Page 91 of The Rules

“I do. My office is upstairs.” He shifted the folders he was holding under his arm and took a sip of his paper to-go cup of coffee. “Can we talk?”

“Of course.” She waved Cat and Josh along and they disappeared into his office. Ryan led her to a bench beside a window looking out over the city, and she smoothed her damp palms on her jeans. “How’s city life treating you these days?”

He smiled, clearly pleased that she remembered he was new here. “I’m finally getting the hang of it, just in time for the snow.”

“Are you going home for Thanksgiving?”

“I am. For a week, actually. Things slow to a stop around the holiday and I haven’t seen my parents in months.”

She nodded, suddenly nervous as the small talk went on.“Well, here’s hoping for good weather.”

“Thanks. Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

Ryan rubbed at the back of his neck and dipped his head nervously. “I wanted to contact you again after our date,” he said. “But I was out of town for awhile for work, and then when I came back, I saw you’d deleted your profile.”

Dani’s cheeks warmed remembering lying in bed, Dylan’s scent still on her skin, his obnoxious singing coming from her shower as she’d hit that little delete button, officially retiring the soulmate search. God, she was an idiot. “Right,” she said. “You know, it was just bad timing. I had some things come up.”

“So it wasn’t because you didn’t want me to contact you again?”

“No! Not at all. Um. I mean, kind of. I started dating someone, and I didn’t think it would be appropriate to keep my profile. Anyway, it didn’t work out. I actually put it back up a couple of days ago.”

“Oh.” He grinned. “So, what happens now? Do you start all over? Eight more dates?”

Dani laughed. “I have no idea. I kind of did it on a whim.” Another memory nudged her. A bottle of wine, her credit card, theunfollowbutton on Dylan’s Instagram. “Maybe more like a fit.”

His smile tipped knowingly. “I get it. What do you say I take you out again then? Before you find out if it’s against the rules.”

“That sounds great.”

“I have these tickets to a river cruise this Friday—there’s a live band, fireworks. You probably have plans, but…”

“I don’t have plans.” She was supposed to be at the Jansen fundraiser this Friday, sharing an expensive meal with Dylan and Josh and Cat. She’d been racking her brain to come up with an equally extravagant night to distract her from where she was supposed to be. Hopefully, she’d just found it.

“Would you like to go with me?”

“I’d love to.”

“Love to what?” Cat asked, appearing back in the hallway.

“Ryan invited me on a river cruise this weekend.”

“Oh.” Cat’s mouth dropped open, but she thought better of whatever she was going to say and pivoted. “That’s great. You’ve been wanting to do that.”

“I have.”

Ryan smiled, his decidedly not-green eyes twinkling.

“We should go eat before we have to get back,” Cat said. Her tone was full of “we’ll talk about this later” but for once she bit her tongue.

“I’ll call you then,” Ryan said.

“Great.”

Cat tugged on her arm, and Dani let herself be pulled toward the elevator.

“Who’s the librarian gym rat?” she asked.

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