"It should be."
Emily stepped closer.
"Rachel would hate this."
Jake's face changed immediately.
Emily regretted the sentence but did not withdraw it.
He looked toward the open garage door.
Snow drifted beyond the parking lot.
"Don't."
"I'm not using her against you."
"You just did."
"I'm reminding you she loved you."
Jake's jaw tightened.
Emily continued carefully.
"She did not spend fourteen months fighting to stay with you so you could spend the rest of your life refusing to live because she couldn't."
Silence.
A compressor clicked off somewhere behind them.
Jake stared at the concrete floor.
Emily set one hand against his shoulder.
"One dinner."
"No promises."
"No expectations."
"You eat."
"You talk."
"If she's terrible, text me and I'll call with an emergency."
Jake looked at her.
"What emergency?"
"I'll improvise."
"You are terrible at lying."
"Then you'll have motivation to survive the date."
Jake sighed.
"Christmas Eve?"
Emily smiled.
"I knew you'd say yes."
"I did not."
"Evergreen Café. Seven."
"Emily."
"Seven."
"Emily."
She walked toward the door.
Jake called:
"I hate you."
She turned.
"No, you don't."
Unfortunately true.
Sophia Lauron hated blind dates for reasons she could explain and reasons she preferred not to examine.
The explainable reasons were easy.
Blind dates felt like interviews.
People presented polished versions of themselves.
Friends exaggerated compatibility.
Everyone arrived carrying an invisible checklist.
Career.
Family.
Marriage.
Children.
Travel.
Politics.
Lifestyle.
Then came the question Sophia disliked most.
"How are you still single?"
As if adulthood were a race and she had missed an exit.
The less explainable reason was simpler.
Sophia did not trust attraction anymore.
She had trusted it once.
Her former fiancé, Daniel Reeves, had been excellent at first impressions.
Handsome.
Confident.
Ambitious.
The kind of man who remembered waiters' names when influential people were nearby.
They met when Sophia was twenty-seven and living in Boston.
She had just become a partner at a small architecture and interior-design firm.
Daniel worked in private equity.
He planned everything.
Restaurants.
Trips.
Apartments.
Eventually marriage.
Sophia mistook decisiveness for security.
Two months before their wedding, she discovered he had been sleeping with a colleague for almost a year.
The discovery was not dramatic.
No hotel room.
No accidental photograph.
Sophia simply borrowed his tablet to answer an email and watched a message appear.
I hate when she sleeps over.
That was all.
Seven words.
Four years together collapsed beneath them.
Sophia canceled the wedding.
Sold the condo.
Left Boston six months later.
People called the move brave.
It did not feel brave.
It felt like retreat.
She returned to Vermont and bought a townhouse outside Burlington.
Her work remained mostly remote.
Her clients remained wealthy.
Her schedule remained full.
Her mother was delighted to have her close.
Her best friend Claire was delighted to interfere.
That was how Sophia found herself standing in her bedroom on Christmas Eve holding two dresses and considering pretending to have food poisoning.
Claire sat on the edge of the bed.
"No."
Sophia looked at her.
"I haven't said anything."
"Your face said food poisoning."
"You don't know my face that well."
"I watched you cancel three dates this year."
"One man described himself as a crypto visionary."
"Fair."
"The second brought his mother."
"Also fair."
"The third asked whether my hair was real before appetizers."
Claire winced.
"Fair."
Sophia tossed one dress onto the chair.
"This one is a mechanic."
Claire smiled.
"You say that like he's contagious."
"I didn't say anything."
"Your face."
Sophia sighed.
"What do we know?"
"Jake Morrison."
"Thirty-five."
"Single father."
"Owns a garage."
"Widower."
Sophia paused.
That word changed the tone.
"Widower?"