That is, if you’re not too busy with whatever you’re here for?

  Holiday? Friends? Family? Work?

  A quick glance around tells me little. It’s dark, and there are only one or two suitcases here. But they are large. Maybe she’s here for more than a few days.

  I’m dying to learn more about her. But is that what this is? Are we supposed to talk now?

  No idea.

  Still, a gentleman shouldn’t fuck and run.

  And I don’t want to.

  So, I give in to what I want and ask a simple question. “How long are you in town?”

  “A while,” she says, sounding terribly sleepy, drifting off already.

  “That’s . . . good.” I swallow roughly, hunting for more words, hoping to unearth some captivating ones somewhere. Maybe I left them back at Sticks and Stones, or in Nigel’s shop. Hell if I know. I can’t seem to find them now that they’re important.

  “Maybe,” she murmurs.

  Is this her way of saying thanks for the orgasm, you can see yourself out?

  Maybe she didn’t mean it when she said next time.

  Ah, perhaps this is why dating failed me—because I failed at dating.

  “I’ll let myself out,” I say, wanting to say more, hoping she’ll tell me not to rush.

  She seems utterly content, though, to slide into slumber. This is just a one-night stand.

  Of course it is, you daft idiot.

  That’s what it was always supposed to be.

  Jo turns to me, all sleepy-soft. She lifts an arm, slides her hand down mine. “But you can take my number if you want, Heath.”

  The way she says my name is like a goodnight kiss, sweet and tender, a promise of another kiss, another time.

  All my anxiety slinks away. I sigh in relief, grateful she put me out of my misery.

  Before she falls asleep, we exchange numbers. Then I gather my clothes, get dressed, and kiss her once more. She’s already asleep, a strand of her brown hair fluttering softly across her face.

  I move it from her cheek.

  When I make my way out, my eyes drift to her suitcase on the floor, then to a large purse by the entryway table, perhaps a satchel, stuffed with books and two framed photos. I can’t make out what they’re of, and I’m not a Peeping Tom.

  Still, she’s a woman after my own heart.

  6

  Jo

  Avoiding Chelsea is easy since, well, this hotel is in St James, a few blocks from my new office.

  I wake up bright and early on Monday, ready to make the most of the day before I start in the London office tomorrow. When I move, I feel the blissful soreness that comes from good sex.

  Or was that great sex?

  My body answers with a whoosh.

  And a whoa.

  And a brand-new ache between my legs as the memories race through my body—the way he touched me, kissed me, fucked me.

  Okay, then, that was great sex.

  I get out of bed and ride the high that morning. I suppose there’s just something about an orgasm that makes everything better.

  I spend the morning prepping for my first day at work. In the afternoon, I check my route on my phone to the flats the leasing agent sent me in Charing Cross. I contacted him before I left New York since I don’t want to stay in the hotel too long. Then I meet David near Trafalgar Square and he shows me a couple nearby places.

  “This one is fantastic,” I say, as soon as he swings open the door to the third one.

  I ooh and aah over the space.

  The bathroom is a tiny bit bigger than my one in New York.

  And there’s more light, a few more windows with sun streaming in. Plants line the windowsill, making the place cheerier than I expected.

  “I might already be in love,” I add.

  “Glad you like it,” the jolly man says with a chuckle.

  I peer out windows that overlook a bustling street, red double-decker buses and black cabs whipping by. “I can’t complain about a thing. It has a room with a view,” I quip. When his face goes blank, I just shake my head and add, “I’ll take it.”

  I bet Heath would get the remark.

  I bet he’d be amused by the E.M. Forster reference.

  Is Heath a librarian? A novelist? A literary agent? Or just a learned man?

  A dark thought flashes through my brain. What if he’s a professor? Like my father?

  I hope not. I’d hate for them to have anything in common.

  But a librarian would be hot. I can picture Heath in some quiet institution, enrobed in silence all day, checking out tomes. Mmm. Bet he wears reading glasses and looks all studiously studly in them.

  Maybe I should text him today.

  Is that too soon, though?

  I have no idea what the rules are. I haven’t met anyone in person in ages. I met the last few guys I dated online, and they were entirely focused on themselves and didn’t even realize it. One wanted to talk about how stressed he was, the other about his self-care routines, and yet another about his goals. But then, I’ve never had any luck in the romance department, so it should be no surprise they were busts.

  “We can do the paperwork now,” the leasing agent says.

  As I sit at the flat’s tiny kitchen table, I try to stay focused on the practical details of being in this new city, signing a lease, rather than on the romantic ones of my one-night stand.

  The first one I’ve had in ages.

  Or is that ever?

  I cycle back through the last decade, stopping at Jacob in grad school. My romantic encounters film reel is short. It probably wouldn’t qualify for the shorts category at the Oscars. It’s more the length of a commercial.

  Oh, well. I have work and friends. Someday, maybe, I’ll find more.

