It's Nate, surprisingly, who sets them up.
Maggie goes to the restaurant expecting to see her ex-husband and instead she finds Jim Sterling, a few years older but just as interesting as she remembers.
The conversation is easy, flowing from art to travel and hitting upon a few topics in between. His laugh is deep and rough, more of a chuckle really, but she finds herself smiling at him. Laughing along as well. It's nice, to sit with someone and have no expectations about how the dinner will end.
Or in their case, lunch.
It's the best time out she's had in months and he chuckles when she tells him so, his lips twisting into something that could be a smile. They part on good terms, having enjoyed a wonderful meal and stimulating conversation.
The next time, it's Jim who finds her.
He thinks he is meeting Nate for the details of a job his ex-team needs help with, only to find Maggie at the coffee shop, sitting in a booth near the window.
She's as put together as always, dressed for the best occasion with a smile to match. He almost doesn't sit with her, but Sterling doesn't believe in coincidence. Two times in as many months, and he has an inkling that Nate is playing him. Somehow.
He slides into the open seat across from her and she smiles, but she's not surprised. Conversation isn't as easy this time, but they make do. He tells her stories about Olivia and how she's growing, turning into a not so wild teenager.
Maggie remarks that Sam would be almost seventeen now, and she laughs softly, adding that he'd probably be a handful. Quietly, he disagrees.
For half a moment Sterling thinks that perhaps he blew it, but Maggie smiles and even though there are tears in her eyes, she doesn't look sad. "You're probably right," she replies, chuckling beneath her breath, "he was too much like Nate to be a party boy."
From there they keep the conversation light until her phone buzzes and she has to go.
They meet here and there during the next couple of months. Sometimes it's close to home and other times it's while both happen to be working abroad. Olivia accompanies him once or twice. The girls take a shine to each other almost immediately and he spends the majority of both lunches just watching them discuss the world and it's pleasures.
It's almost an entire year into their odd meet and greets when Maggie realizes that she's standing in front of a mirror in a hotel bathroom, smoothing out the wrinkles in her dress because she has a date with Jim Sterling.
A date.
Because somewhere along the way the lunches turned into late night dinners and midnight calls across countries and continents to have a conversation after a particularly good day (in her case) or particularly bad one (in his). They've spent two major holidays together (Olivia included) and each have dropped in unannounced on the other while working.
Maggie always thought that dating, the real kind of dating that leads to love and marriage and forever, would be frightening after what happened with her and Nate.
Instead, she feels a warmth in her chest and a churning in her gut as she leaves her hotel and walks out into the cool night air to find Sterling waiting for her in one of his best suits and the lilac tie that she offhandedly mentioned liking months and months ago.
"Ready to go?" his voice sends a tingling down her spine. She stares as he holds out his arm for her to take, a silent question lingering between them in the way he tilts his head just so in the direction of the theater they're heading to.
Maggie takes him by his hand instead of his arm and sees the pleasant surprise in the gentle quirk of his right eyebrow before he smiles at her in that infuriating way that she likes.
She thinks she might be falling for him.
(She's certain he's falling right back.)