“My social calendar is wide open.”

Another hip bump, more forceful. “Don’t say that! Just, if he says how about catching a movie tomorrow night or whenever, you can repeat the day. Friday? Sure, that’d be great. If he makes a move, goes in for a kiss, fine, if you want to kiss him. But no tongues, not over a coffee date.”

“Jesus, I have to start writing this down.”

“You’re an actor, cuz. You’ll remember lines and staging. I need to split. Remember those few simple rules, then relax, have fun.”

Mallory caught the WALK at the intersection, moved with the throng to cross. “Full report!” she shouted.

Be Cate. Five minutes late, which wasn’t Cate because she prided herself on being on time. Stay an hour to an hour-fifteen. Don’t pretend to have a crowded calendar, and no tongues.

Following her director, she hit her cue, walked into the rumble and scents of Café Café.

The sofas and oversized chairs, always at a premium, were already filled, the baristas at the coffee bar already busy.

She spotted Noah at a two-top wearing a long-sleeve T-shirt instead of the tank he’d rehearsed in. Those beautiful lion eyes met hers as she started toward him.

“Hey. You look great.”

“Thanks.” She slid in across from him. “How’d the rest of rehearsal go?”

He rolled those eyes. “It went. We’re getting there. Hey, Tory.”

“Noah. What can I get you guys?”

When Noah looked at her, waited, Cate decided on the simple. “A regular latte.”

“Skinny latte, double shot, thanks, Tory. I’ve got a dance class tonight,” he told Cate. “I need the double shot.”

“Teaching or taking?”

“Taking. Three nights a week. Can I just say, get it out of the way, Lily Morrow is a goddess.”

In no way a moron or a jerk, Cate decided on the spot. “She’s always been mine.”

“Has to be mutual. She really lights up when you’re in the house. What do you do when you’re not—in the house?”

“Try to figure things out.”

His smile, slow and sweet, did jittery things to her heart.

“Hey, me, too.”

They talked, and it was easy. So easy she forgot to be nervous. Forgot about the hour rule until her phone alarm went off.

“Sorry, sorry.” She pulled it out, shut it off. “That’s to remind me to order dinner. I’m filling in for G—for Lily’s PA for a couple of weeks. I, ah, need to get back to that. This was nice. Thanks.”

“Listen, before you take off, there’s this party Saturday night. Some of the cast—some civilians, too—just blowing off steam. Do you want to go?”

Repeat the day, she reminded herself as everything inside her cheered. “Saturday? Sure.”

He held out his phone. “You could put your number in my contacts.”

Of course, of course, she knew how it worked. She did it with friends all the time. Just never with someone who asked her for a second date. She passed her phone to him, took his.

“I can pick you up about nine.” He passed her phone back. “Unless you want to grab a pizza first.”

Oh God, oh God! “I like pizza.”

“Eight then. Just text me the address.”

“I will.” When he didn’t make a move, she wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. “Thanks for the coffee.”

She strolled out, and when she did her happy dance well out of sight, Tory glanced over at Noah, lifted her eyebrows.

He mimed a huge sigh, and beat a hand over his heart.

Three weeks later, after pizza and parties, after dancing in clubs and long, desperate kisses in the sweet bloom of spring, Cate lay under him in Noah’s skinny bed in his closet of a bedroom in the cramped apartment he shared with two Broadway gypsies.

In her first-time haze, the lumpy mattress was a billowing cloud, the punishing beat of rap pulsing through the wall from the apartment next door the song of celestial angels.

While she had no comparisons, she felt absolutely certain she’d just experienced the true meaning of every song, every poem, every sonnet ever written.

When he lifted his head, looked into her eyes, she was inside the greatest love story ever told.

“I’ve wanted us here since the first time I saw you. You had on a blue sweater. Lily was taking you on a backstage tour. I was scared to say anything to you.”

“Why?”

He twined a lock of her hair around his finger. “Besides you’re so damn beautiful? Lily Morrow’s granddaughter. Then you started torturing me, coming to rehearsals, and I just couldn’t take it anymore. I figured hey, if I ask her for coffee and she blows me off, at least I won’t die wondering.”

He lowered his head, kissed her lightly, lips, cheeks, eyes. Heart and hormones stuttered inside her.

“I was so nervous, then we started talking.” She laid a hand on his cheek. “And I just wasn’t. I was really nervous about this, then you touched me, and I just wasn’t.”

And still, her first.

“It was good, wasn’t it?”

He gave her a considering look that rushed doubts to the surface. “Well . . . I don’t know. I think we should do it again, just to be sure.”

Doubts washed away in delight. “Just to be sure,” she agreed.

Because Lily ruled a cab—no subway—if Cate stayed out past midnight, Noah walked her over to Eighth Avenue to hail one.

Walking—slowly—hand in hand with him, she thought New York looked like a movie set. The light drizzle was sheer romance with streetlights shimmering in thin puddles and on wet pavement.

“Text when you get home, okay?”

“You’re as bad as G-Lil.”

“That’s what happens when somebody cares about you.” He pulled her in for one more kiss. “Come to dance class tomorrow night. You’ve got the moves, and you know you like it.”

She did. Maybe her muscles were rusty, but she’d enjoyed the two classes he’d already talked her into. Besides, he’d be there.

“All right. I’ll see you there.”

Now she pulled him in, then slid into the cab. “Sixty-seventh and Eighth,” she told the driver as she shifted to keep Noah in view as long as possible.

Then she pulled out her phone, texted Darlie.

I’m not going to die a virgin!!!

She snuggled that knowledge to her, dreamed out the window as the cab made the turn, headed up Eighth.

She laughed out loud at Darlie’s answer.

Welcome to the club, slut. Now gimme deets.

She floated through the spring, took dance classes, added yoga, and on a whim decided to take a scattershot of classes at NYU over the summer.

French, just because the sound of the language appealed to her; Film Studies, because she may not want to act, but the business still interested her; and Writing the Screenplay, because maybe she could.

And once a week, she and Lily had dinner, just the two of them, in the condo with New York beaming through the windows.

“I can’t believe you made this.”

Basking in the accomplishment, Cate watched Lily take another bite of the penne with basil and tomato. “Me, either, but it’s pretty good.”