Page 50 of The Valentine Agenda

"I am okay." Hannah started walking again, faster now. "I'm fine. Everything's fine. David was nice, and maybe next time—"

"There's not going to be a next time." Sophie kept pace easily. "Because you're not ready. And that's okay too."

They walked in silence for a block, their footsteps crunching against salt-scattered sidewalks. Finally, Hannah whispered, "I hate that he still affects me like this."

"Like what?"

"Like..." Hannah gestured helplessly. "Like everything reminds me of him. David's tie was wrong. The coffee was wrong. The whole date felt wrong because..." She broke off, swallowing hard.

"Because he wasn't James," Sophie finished quietly.

Hannah nodded, not trusting her voice.

"You know what the worst part is?" she managed finally. "For a minute there, at the Morrison gala, I actually believed things could be different. That he'd changed. That I wasn't just... convenient."

Sophie squeezed her arm. "Oh, honey. You were never convenient. That's the whole problem, isn't it? You were real. Maybe too real for someone who's spent his whole life playing pretend."

They reached Hannah's building, its windows glowing warmly against the darkening sky. Somewhere up there, Hannah knew, James was probably working late in his perfect apartment with his perfect view. Not thinking about her at all.

"I just want to stop feeling like this," she admitted. "Like I'm still waiting for him to show up."

Sophie pulled her into a fierce hug. "I know. But you can't rush healing. And you definitely can't rush it by pretending to be interested in nice-but-boring finance guys who don't even know how you take your coffee."

Despite everything, Hannah felt herself smile. "He really was boring, wasn't he?"

"So boring. Like, watching-paint-dry boring. Starting-a-podcast-about-cryptocurrency boring."

Hannah's laugh was watery but real. "Thanks, Soph."

"For what? Pointing out that your date was basically a human screensaver?"

"For seeing through my bullshit."

Sophie linked their arms again, leading them inside. "That's what best friends are for. That, and having emergency ice cream in their freezer. Which, coincidentally..."

Hannah let herself be led toward the elevator, grateful for Sophie's solid presence beside her. And if her eyes strayed to the executive floor button—well, that was between her and the elevator's polished doors.

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Hannah hadn't meant to stay so late in the community room. But grading papers in her small apartment meant silence, and silence meant thinking, and thinking meant remembering how James had looked at her over ice cream, how his hand had felt against her waist when he'd reached for her in the lobby, how—

The soft click of expensive shoes against marble made her hands still.

She knew those footsteps. Had memorized their rhythm during countless lobby crossings, had learned to recognize them even through closed doors. Had tried, and failed, to forget them entirely.

James appeared in the doorway, wearing soft-looking knitwear in a way that made him look human instead of perfect. For a moment, neither of them moved.

Hannah bent her head back to her papers, pen moving mechanically across student work she wasn't really seeing. She could feel him hovering in the doorway, could practically hear him choosing and discarding words.

"It's late," he said finally.

She didn't look up. "I have work to finish."

His shoes whispered against the floor as he stepped into the room. Not approaching her directly, but moving to study the children's artwork on the walls. Hannah forced herself to keep grading, even as her entire body hummed with awareness of his presence.

"Lily's getting better at her storm clouds," James observed quietly.

The simple fact that he remembered Lily's name, that he'd noticed the girl's progress, made something in Hannah's chest squeeze painfully. "She is."

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