Page 78 of The Suitcase Swap

Marisa waved it away. ‘I’m just saying, you two might not be labelling it, but I am. Friends with benefits don’t go on dates. They don’t hold hands.’ She pointed at Sophie’s phone. ‘And they don’t send you cute morning coffee selfies every day just because.’

‘I’m not ready to call it anything else. Maybe when we’re both back in England . . .’ She let the thought trail off. She’d been trying not to think about that too much. She missed her home, but she loved being close to Tom and Marisa, and she was afraid to bring up the idea of trying to maintain the relationship once they got back to London. Mike seemed okayright now, but she was concerned that pushing him too hard too quickly would make him panic and shut down.

Marisa sent her a commiserating look. ‘How much longer is he here again?’

‘Two weeks, I think. He said it depended on the job.’

‘And we’ve got you a little over a month,’ Marisa said. ‘That’s not a big gap of time. Just enough for him to miss you.’

‘Maybe.’ What they had right now was wonderful, but it also felt new and fragile. The last thing she wanted to do was shatter it with too many questions.

‘Twenty more minutes,’ Tom said from the kitchen. ‘Is Mike going to make it?’

‘I’ll see.’ Sophie checked her phone and saw she’d just missed a message from him. ‘He’ll be here shortly.’ Out of habit, she opened up her email app, wanting to see if there was anything dire she needed to handle.

She had two unexpected emails, both of which had subject lines that made her heart rate pick up, though for very different reasons. One was from Andrew. She didn’t want to read it, so she forwarded it to Edie as per an agreement they’d made months earlier. If there was anything actually important in it, Edie would let her know. Otherwise, she could delete it.

The other, however, was from someone she didn’t know.

[email protected]

Subject: Swanning About Blog

As Sophie skimmed, her heart rate sped up. She reached over without thinking and took one of Marisa’s hands.

‘What?’ Marisa asked. ‘What is it? If it’s the Wicker Man, delete that trash.’

‘It’s not the Wicker Man,’ Sophie said absently as she reread the email, convinced she’d read it incorrectly before.‘It’s from an editor. She’d like to meet about my blog. I think . . . I think she wants to see if I’d want to write a book.’

Marisa froze, her mouth open in surprise.

Tom flew out of the kitchen, wooden spoon in hand. ‘What was that? What did you say?’

Sophie blinked at them both. ‘It’s from an editor. She knows I’m in New York and she wants to talk to me about the possibility of making a book forSwanning About.’

Tom blinked, stunned.

Marisa threw up her arms and screamed. ‘Victory!’ She started punching the air over her head, each punch punctuating a new ‘victory’. She threw her arms around Sophie. ‘I’m so excited for you!’

Tom came over and joined the hug, being careful to keep the spoon from hitting them. ‘That’s amazing, Mum.’

‘Nothing may come of it, you know,’ Sophie said. ‘It’s only a preliminary meeting.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Tom said. ‘You never thought it would even get this far. Either way, you’ve done something you should be proud of.’

‘Take the win,’ Marisa said. ‘Life doesn’t give us a lot of them.’

‘You’re right,’ Sophie said, hugging them both, and feeling like she was quite possibly the luckiest person alive in that moment. ‘I’m taking the win.’

Marisa gave one more small punch, her voice quiet this time. ‘Victory.’

Chapter Twenty-Three

Mike had spent this week in bliss. There had been setbacks at work, which would usually have irritated him, but now only managed to thrill him. Setbacks meant he would be here longer, which meant more time with Sophie, which meant he could probably take her to see a few of the other places he’d found that might be good for her blog. Maybe even convince her to finally go and see a few of New York’s tourist highlights, like she wanted. And to see how she felt about testing the kitchen table to find out if it held her weight. Or his kitchen table. He didn’t care which. It was the testing part that was important.

Since their dinner date at Mike’s flat, they hadn’t spent much time apart except for when they were working, both of them aware that their time together was finite. He wanted to squeeze the days for every moment with Sophie he could get. Which was why, despite being worn out from work, he’d made his way over to her flat, stopping to get flowers en route. It hadn’t taken him long to see how much Sophie delighted in these small gestures – though he didn’t like to dwell on the fact that she probably delighted in them because they seemed like large gestures to her. With the possible exception of her friend, Edie, no one had doted on Sophie in a long time, which was perplexing to Mike. She was so fun to dote on – why hadn’t more people figured that out?

He headed towards Tom’s flat, as per Sophie’s instructions, pausing when he heard someone yelling through thedoor. He couldn’t quite make out the actual words, but the tone seemed . . . happy, maybe? He waited a moment to see if he could hear more, but when nothing else happened, he knocked.

---