  When we’re finished with the paperwork, the agent tells me I can take occupancy tomorrow. Before I go, I drink in the flat one more time. The couch is comfy, and there’s a spot on the coffee table for my two favorite framed photos. I pat the side of my purse, where I keep them. One is of Mom and me when I was in high school. She’s smiling brightly, letting me fasten a simple locket around her neck. She called me her stylist, and I cherished the term because it came from her. The other pic is of my New York family and me, taste-testing veggie burgers in Brooklyn. TJ, Easton, and I were giving Nolan and Emerson a hard time over their food-rating system. As friends do.

  It’ll be perfect right there, next to the shot of Mom.

  The two pictures remind me of the good things in life, and the people I can depend on. That’s why I carry them with me.

  I thank the agent, and we part ways on the street. I take the scenic route as I wander back to the hotel, the city unfolding as I go.

  I try, I swear I try, to see London for what it is rather than for what I felt a decade ago.

  Shoving those memories away as best I can, I remember that this city is home to museums and galleries, monuments and theaters, libraries and universities.

  And, also, to everyday stores.

  Like on this block, as I turn down a quieter side street along the river, and pass a pub, sporting a brick façade and a hanging sign that says Goat’s Head Tavern.

  Very English indeed.

  A little farther, and I meander by a wine store, then a tiny pop-up shop peddling stamps at the end of the block—inked stamps with cutouts of dolphins, bicycles built for two, chipmunks, stars, and everything else under the sun on them.

  There.

  I survived my first walk in this city.

  Here on this block, there’s nothing I need armor for. London is just like anyplace else. It’s a skein of locations, addresses, people.

  People like Heath, whoever he is.

  And, yes, people like Poppy.

  Wherever she is.

  Poppy is merely one of several million people in this city. I haven’t seen my one-time best friend since the summer I studied in London for my master’s program, visiting her after my mother died, needing her shoulder to lean on as I grieved the loss of the woman I’d admired, the woman I’d wanted to be like. A woman who loved big and hard, with all her heart, until her dying day.

  Poppy had been there for me in college when Mom got sick, when she went through chemo and then lost her battle to cancer after only one year. Poppy was the sister I’d never had, a rock to lean on.

  She was my person for a while, and I was hers.

  I needed her especially because, Jacob, the guy I’d fallen for in grad school, broke up with me while we were studying together in London. One afternoon while strolling through Hyde Park, I pointed out a flower that reminded me of my mom. He sighed heavily, held out his hands, and announced that he couldn’t do this anymore.

  “Do what?” I’d asked, utterly thrown.

  “I can’t handle your grief.”

  I’d sputtered in shock, but he had it all together. He said he preferred me happy, and asked when I was going to move on? It had been a year since she’d died, after all, he’d said. Wasn’t it time I got over being sad about it and bringing him down too?

  No, I’d told him sharply by a colorful flowerbed. There was no statute of limitations on grief.

  “Then, this is goodbye,” he’d said, and then he left.

  Left me crying by the tulips.

  When I told Poppy that night over a bottle of wine at a tavern, she was livid. She’d remained that way for weeks, outraged, concerned for me and my feelings.

  But not so concerned after all, it turned out.

  Now, as I walk along the river, I flash back to a week ago in my apartment in New York, to Emerson and TJ asking what I’d do if I saw her.

  Mostly I hope to avoid her, since I don’t know how I’d handle it if we met.

  But maybe I can simply avoid Chelsea, her stomping ground.

  She owns a gallery there. Runs it with him.

  London belongs to her—not to me.

  I don’t hurt like that anymore, but I’d rather not run into her either.

  And that ought to be easy enough. I have a new flat, a terrific shot at becoming a VP at my company, and maybe I can see my Englishman again.

  I stop at the bank of the river, gazing at the water that winds through the city.

  What side of the Thames does the man I met last night live on?

  What is he doing right now?

  Is he daydreaming of last night too?

  Maybe I can see him again. Have a little London fling. Something to make me miss New York less.

  With this delicious sex-sated feeling of possibility running through my veins, London doesn’t seem quite so bad.

  And the present is pretty good.

  So good, in fact, that I’m not going to lose sight of the friendships that matter most to me.

  For starters, I give TJ and Emerson what they asked for. I lean against the stone railing, arrange myself in a jaunty pose, and snap a selfie to send to my crew.

  Then, I click on the video and talk to the camera as I walk. “Hey, guys. Just wanted you to know you always give the best advice, and naturally, I took it. Do I look like I met a sexy stranger last night?” I slow my pace, angling my phone towards the river and all her bridges, since my friends will want to see them. “Because I sure did. Met him, romanced him, and then took him to—”

  I hear myself and wince, then stop recording. I sound so jokey, so what up, girl, and I hate it.

  Nothing about last night felt silly.

  Nothing felt . . . disposable.

  Last night felt like it was supposed to happen.

  A surreal sensation runs through my body, the sense I’m being a little ridiculous but also respectful.

  I’m not sure how the two things coexist, but they do.

  I delete the recording. I can’t make a gossipy video about last night, even to send to two of my closest friends. Instead, I call Emerson.

  The phone barely rings before she answers. “Are you dead? Because that’s the only reason anyone calls anymore.”

  I laugh. “Yes, I’m calling you from my grave. Just wanted to give you the funeral deets and request that you say something nice about me.”

