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relationships that work and those that don’t. I think I’m a pretty good judge of this kind of thing, and Brandon and I was a thing that had had its chance and been found wanting.
    But that touch, on the small of my back. The look in his eye when he met my surprised look. That leaning in to whisper in my ear thing.
    God but that all worked for me!
    It was the same old chemistry. It was why there had been a Brandon and me in the first place. It was–
    They were talking, Brandon and the author whose name I suddenly didn’t care that I’d forgotten. Looking at me for a response. That was the second time this evening that I’d lost track of a conversation. So unlike me.
    Brandon had taken his hand away and, more than anything else, I wanted his touch again. I needed it. There was no denying a feeling so strong, no amount of logic that would argue successfully against that kind of need.
    He met my eye again, and it was clear that he knew it too.
    He steered me away to one side of the room. “Maybe we should–”
    “What?” I interrupted. “Slip away from here? Find somewhere private? Was it a knee-trembler or a quick blow-job you were after, Bran? You always were the big romantic.”
    “You can be so cruel sometimes,” he said, a mock hurt look on his face. “I do love that about you.”
    “You can be an incorrigible bastard,” I replied. “And I tell you, I’m not so in love with that about you.”
    “That old chemistry, eh?”
    “That’s one way to describe it.”
    Funny how I could switch from feeling so hot for him that I really would have slipped away from the party to this: the kind of exchange that was stuck uncomfortably somewhere between joking and bickering. In our time together, that balance had steadily tipped until every exchange had at least an undertone of fight to it and now I was reminded of all that had been wrong about us.
    The moment was gone.
    It was stupid, and I knew it was stupid. Even to lapse for a minute and enjoy his attention. Stupid.
    §
    “Please tell me I didn’t just see what I think I just saw...”
    “Jimmy, darling. If you tell me what you think you just saw, I’ll be able to say whether you really saw what you think you just saw or if what you just saw was something else entirely.” I smiled sweetly, and snagged another glass of cheap Chardonnay from a passing waitress.
    “I’ll tell you what I want–”
    “What I really really want?”
    “Shall we start this again?”
    “Let’s. Jimmy darling, such a lovely do again. Thank you so much.”
    Jimmy took a deep breath. He had that schoolboy look on his face, like he was trying to contain some private joke and struggling not to break out into an almighty big grin. His dark eyes met mine, then jumped away again in that way of his. I’d always suspected this nervousness in his manner was something of an affectation; you don’t get to be one of the most powerful literary agents in the country if you’re a tongue-tied Bambi.
    “Maggie,” he said, in that gentle Dublin lilt. “How lovely. Now, tell me. That wasn’t what it looked like, was it? Please ?”
    “Did it look like two of your favorite clients chatting over a drink? Because if so, then it was just what it looked like.”
    “Good. Because if it wasn’t just two clients having an innocent chat over drinks then it looked like two people who split up pretty damned acrimoniously a couple of years ago breathing a little life back into the embers, and we all know where that leads to, don’t we, Maggie?”
    “Aren’t we getting just a little melodramatic, darling? ‘Acrimonious’...?”
    “Okay, I concede. You’re the wordsmith, I’m just the guy who sells your shit to Hollywood. If you say ‘acrimonious’ isn’t the right word for a break-up where everyone gets dragged into the fighting and mud-slinging and then you divvy up your friends and everything else between you, then I’ll bow to your specialism.”
    Had Brandon and I really been that