Aerin nudged my left hand free so that she could hold it in one of her own. I smiled and let her take my hand.

“So I got to LA, and heard from friends that the guy who’d been renting your place was moving out. I dropped by to see him and fell in love with the place, and really took to Sheryl, so I begged her to allow me to take up his lease. It was rent I could afford while I prepared to take the boards here, without draining much from the kitty I’d saved up.”

I could see she was calculating things in her head, so I speeded up my story.

“Meanwhile, I ran into Jack one day, who said he needed my help for an upcoming event. I made him swear he would drop his name from this lady’s client list and give the most plausible excuse he could think of. There was no way I was going to do this while he remained a client of hers.”

“He did all of that just before the event. Still, I wanted to be careful, so I didn’t agree to show up with him, and instead we pretended to meet at the event, and I agreed to stick close to him throughout the whole thing. I did him the same favor for several more events. After the most recent one, he asked to go home with me, because people had mentioned that he never seemed to have mentioned spending the night at a girl’s place. So we did that, and to keep the pretense up. I let him sleep in one of the guest bedrooms, but when Sheryl showed up, he added that bit of flourish by pretending to come out of my bedroom.”

She nodded her head and gave me a wry smile.

I continued my story, “Anyway, a year after getting to LA, I passed the board, and brushed off the reference letters my former mentor in the New York law firm had written for me, and started checking with firms, eventually finding a place in the firm I now work in.”

“So about six months ago, I heard that one of the partners was leaving, and I saw my chance to take a stab at making partner. I’d worked hard and had built a good reputation in the firm. All of the senior partners liked me, and I began to maneuver to get my name into the list of people to be considered for the open partner slot.”

She crinkled her eyebrows, so I continued hastily, “at the same time, about a month ago, Sheryl said she had gotten in touch with you through the lawyer they’d agreed to use. The real estate market was beginning to heat up, and she was hearing of interest in the house, which is understandable.”

Aerin pursed her lips. “At the same time, I needed to have the pot of money I’d saved up available, in case an offer to become a partner at the firm came through.”

I responded to her unspoken question, “In order to become a partner, you have to put in equity in the firm. And I couldn’t do both … make an offer on the house as well as accept an offer to become a partner.”

“So I asked Sheryl if I could offer to continue to rent the house, and eventually own it.”

“She said it wasn’t her who could make that decision, and it had to be you. So she said she would give it her best effort to invite you to visit LA, meet me, and talk about the house.”

I blew out a breath. “So this is where we are, with all that.”

She smiled broadly, and said, “Well I gave you my answer already, about the house.”

She kissed my hand, and, once again, caused my heart to lurch.

“Have you heard anything more about the whole “partner” stuff, though?” she asked.

I shook my head. “But I think they could decide next week.”

I checked my watch and saw that it had gotten terribly late.

I jumped up, pulling her up as I did. “C’mon Aerin, we have to go. We’re running really late.”

She stood up quickly, and took my pashmina and quickly brushed out the sand that had blown into its edges. I bent to swipe her rain jacket from the sand, and brushed the sand from it, too.

We exchanged garments with a smile.

“Race you to the car!” she called out as she turned to run across the sand.

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