsay walked in then and sat across from Paige. “What a day,” she said.
“What happened?” asked Evan.
“I got an assignment to write a story on farmers’ markets, so I spent a good chunk of today researching and making phone calls about the food supply chain in New York, and it’s a lot, you guys.”
“Your job is weird,” said Evan.
Lindsay rolled her eyes. “I’m patching together a career here. It turns out there is a finite number of restaurants in New York City that need to be reviewed, so I’m branching out into other food writing. Although I might write a story on pet food for my friend’s website. There’s a hot debate about raw food diets versus the canned stuff.”
“Oh, boy,” said Paige.
“There’s something to it. I put my cat on a raw diet and—”
“You’re not going to talk about cat poop in this fine establishment, are you?” asked Evan.
“Fine.” Lindsay rolled her eyes. “What’s up with you guys?”
Evan cleared his throat and raised his glass. “Darius and I have gone on a second date. It seems promising.”
“Not the third date,” said Lindsay, “so I’m guessing you haven’t gotten into his pants yet.”
“First of all, I never kiss and tell.”
“Yes, you do,” said Paige. “That’s literally what we talk about every time we meet for drinks. We are here right now to tell about our kisses.”
Evan sipped his water and sat up a little straighter. “Fine. Then I will say that the whole ‘sex on a third date’ thing is a fiction of the television-industrial complex, and also Darius and I dated and bumped uglies repeatedly several years ago, so it doesn’t count anyway.”
“That means Evan totally slept with Darius,” Lindsay stage-whispered to Paige.
“Yeah, I figured that out.”
“Yes, fine. Darius and I consummated our relationship. And it was pretty great.” He shrugged. “Now you go, Paige.”
“I’m gonna need a martini or six first,” Paige said, raising her hand to try to get the waitress’s attention.
“That sounds promising,” said Lindsay.
“Can I tell her?” Evan said excitedly. “No, you tell her. No, I want to tell her!”
“Knock yourself out, Ev. Here comes Jenny.” Jenny was a regular waitress at Pop.
“Okay, Linds. Brace yourself. Also, cone of silence. What we are about to tell you does not leave this table.”
Lindsay mimed crossing her heart. “I swear.”
Evan let out a little gleeful noise just as the waitress appeared and they all ordered drinks. When the waitress was gone again, Evan said, “Paige is secretly banging Lauren’s brother.”
Lindsay’s eyes went wide. “You… Are you kidding?”
“No.” Paige sighed. “It’s not just banging. Josh and I seem to be casually dating. And Lauren doesn’t know. Don’t say anything. We’re working up to telling her.”
Lindsay shook her head. “This news is amazing. Do I know Josh?”
“Probably not,” said Paige. “He couldn’t make it to Lauren’s wedding, I met him for the first time a few weeks ago.”
Evan nodded. “If I’ve said a dozen words to him in my whole life, I’d be surprised. But he moved to the city about two months ago and then Paige met him by chance, and now they’re in love.”
“We’re not in love. We’ve been on a couple of dates. Yes, I like him, but it’s very casual right now.”
Lindsay narrowed her eyes at Paige like she was thinking this through. “How old is he?”
“Twenty-eight,” said Paige.
Lindsay pursed her lips. “Okay. Relative maturity level?”
“I don’t know how to evaluate that, but he’s a lawyer and he has his own apartment in one of the big high-rises in downtown Brooklyn.”
“Ah, but does he have a view?” Lindsay smirked. “My friend Rebecca lives in one of those buildings. You can see the Statue of Liberty from her window. It’s amazing.”
“I know you’re joking and the view has no relation to maturity level, but no, he doesn’t have much of a view. His windows face another building, but at an angle so you can’t see into anyone’s windows.”
“Clever.”
“Is Rebecca the one whose kid you babysit?” Evan asked.
“She is, yes. And for the record, I only babysit because that kid is sweet as pie and loves her Auntie Lindsay, so she’s easy to deal with. Mostly, we read books, take naps, and eat Rebecca’s officially sanctioned snacks. So don’t get ideas if you guys decide to have kids.”
Evan shook his head. “I would never.”
“Anyway,” said Paige. “Part of why I like Josh is that he seems to have his life together, and he doesn’t spend all of his time obsessing over obscure indie bands or making cheese at home.”
“People do that?” said Evan.
“Yeah.” Paige sighed. “Tinder date I went on a couple of months ago was with a guy who was working out how to turn his spare bedroom into a cheese cave.”
“So what you’re saying,” said Lindsay, “is that he has a job and a home and no whacky hobbies? Although honestly, I’m now mentally trying to work out if I can turn part of my apartment into a cheese cave.”
“Well, he works a lot. That’s the one potential negative as far as I can tell. He pretty much lives in his office, so he doesn’t have time for hobbies. Or dating, really. All of our dates so far have occurred when he finagled time off.” Paige sipped her cocktail as soon as Jenny deposited it in front of her. “And in defense of those Tinder dates, I do work at a cat café, and I like to do crafts in my spare time. Josh pointed out the other morning that I’m just as much of a Brooklyn hipster stereotype as the guys I make fun of.”
“The whacky hobbies were never the issue,” said Evan. “It was that you tend to attract men-children who are not at the same place in their lives as you are, honey.”
“I have the opposite problem,” said Lindsay. “Last time I tried online dating, I only matched with guys in New Jersey who were looking for wives. Where were all these Brooklyn guys then?”
“You probably had your age limit set too high,” said Evan. “Not that I know anything about online dating.” He whistled.
