Page 185 of Rising Heat

She smiles into her mimosa.

“I don’t think either of us pictured…this.”

I laugh.

“I can confidently say this wasn’t part of the plan.”

I glance out the window for a second before looking back at her.

Bex smiles.

“I think this plan suits you better anyway.”

“I think so, too.”

After brunch we wander again, ducking into side streets just because they look nice.

We lose almost half an hour in a little bookstore where Bex disappears into biographies while I drift toward romantasy without thinking twice about it. By the time she finds me, she’s halfway through the inside flap of a celebrity chef’s memoir while I’m standing in front of an entire shelf trying to convince myself I don’t need another book.

A few blocks later she talks me into a tiny kitchen store because she’s convinced every city has one that only locals know about.

Neither of us actually needs anything, but somehow we leave with a bottle of herb-infused olive oil I absolutely could’ve lived without, locally jarred olives, and a twelve-dollar block of artisanal cheese from the specialty market next door because, according to Bex, this weekend qualifies as a special occasion.

“I think that’s just something you made up.”

“It doesn’t make it less true.”

My feet ache in the way they always do after a full day spent walking through the city by the time we get back to my apartment.

We unpack our little collection of unnecessary goodies, open a bottle of wine, and throw together a charcuterie board substantial enough to count as dinner before settling onto the couch beneath a pile of blankets.

Bridgerton is barely five minutes in before Bex disappears into the bathroom and comes back carrying what looks like the entire Sephora skincare aisle.

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.”

She tosses me a headband.

“Hair up.”

“I don’t trust anything that burns.”

“It tingles.”

“That’s the same thing.”

“Beauty is pain, Darcy.”

“Then I don’t want to be beautiful. I want to be comfortable.”

She just folds her arms and waits. With a dramatic sigh, I pull my hair back.

Twenty minutes later we’re sitting under charcoal face masks that make us look vaguely haunted, the charcuterie board between us while Daphne and Simon dance around admitting the obvious for what feels like the fifteenth episode in a row.

Bex reaches for another olive as she fills me in on Philadelphia—her apartment she’s still deciding whether to keep, the managing editor she’s getting increasingly tired of pretending she likes, and the growing suspicion that she’s simply outgrown the magazine altogether.

“I think I want somewhere that feels like mine,” she says eventually.