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mean it. I’m going to have bumper stickers made that say ‘Hang Up and Drive’ . . . and you’re all getting one,” she warned, giving her straight, shoulder-length black hair a toss.
    As the laughter faded and the conversation moved on, she turned to Eve and grinned, her dark eyes dancing with excitement. Their friendship went back a long way, long enough for Eve to be wary when Jenna looked that excited.
    Jenna was dramatic and energetic, a softly rounded woman with no shortage of strong opinions and no reluctance to share them, which is why her show was the top-rated in its time slot. Her husband seated on her other side taught classical literature at Brown. Richard Jordan had thinning brown hair and thoughtful eyes. He was the yin to Jenna’s yang, the calm to her storm. After ten years of marriage they still held hands and exchanged secret smiles, and once, at a party, Eve had turned her head at just the right moment and seen Richard do the impossible: he’d whispered in Jenna’s ear and made her blush.
    Seeing them together stirred a yearning deep inside that most of the time Eve managed to forget was there. She had a good life, a full life, a safe life that she had chosen and worked hard to create. But every once in a while she was caught off guard by a glimpse of the kind of love and intimacy she could only imagine, and for one endless beat of time her heart stopped and her breath stuck in her throat and she wished she could do it all over again.
    “Guess what,” Jenna said to her. “I think you have a secret admirer.”
    Instantly the image of the man at the registration desk popped into Eve’s head and she tensed. “Really? Who?”
    “Howard.”
    She eased back in her chair. “Howard who?”
    “Howard what’s-his-name, you know, from the governor’s budget office. Sandy hair, square jaw, not too short; he couldn’t take his eyes off you when you were on stage. And I heard him tell someone that you have shoulders like Angelina Jolie.”
    Jenna arched her brows and nodded conspiratorially. She fancied herself a matchmaker and Eve a challenge to be conquered.
    On stage, Ben, the auctioneer, was opening the bidding on a watercolor by a local artist.
    Jenna leaned closer, her voice low. “I mean it. I think he has a thing for you.”
    “What kind of thing?” Eve countered, only half listening as she looked around and tried to follow the bidding.
    “You know, a thing thing. He’s smitten, besotted; he has the hots for you. Good God, Eve, how long has it been that I have to go all the way back to Getting Laid 101 to explain this to you?”
    Good question , thought Eve, and again the mystery guy’s image flashed before her. She blinked him away and did the math. And winced inwardly. Had it really been that long? There was no way she was admitting that to Jenna. It would only encourage her. Shrugging offhandedly, she replied, “Not long.”
    The watercolor went for five grand. Curious to see who bought it, Eve leaned sideways and peered between heads. It was a very nice watercolor, but still, five grand was . . . well, five grand. Half a semester’s tuition at the private academy her niece, Rory, attended.
    She turned back to find Jenna still eyeing her with one silently arched brow, obviously waiting for a better answer to her question.
    “Okay. So it’s been a while,” Eve conceded.
    Jenna’s other brow went up as well.
    Eve sighed. “A long while. Satisfied?”
    “My satisfaction isn’t really the issue.”
    “What can I say? I’ve been busy.”
    “Not to mention the fact that when you do find time to let a man into your life, and he makes the ungodly mistake of showing some potential, you always find a way to sabotage the whole thing.”
    “Potential,” Eve retorted, “is in the eye of the beholder. I give you my word of honor that the minute I behold a relationship with true potential, I’ll jump its bones.”
    Jenna rolled her eyes. “Provided you remember how.”
    Eve laughed.