Page 28 of Friends to WHAT?!

She snorts. “Right. A chance meeting. That you arranged via clandestine means. With a man that you find attractive. At a bar. During prime date night hours.”

I roll my eyes. “I didn’tarrangeanything. I wrote a letter to my pen pal, apprising them of my weekend plans. What he chooses to do with that information is completely up to him. Completely, one hundred percent up to him. Nothing to do with me at all, the choices of that man. He will do only what he wants to do—and is brave enough to follow through on.”

Judging by his last letter, a reply to mine, he does at least intend to be brave tonight. It wasn’t a promise, like when he vowed we would never lose the letters no matter how our relationship grows outside of them, but he indicated quite clearly that he plans to see me tonight. He even wrote the wordsI will see you at the bar on Fridayright there on the page and everything. I’d hardly call that a clandestine date planning so much as a casual mention that he will be where I am at the same time as me as a part ofhisweekend plans.

“Uh huh,” Almond says dubiously. “You know I can see you, right? With my eyes? Your hair might be a mess—for now—but your makeup is flawless, and your outfit looks like something out of the crystal girlie version of Vogue. Once your hair is fixed, you’re going to be the hottest I’ve ever seen you, including thattime we had that ball-themed book club meeting where we all dressed up like fairy princesses.”

I shrug, nonchalant. “I always look good.”

“You do always look good,” she agrees. “You do not always lookthisgood.”

She works her way around my head, glopping cold pink goo all over. “It’s not a date,” I insist. “I’m not even convinced he’s actually going to show up. There’s at least a seventy-five percent chance he loses his nerve and I end up drinking alone.” She opens her mouth to protest the possibility, so I continue quickly, “Which would befine. I’m excited to experience the bar whether Wolfe shows up or not. I’ve lived here for years and haven’t ever been to the local watering hole. It’s going to be cool to check it out. Do I hope that Wolfe will be a part of that experience? Yes. Absolutely. He’s my friend, and I want to see what our friendship will be like outside of our mailboxes. But I’m also not going to be crushed if he doesn’t come. I’m dressed up for the experience, not the man—who, again, is myfriend. Nothingtoanythingabout it.”

The lady doth protest too much, and her nose doth grow longer and longer.

I press my lips together to stop my ramble.

Almond, possessing a brain and a base amount of knowledge on me, her friend of multiple years, coughs to not-so-subtly cover her “LIAR.”

I groan and try another tactic. “What if I said I don’t want to talk about it?”

She laughs. “Then I’d say I don’t believe you, because if there’s one thing you like to do, it’s talk.”

“I don’tliketo talk,” I counter. “I simply… do a lot of it. Involuntarily.”

“Why don’t you do some of it now?” she asks. “Voluntary or otherwise, I don’t really care.”

“I’ve noticed,” I huff. “I’m still upset with you, by the way.”

She blinks, hands pausing above my head. “Upset?” she asks. “With little ole me? What a silly thing to be at this particular moment, when you are oh-so-vulnerable. Do youwantyour hair to tinge green?”

My eyes roll. “As if you would ever compromise your work for the sake of humbling me. You have too much professional pride for that.”

She sniffs as she turns to set her color bowl down. She lifts a pink, mushroom-shaped egg timer and sets it to thirty minutes. “You’re right, but it’s rude to point out the hollowness of my threat.”

“You know what else is rude?” I retort. “Kidnapping people.”

“Then it’s a good thing I didn’t kidnap anyone!” She grins. “Besides, how was I supposed to know you wouldn’t appreciate it? You’re all about the kidnappings at book club. You turn into a puddle every time we get one. I was helping make your dreams come true! And you can’t exactly argue with the results, can you? Considering you’re getting all dolled up for your friends-to-lovers, kidnapping-turned-romance date?”

“It’s not a date,” I say. Again.

She hums. “This reminds me, do you want the photos and videos I took from the kidnapping? Or do you want to wait and see them in your wedding slideshow?”

I close my eyes and shake my head, dismayed. “You already know my answer.”

She giggles, a sound composed of mania and glee, then she sits on a saddle-back rolling chair, fluffs her pink gingham dress—covered by a clear plastic apron—out around her, and pushes off. She slides across the tile floors, which take the abuse with some complaint. The tiles are older, and several have chips that turn into cracks when her wheels pass over them.

She collides with the door to her hair studio as a method of stopping and reaches up to grab her pink fairy wing purse from a hook on the wall. From it, she unearths her phone and navigates through the device as she shoots back toward me in the chair. I brace myself with no small amount of alarm, but her return landing is much smoother than her previous one, and she comes to a slow stop beside me, aided by her dragging feet.

“Here we go!” she says, tilting her screen to me. “You guys lookso freaking cute.”

I whimper when what she’s showing me fully registers on the wings of her words. “Almond, that’s mybutt.”

And it is. My derriere, less than six inches from Wolfe Blackwood’sface. It would be even closer if he weren’t gentlemanly tipping his head away and stoutly avoiding me.

“Mystars,” I whisper, mortified. “It did not feel that scandalous when it was happening.”

“You were probably too distracted to notice the scandal,” Almond comments. “Abductions tend to do that to people. I think it’s part of the flight, fight, or fawn spectrum. You only notice what youhaveto notice.”