"I'm so sick of this."

"Of what?"

The three of them had managed to meet for lunch that Thursday, but Nancy picked at her salad while Bess tackled an enormous plate of pasta, and George finished her first bowl of soup.

"All these damn long hours Ned's keeping."

George took a long sip of her iced water. "When's the presentation?"

"Tomorrow," Nancy and Bess chorused, and then Bess giggled.

"Hey, at least this way I know Kent's not lying when he says he can't come see me. I think Ned would move heaven and earth to come see you, if he could."

Nancy cracked her first smile at that. "Yeah," she admitted. "I think tomorrow night he's just going to lose it, and drink himself under a table somewhere, and then call and sing me some terrible pop song at three o'clock in the morning."

"Unless you're with him," George pointed out, lifting another spoonful of soup. "The idea of having a drunk Ned under our power is very appealing."

Nancy burst out in shocked laughter. "Just for that, I really hope that if we do go out tomorrow night, you two aren't around."

"Well..." Bess trailed off, her cheeks coloring. "I kind of... have something else planned."

George turned avid eyes from her cousin to her best friend. "So you're both going to ditch me, aren't you."

"Not ditch you," Bess said softly, her voice too sweet to be serious. "More like... call you when it's last call and ask you to come pick us up."

"Which is no fun at all," George protested, as Nancy smacked Bess on the shoulder. "I'll just have to go out Friday night and find my own guy."

"And you know what? Then we'll all win, because you won't be pestering me to go jogging at six o'clock on Saturday freaking morning." Bess twirled her fork in her pasta.

"Yeah, but it's tradition," George protested, grinning. "I knock on your door, you throw a pillow at me, and by the time I get back you've made pancakes."

"So that's why you wake me up," Bess said in mock outrage. "You just go and jog off the pancakes before you eat them."

With ten minutes left on her lunch break, Nancy stopped by the downtown florist, drunk with the memory of roses. Bouquets made of flower-shaped cookies, in vases hugged by big-eyed teddy bears, tall with sprigs of baby's breath. Besides, she couldn't imagine Ned squealing with joy upon receiving a vase of Gerber daisies or a pot of chrysanthemums.

He's not even my boyfriend, Nancy thought when she caught herself trying to remember what she would have sent Frank, if he had just finished a complicated case. She would have sent him herself, for one of their weekends, which always seemed better in the planning than the execution. He's not my boyfriend, she thought at an especially cute bear dressed in a football jersey, complete with helmet and a miniature ball tucked under his arm.

"You shouldn't have," Ned said, when he called an hour later.

"You don't like it."

"No, I do," Ned said, defensively. "I do like it. And the stripper you sent with it was outstanding. Absolute tops."

"The florist must have mixed up my order, then. Or you have another girl."

"Another girl..." He chuckled. "I don't even have enough time for you."

"But you'll have enough time for me tomorrow night, won't you?"

"Oh yes," he promised. "Because I've been looking forward to tomorrow night... I mean, you have no idea. I will be attached to your hip the entire weekend."

"That could prove awkward," she chuckled. "I've never had a siamese twin before."

"We can just tell everyone we're doing a three-legged race all weekend."

"Okay, now you're scaring me," she told him. "How many shots of espresso have you had today?"

"Too many," he admitted. "The good news is that the slide show's finished. The bad news is how long I was volunteered to babysit a copier."

"Have you not discovered modern civilization's gift to hapless money managers and procrastinating college students, the professional print shop?"

"Only hapless money managers who aren't trying to keep their newest international strategies secret."

"Tell me about it," Nancy chuckled. "All right, tomorrow night. Hell or high water."

"Or Japanese tourists," he promised. "You got anything in mind?"

"I do," she said, her voice low. "But it's a surprise."

"Then I can't wait."