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"We must walk a careful line," Sinclair lectured, "between dressing appropriately for your role, but not iven the disparity in your incomes, will be difficult at best"

I reeled There were sowith that state

"So dress well, but not rich," Jess said, oblivious to the ness ere in the middle of

"Exactly"

"Excuse otten about the florist/eavesdropping thing And you&039;re weirdly interested in Jessica&039;s date, which I&039;ve got problems with on about nine different levels And Jess, I have to say-" What? What the hell was I going to say?

I can&039;t believe Nick asked you out For soot over o out with him when you were sure he liked me? I tried to find a nice way to suh work, being an honest friend "-I haven&039;t seen you this, uh, excited in a long time"

"I haven&039;t dated since way before you died" She hugged herself and spun in a sly cute," Sinclair encouraged "Quite very ht then Sinclair never did anything without about nine secret agendas He wanted a cop on the string Awfully handy Of course, it was only a first date, but if things ell

"I thought you didn&039;t go out hite guys," I pointed out It was a straw, sure, but I was desperate to clutch at anything

"I thought you said that was bigoted, asshole-esque, and twentieth-century"

"Oh, you&039;re going to start listening to ht, but your ti&039;s a little weird"

"Now that that&039;s settled, we have to decide on the appropriate post-gallery activity"

"That&039;s not all we&039;ve got to decide on," I nored

"Because Detective Berry did the asking, I think we can assume he ant to treat you to whatever diversion you select"

"Dude You are getting way overinvolved in this Do you obsessively plan our dates? Not that we&039;ve ever actually been on a date"

"Shut up, Betsy For just this one time, it&039;s aboutyou both like, that will not be terribly expensive, and that will encourage hiain in a social capacity, but not be too inti or force a false sense of intiinary belt "That&039;s a tall order, sheriff"

"Dinner anywhere decent is out So is co back here for a drink; this house definitely sends a e Your idea of fast food is Red Lobster, so that lets out activities that are, ah, middle class Which means"

Jess waited I waited What the hell, I was curious He could write a book Nobody was good at dating Everybody liked advice about it

"Coffee and dessert at Nikola&039;s," he decided after a ht "The coffee is first-rate, the food is excellent, it won&039;t be terribly expensive if you don&039;t eat a full meal, and the biscotti is homemade"

"Oooooooh Sinclair, you are it"

"Yes," he replied sht now," I said