  “I’ll tell the story of how we met,” she says.

  “Aww. I love that story. It’s so modern,” I say as I walk through the English afternoon. “I was looking for a place to talk about Fun Home with other musical geeks.”

  “And I was dying to find a theater buddy in New York City, back when I was in San Francisco. Someone to join me for afternoons of Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen,” she says.

  “And we found each other in an online group,” I say, smiling.

  “And people wonder why we’re dorks who love musicals.”

  “I don’t know if anyone actually wonders that,” I say.

  “Anyway, how is everything going? Do you hate it more, a little more, a lot more?”

  “Actually, I don’t hate one thing . . .” I say, enticingly.

  She shrieks. “You did it? You actually did it? You met an English hottie and got some action?”

  Yes, this is technically gossiping, but it hardly feels like it. Talking one-on-one rather than faux bragging isn’t gossiping. “Is it crazy that it was kind of . . .”

  What’s the word?

  Amazing sticks to my brain.

  Reverberates in it.

  But that’s so overused. When a latte can be amazing, I’m not sure I want to put sex in the same category.

  “Hold on a sec,” I say as I reach a corner and get my bearings, then duck onto a cobblestone side street where it’s quieter. “So, this guy . . . last night . . . it was . . . different.”

  There’s a pause on the other end, a crackle across the phone line. Maybe it’s a testament to the tone in my voice that Emerson doesn’t crack a joke like different in that he wanted to lick your toes, or braid your hair, or have you call him Daddy?

  When she speaks, her question comes out with a certain gravitas. “Are you going to see him again?”

  I feel that gravitas too. I stop my pacing, set a hand on my chest, try to quell these weird nerves inside me. “I think?”

  “Are you asking me?” Emerson asks, and now there’s a smile in her voice. “Or yourself?”

  That’s a good question.

  But it has an easy answer.

  “I’m going to call him tonight.”

  That feels like the perfect way to end the evening before I start work tomorrow.

  I return to my hotel room, settle onto my king-size bed, letting the memories of several hours ago zip down my body. With a satisfied sigh, I find Heath’s name in the contacts.

  But before I can call him, my phone rings.

  It’s my father.

  7

  Heath

  I can’t believe I’m doing this.

  This is not me.

  And yet, here I am, waiting at the stage door with the other groupies.

  Grand. Just grand.

  But truly, groupies are fantastic. My brother worked hard enough for the last decade, chasing role after role, cutting his teeth, learning his craft.

  Jude deserves fans queued up to have him autograph their programs. When I took our parents here for opening night a few weeks ago, the three of us were the loudest in the audience, and wildly proud.

  “Thanks for coming, Maggie,” he says to a tall woman with a sharp nose and kind eyes. “So glad you loved If Found Please Return. Hope you enjoy And So It Begins, as well.”

  “I’ve no doubt I will. You’re incredible,” she says, then slides in close and snaps a picture of the two of them.

  A few more flourishes of the Sharpie, a few more photos, then Jude ushers me past the heavy black door to the backstage area.

  “Is it like that most nights? They wait for you before a show?”

  He gives an easy shrug. “Yeah. And after.”

  “Amazing,” I say.

  As we wind through the narrow hallways of the theater, I try to sort through the mess in my head that brought me here. The way my mind tossed and turned all day at work, and to how Google—in incognito mode, obviously—gave me no help in understanding dating protocol.

  Along the way, Jude says hello to the stagehands, the makeup artists, and the other actors. We reach his dressing room, and head inside, where he inhales deeply then says, “And now, entertain me.”

  Jude flicks on the LED lights around the mirror and slides into the chair, swiveling it to face me. I exhale as I take a seat on the couch, but that doesn’t loosen the knot of uncertainty inside me.

  “All I want to know is what to do next,” I say. “Couldn’t you have just texted me the answer when I texted you? And maybe dispensed with all this theatricality? Rather than insisting I show up here?”

  He scoffs. “No. No. Also, no. Plus, you’re literally a stone’s throw away, and I’m going back to New York soon, so we’ll take what we can get.”

  He has me there. Best to enjoy these moments. “True. Good to see you.”

  “Also, it’s too complicated with you and women and dating. I can’t just text you how to do it because . . . well, you’re you.”

  “And that means what?”

  “Need I refer to exhibit A—you, last night in the bar, admitting you have no game.”

  “Thanks for the reminder.”

  He grins and slugs my arm. “But apparently you do. You have so much game. I’m fucking proud of you.” He shoots me a salacious grin. “Did it make your toast better? Like I predicted?”

  I stare him down; he’s asking for it. “Best toast I’ve ever had.”

  “Told you so.”

  “Thanks. Now, tell me what to do.”

  “Because you want great toast again? With jam on it?” he teases.

  “I want the toast, the jam, and the company. So . . . how in the bloody hell does this work?”

  “Well, last time I dated a woman was . . .” Jude stares at the ceiling of his dressing room. “Hmm. Let’s see. Never.”

  “Piss off. People are the same.”

  He shrugs. “Sort of.”