“I know. You’ve told me that before. Several times.”

“Technically, it’s my sister’s car. But it’s only that the registration is in her name. It’s easier that way, since I’m not a permanent resident. But everyone knows this is my car. I’m the only one who’s allowed to drive it.”

“I know,” I repeated.

“It requires careful handling.” She ran a loving hand over the polished wood of the dashboard.

“I’ll handle it carefully.”

She looked at me, and then at the dashboard, and then back at me. “I’m trusting you,” she said.

“And I’m trustworthy.” I tried to look like I was.

She locked her dark-eyed gaze on mine. “You know, you don’t have the greatest reputation when it comes to driving.”

Under normal circumstances I would have disputed this, but it didn’t seem like a good time to argue. “It will be fine. Really,” I said, in as convincing a tone as I could muster.

Reluctantly, Luisa opened the car door, making sure the bottom didn’t scrape against the curb as she stepped out. I took her place, lowering myself onto the smooth leather of the driver’s seat. But when I reached out to shut the door, she stopped me, placing a hand on its sleek frame.

“Remember, only premium gas,” she said. “The most expensive kind you can find. I left extra cash in the glove compartment, so there’s no reason to cut corners and buy the cheap gas.”

“I will only buy the most expensive gas,” I assured her, attempting again to shut the door. She resisted.

“And be sure to leave a space between you and other cars in parking lots. People are so careless these days.”

“I will leave a space. In fact, I’ll leave two spaces.” I removed her hand from the door. “It will be fine. Really.”

“You said that already.” But she sighed and let me shut the door. “Call us.”

“I will.” I put the car into gear.

I could see her in the rearview mirror, watching. Her expression held concern, but I had every confidence that her concern was for the car and not for me.

I considered it a sign of maturity that I neither revved the engine nor made the tires squeal as I pulled away from the curb. I even used the blinker as I merged into the stream of downtown traffic.

Ten minutes later I was through the Lincoln Tunnel and in New Jersey, following the signs for Interstate Eighty West. The car handled so well that it seemed criminal not to floor the accelerator, but I held it to just above the speed limit. An encounter with the highway patrol would be particularly unwelcome this evening.

“Maybe we should stop at Ikea,” suggested a voice behind me. “We could use some extra shelving.”

I opened my mouth to scream, and this time it worked. A shrieking torrent of noise filled the car.

My hands jerked on the steering wheel, and I veered into the next lane. A horn blared out an enraged warning, and I swung back into my lane. A preadolescent girl gave me the finger from the passenger side of the minivan I’d nearly hit.

I’d had so many adrenaline surges in the last few hours that it seemed like my adrenaline supply should be exhausted, but it turned out I had plenty left. It coursed through my veins. I willed my pulse to slow as I struggled to get my breathing in check and my driving under control.

“Sorry,” Peter said, clambering from the back into the front passenger seat. “I didn’t mean to-”

“Give me a heart attack? Get us killed? What, precisely, didn’t you mean to do?” I demanded.

“If you’d really had a heart attack, you probably wouldn’t be able to drive,” he pointed out, reaching behind him for the seat belt. “Speaking of which, it would probably be a good idea to pick a lane and stay there. The kid in the minivan seemed sort of pissed.”

“Where-how did-I mean, what are you doing here? And by the way, a little advance notice that you were hiding in the back seat might have been nice.” Peter hadn’t been part of the contingency plan, at least not part of the plan I’d authorized. Apparently some adjustments had been made to the plan without my consent.

“If we’d given you advance notice you would have kicked me out of the car while we were still in Manhattan. After all, we’re in a fight, aren’t we? Don’t you remember storming out of the apartment yesterday?” His tone had shifted from playful to serious.

“Oh. That’s right.” I’d been indignant, but that was only temporary, a reaction to the shock of his sudden appearance. Now all of my earlier embarrassment and remorse returned. And I still didn’t have the words-much less the confidence in my own emotional stability-to make everything right.

“Listen, Rachel, I’ve had some time to think about this, and I owe you an apology. I know you’ve been under a lot of stress, and I should have given you your space. And I should have trusted you, too. It was wrong of me to be so suspicious, and to make accusations like I did.”

“But you were right about Jake-” I protested.

“Sure, I was right, but I was checking into him for all of the wrong reasons. You have a career that’s important to you, and of course you’re going to need to spend time with your work colleagues. And you had a personal life before, too, and that doesn’t go away just because of me. I need to get used to that and to be more understanding.”

“Um, well, actually-” I began, but Peter was on a roll. I had the sense that he’d been working on this little speech. I wondered if my friends had given him a list of talking points before smuggling him into the back seat.

“I’ve never been engaged before-hell, I’ve never lived with a woman I wasn’t related to before-and I guess I’ve been acting sort of possessive. I don’t know what came over me. You know that I’m not the caveman type. It’s just that it’s all so new to me, trying to fit myself into your life.”

Given how little room I’d been making for him in it, that couldn’t have been easy. I stole a glance at him, my eyes meeting the familiar rich chocolate of his in the dim light of the car.

I looked back at the road. “Actually, Peter, I’m the one who owes you an apology. And not just about Jake, even though you were the only one who had the good sense to really question him. You weren’t acting like a caveman. You were acting like a normal part of a couple.” I paused and took a deep breath. “It was me. I was acting like nothing had changed, like I was still on my own and didn’t have anyone waiting for me at home. Like you weren’t there.”

He was silent for a moment. “Is that what you want?” he asked. “For me not to be there?” His tone was mild, so mild that it struck terror in my heart. How could he be so calm about such a momentous question?

“No!”

“No, you don’t want me there?”

“No, of course I want you there!” Suddenly, that was beautifully clear. “But I’m not sure it’s fair to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“One minute I’m worried that things aren’t going to work out, because they never do, and then the next I’m freaking out because my whole life is changing, and then you get caught in the cross fire, just because you have the misfortune to be there. Are you sure you want to sign up for that?”

“You’ll grow out of it.”

“What makes you so sure? How can you know?”

“I can’t know for sure. But I do know I love you, and I want to be with you.”

“Is it really that simple?”

“No, of course not. This is a first for both of us. It’s bound to get rocky.”

“I just-I just need to get used to it. I’ve never been part of a-a partnership before, and I’m still figuring out how it works.”

“We could start with a lesson on the use of the first-person plural.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that we’ll figure out how it works,” he said. Then he paused. “That was corny, wasn’t it?”

“A little. Well, actually, a lot. But I liked it anyhow.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him digging something out of his pocket. It sparkled, even in the dark of the car.