“Sure.” Paige laughed. “I don’t know. Are we at the point in our lives when everyone has baggage? I went on a date with a guy last year who was thirty-five and divorced. Not that this is a dealbreaker, it just seems like a lot of baggage to handle.”
“Caleb was divorced when he met Lauren. That didn’t seem to bother either of them much,” said Evan.
“Okay, fine. And I’m really glad that worked out for them. Maybe the guy I dated was not in a good place mentally, I don’t know. But then I met a guy a few months ago who had kids, and I couldn’t deal with that either. So, see, I’m not even that mature.”
“It’s fine,” said Evan. “And you are mature. You actually act like an adult most of the time. You have a job you love and a nice apartment and you pay your bills on time, right?”
“Right.”
“So you’ve already got a leg up on a lot of people I know. And again, I don’t think it was even the baggage per se that made those other relationships not work out. People get divorced. It happens. What was it Ross said on Friends? ‘Divorced men are not bad men.’”
“That’s what they put on the cocktail napkins at the divorced men’s club,” said Lindsay, laughing.
“My point, though, is that it’s not the divorces or the kids or the cheese caves,” said Evan. “It’s that these men were not the right men for you.”
“Yeah, okay,” said Paige.
“But you’re dating Lauren’s brother and she doesn’t know yet,” Lindsay said with a “let me get this straight” tone in her voice. “And you really like him.”
“I do.”
“You’re going out again soon, I assume.”
“Yeah, this weekend, if all goes to plan.”
“Are you going to tell Lauren or wait until you send wedding invitations?”
The thought of telling Lauren made Paige feel like she’d swallowed a rock. But the thought of not telling her didn’t sit right either. Paige hated keeping secrets from her friends, especially something so big. “Eventually we’ll tell her. But we don’t want to cause any angst until we know if it’s going really somewhere.”
“They’re already a we and not an I,” Lindsay said.
“It’s… No, I meant… Ugh.”
Evan laughed. “Such a weird problem to have. But I get it. I honestly don’t know how she’ll react. She’s pretty protective of Josh.”
“Thanks,” said Paige. “Like I wasn’t already worried enough.”
“What has you worried, exactly?” Lindsay asked.
“What doesn’t have me worried? What if Lauren doesn’t approve? What if Josh and I make some kind of commitment but then break up? Lauren’s going to side with him over me, and then where will I be? What if she fires me? What if this whole thing changes our friendship?”
Lindsay nodded. “Yeah, that is a lot.”
“But it also might not happen, you know. It could all work out. We could all live happily ever after.”
Paige felt nauseous now. She loved her friends and didn’t want to be responsible if she destroyed this little group that met for drinks a few nights a week. And she knew how this would go. Evan was Lauren’s best friend and they’d known each other since college. Lindsay and Lauren had worked together at a café in Manhattan. Paige loved all of them like family, but she could very well lose all of them if Lauren disapproved of her relationship with Josh.
“If it helps at all,” said Evan, “here’s how I see it. Three things could happen. You and Josh will fall in love and tell Lauren and everything will be fine. You and Josh date for a bit, it fizzles, and Lauren is never the wiser. Or you get together, tell Lauren, and your relationship ends for whatever reason. And if that happens? We’ve got your back. Right, Linds?”
“Yes. Of course. We love you, Paige.”
“So, yeah, things could get messy or uncomfortable for a bit, but if the end result is that we work through that and you end up happy with a really great guy, then that’s awesome. So you have to decide if you want to risk some awkwardness for that possible future.”
“He is really great,” said Paige.
“I mean, it’s a tough situation. Lauren might react badly. Or she’ll think it’s great. You don’t really know. Do you really want to give up your potential future happiness because Lauren might flip out?”
When Evan put it like that, it seemed silly. What she wanted was to fall in love and get married and keep her friends and be happy. She could see the potential for that with Josh, although it wasn’t a guarantee. But did she really want to give him up because Lauren might freak out? What she wanted was to see where things went with Josh.
“Fair point,” said Paige.
“All right, good.”
Lindsay’s phone buzzed where it sat on the table. She picked it up and looked at it. “Oh, great.”
“What?” asked Paige.
“Apparently the Times reviewed that new chocolate restaurant in Midtown.”
“Chocolate restaurant?” asked Evan.
“Yeah. They serve both savory and sweet dishes, but everything has chocolate in it. Guess who the new head pastry chef is?”
“Oh no,” said Paige.
“It’s Brad, isn’t it?” said Evan. “It’s always Brad when you use that tone in your voice.” Brad was Lindsay’s ex, a man she was clearly still hung up on even though she denied it.
“Of course it’s Brad,” Lindsay said. She tapped her finger on her phone screen a few times and paused to read. “Lovely. Listen to this. ‘After enjoying the novelty of chocolate in your savory dinner, be sure to save room for dessert, because the unique sweets offered by pastry chef Brad Marks are not to be missed. I particularly enjoyed the Mexican chocolate mousse.’… And it goes on in that vein for a while.”
“Is it a crime to think Brad’s food is good?” asked Evan. “Because I’m guilty. I still have dreams of that lemon chiffon cake he made for your birthday when you were dating. Best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth. And I’ve put a lot of good things in my mouth, if you know what I mean.”
“Everyone knows what you mean, Ev.” Lindsay crossed her arms and glared at Evan. “And you’re not helping. We hate him, remember? We want him to fail.”
“If you say so. Curse that man and his delicious baked goods.”
“We have a lot of romantic problems collectively,” said Paige. “You ever notice that?”
“What kind of New Yorkers would we be if our lives were completely fulfilled and happy?” said Evan.