Off-Limits

Chapter Ten: Full Circle

The idea came to Jake, of all places, in the shower, three weeks after the launch — the specific kind of realization that arrives fully formed and slightly ridiculous, the sort of thing you almost don't say out loud because it sounds like a joke until you actually think it through.

"I think we should set Marcus up with Sasha," he announced, toweling off while Veronica brushed her teeth, watching her reflection go still in the bathroom mirror.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Marcus. Your ex. And Sasha. From my old office." He said it like it made perfect sense, which, the longer he thought about it, it genuinely did. "Hear me out. Marcus is charming, successful, clearly still looking for something even though he went about finding it with my wife in a deeply inappropriate way. Sasha's gorgeous, whip-smart, and has absolutely no patience for a man who can't keep up with her. They'd either destroy each other in a way that would be extremely entertaining to watch from a safe distance, or they'd actually work."

Veronica spat, rinsed, and studied him in the mirror with the particular look she reserved for when he said something that was either brilliant or deeply unhinged, and she hadn't yet decided which. "You want to set up my ex with your ex."

"When you say it like that it sounds worse."

"It sounds exactly as it is."

"Think about it, though." He leaned against the doorframe, warming to the idea now that he'd said it out loud. "It closes the loop. Marcus stops being 'the guy who hit on my wife' and becomes 'the guy my wife's friend is dating,' which is a much easier category for me to live with. And honestly? After the launch wrapped, he backed off completely, apologized to you directly, never made another move. I don't actually think he's a bad guy. I think he's a guy who saw someone he used to have and forgot he didn't get to want her anymore."

"That's weirdly generous of you."

"I've had practice being the guy who wanted something he wasn't supposed to want," Jake said. "I recognize the type."

Veronica considered it, turning the idea over with the same careful assessment she brought to every campaign brief that crossed her desk, and slowly, despite herself, a grin spread across her face. "You know what — Sasha actually messaged me last week asking if I knew anyone. Said dating in this city is a wasteland."

"See? Fate."

"It's not fate, it's your unresolved guilt about accidentally punching my ex's reputation for a job well done."

"I never touched him."

"You wanted to. That still counts as intent." But she was already reaching for her phone, scrolling to Sasha's contact, a mischievous look settling over her features that Jake had learned, over the last year, meant something interesting was about to happen. "Fine. Let's see if you're a matchmaking genius or if this blows up spectacularly. Either way, I want front-row seats."

• • •

They set it up as a dinner — the four of them, plus Mason and Cassidy for cover, at a restaurant downtown with good enough lighting and better cocktails, the kind of engineered casual that fooled absolutely no one but that everybody agreed to pretend was organic.

Sasha arrived first, in a fitted red dress that turned heads on her way to the table, and greeted Veronica with the easy warmth of two women who'd become genuinely friendly in the year since Jake's reformation had turned "the guy I used to see" into "my friend's husband" without much drama at all.

"So this is an ambush," Sasha said, sliding into her seat, eyeing the empty chair beside her. "Veronica told me we were doing a casual group thing. I specifically remember the word 'casual.'"

"It is casual," Jake said, entirely unconvincingly.

"You're wearing a tie, Jake. You never wear a tie for casual."

"I wear a tie for nice restaurants."

"You're wearing a tie because you're nervous about whoever's about to sit in that empty chair," Sasha said, pointing at him with her fork, delighted with herself. "Who is it?"

"His name's Marcus," Veronica said, deciding directness was the better strategy. "He's a client of mine. Successful, single, and objectively very good-looking, which I say as a woman who dated him for a year and has zero remaining interest in reclaiming that territory."

"You dated him."

"Before Jake. It's ancient history and completely fine now. He's also the reason Jake nearly caused a diplomatic incident at my last launch, so we're technically making up for that."

"This is the best dinner I've been to in months," Sasha said, grinning, and settled back in her chair with the air of a woman perfectly willing to be ambushed under these specific circumstances.

Marcus arrived twelve minutes later, apologizing for traffic, and the moment he shook Sasha's hand and she looked up at him with the same slow, assessing look she'd once given Jake across a rooftop years ago, Jake caught Veronica's eye across the table and knew, instantly, that his shower revelation had been onto something.

• • •

By the time the entrées arrived, Sasha and Marcus had fallen into a conversation that had quietly excluded the rest of the table — some overlapping thread about a mutual acquaintance in finance, then real estate, then a debate about whether the new restaurant two blocks over was actually good or just well-lit, conducted with the specific rapid-fire chemistry of two people who'd both clearly been bored by every date they'd been on for the last several months and had just, unexpectedly, stopped being bored.

"They're not even pretending to include us anymore," Mason murmured to Jake, watching with open delight.

"I know. It's beautiful."

"You really did this on purpose."

"I really did."

Cassidy, watching Sasha laugh at something Marcus said with her head tipped back exactly the way she used to laugh at Jake's old lines, leaned toward Veronica with a low, impressed whistle. "Your husband might actually be a genius."

"Don't tell him that. He'll never let it go."

"Too late," Jake said, overhearing, entirely too pleased with himself.

• • •

Sasha called Veronica the next morning before Veronica had even finished her coffee, no preamble at all.

"I need details," Veronica said, answering on the second ring. "Don't make me wait."

"He asked me to dinner. Just the two of us. Tonight." Sasha's voice had a note in it Veronica hadn't heard from her in the entire year they'd known each other — something unguarded, a little startled by itself. "I haven't wanted to say yes to anyone that fast in years, and it's freaking me out slightly."

"Good freaking out or bad freaking out?"

"I don't actually know yet. Ask me again in a month."

Veronica hung up laughing, and found Jake in the kitchen, already smug before she'd said a single word.

"Well?"

"He asked her out. Alone. Tonight."

Jake set down his coffee with the deeply satisfied expression of a man whose reckless shower idea had, against every reasonable expectation, actually worked. "I'm framing this. I want a plaque. 'Jake Reyes: reformed legend, professional matchmaker.'"

"Don't get ahead of yourself. One dinner isn't a happy ending."

"No," Jake agreed, pulling her close, pressing a kiss to her temple. "But it's a pretty good start. I'd know."

• • •

Chapter Eleven: A month later — Sasha and Marcus, and what happens when two people who never wanted to slow down for anyone finally do.