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As I helped him collect his overcoat from where we’d draped it over one arm of the sofa, I said, "I’ll walk you out" I ith hi, then he paused

"Thanks again for a nice night," he said

"And thank you"

"Do you want to get together toether?"

It sounded like heaven to reat"

"Okay How about wePlace near my house? I’d pick you up, but I’ht now" Although his tone was teasing, a flush shot up from his collar to his hairline, and I suspected that he was the one asn’t sure he could handle ood to me," I said

"Great I’ll see you then" And then he placed his hand on entle kiss that so at the same time

Even the next day, the h to have to unbutton ht about it, I could still feel the touch of his hand on ed in those few hours He was just being Owen, utterly dedicated to his life’s work That was one of the things I liked about him If he’d blown off the crisis at work because he wanted to spend the day with me, he wouldn’t be Owen and I wouldn’t have liked hi, unlocked the front door, and went up the stairs, pausing only briefly on that landing where the last kiss had taken place Then I went the rest of the way to my apartment, which was more crowded than I expected it to be Not only were Gemma and Marcia there, but Connie, the former roommate who’d married and moved out soon before I caathered around the kitchen table, looking like they were having a su

"Katie! You’re back early," Gemma said when she noticed ency at work, so we just had coffee," I said as I took off my coat I left out the part where we had coffee while alked to the subway station Geirlfriend for tohat they perceived as my dates’ missteps

"What did you say he did?" Marcia asked

I hadn’t said anything about what he did It was kind of hard to explain without bringing up the concept of wizards, and if I said he worked in research and developh to warrant the kind of eency absences I could expect from him "He’s an executive with the coh and sounded ih to cover a lot of bases

Marcia nodded "Yeah, that’s the downside of dating powerful men" As driven and career-oriented as she was, she was the most likely to understand soh, at hoistful her voice sounded

"When you’ve got one who looks like he does, you can et aith it too often," Gemma said She turned to Connie and added, "You should have seen this guy He seemed pretty nice, too, what littleof hiood one"

"What brings you down to this end of the island?" I asked Connie

"Minor relationship crisis," Gemma answered before Connie could speak "And you’re just in ti at Rockefeller Center"

While I was still trying to figure out what ice skating had to do with a relationship crisis, Gemma handed me a piece of paper "What do you make of this?" she asked

The paper was stiff and heavy, the kind used for formal correspondence I unfolded it to see a handwritten note in a flowing script The note invited Ge at Rockefeller Center, and specified a time that Philip would call for us "It looks like an invitation to

"You don’t think it’s odd?"

I had to biteodd about Philip, Geh she didn’t know it, he was aenchantment for decades before he was freed a uy who’d been living near a pond in Central Park and existing on flies to be anything approaching nor toto life as a huh I could tell Geic, and there’s no way to explain the frog thing without getting into ic