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For two weeks she had refused to admit to herself how nervous she was. How much she dreaded seeing the band again. Every time the kiss popped back into her mind, every time she felt the apprehension and regret rising in her throat, she pushed them away. She was terrible at remaining calm, at not berating herself—for her foolishness that night, her caprice—at avoiding self-immolation. But she tried. Because two weeks was a long time. Over two weeks, she could do real internal damage. And beating herself up couldn’t fix it, couldn’t take it all back, then all she could do was ignore it. Work constantly to pretend it was not there.

But standing half a block away from Sarabeth’s, where she was scheduled to meet the band for breakfast, everything rushed back in. She felt momentarily paralyzed. Dread churned in her stomach. Dread for what they would say, or worse, for what they would not say. What their eyes would say. She was so angry at herself. She could no longer just tell herself that no one else had seen it, that Joe would not say anything, that she was overreacting to a perfectly normal slip up.

She truly wanted to believe it was not a big deal. She was a twenty-five year old female, for christ’s sake, twenty-five year old women the world over did much worse things at parties and in bars. She’d kissed a guy, once, and then she’d put a stop to it immediately and taken him home. A kiss was not the end of the world. She’d slipped, certainly, but she hadn’t fallen. She’d caught herself.

And yet, she knew she couldn’t let herself off too easily. It had been inappropriate. She had been at what was technically a professional function. And she had no one to blame…not the drink, or Brett, or even Joe. She could have stopped at any time. She should not have been enjoying it as much as she had been. She spent so much time, so much energy, fighting to be respected. To have risked it all in that way…she was acting as her own worst enemy.

The reminder alarm on her Blackberry sounded, she was due in the meeting in five minutes and she most certainly needed to be early that morning. She could no longer stand there and stare at the entrance wallowing in her own misery. She’d have to put on her business face and enter. She’d have to face the music. A second alarm sounded on her Blackberry, this time an email from her uncle. It crossed her mind to wait, just a moment longer, before entering. To finish typing her email first. Reluctantly she forced herself to begin walking toward the restaurant as she typed her response. A few moments would not save her.

She scarcely looked up until she was inside, this time hoping against all hope that the band was running late. She wanted to sit down at the empty table alone, gather herself, and start pounding back coffee. When she saw Joe’s hand shoot into the air she silently muttered a profanity to herself before making her way toward the table he and his brothers and parents and managers were gathered around.

The look on Joe’s face gave no indication of judgment for what she’d done. Nick had a puss on his face, but she was willing to ignore it, given the early hour. Kevin didn’t even look at her, he was too engrossed in his own phone to have noticed her entrance, and that was fine by her. They were the three she was most worried about. They were the most likely to know what happened, to have spread the story around. She was relieved to see their non-reactions. A quick glance around the table proved the looks on the rest of the team’s faces said nothing to merit her concern.

As she moved toward the open seat, it was tempting to begin to berate herself for making such a big deal out of her misstep. To torture herself for having tortured herself for the past two weeks. But she knew, realistically, that would do her no good. She attempted to silence her inner-critic though she knew that later that would not be so easy.

Not shockingly, the only open seat was next to Joe. She was sure he’d somehow arranged this, just to take advantage of every possible opportunity to get under her skin. Silencing her Blackberry, she pulled out her notes and adjusted her skirt for coverage as she sat down next to him, politely greeting everyone. A chorus of voices answered her.

The meeting went smoothly. She ran through the number of unique hits to the website, the conversion from the emails, the numbers on offers that had been fulfilled. Then she ran through the demographics with them, males versus females, adults versus teens, people familiar with the Jonas Brothers and people who’d never heard a song. The number of Amazon pre-orders of ‘A Little Bit Longer’ had skyrocketed in the weeks since they’d begun their cross-promotion, and many of those pre-orders had come from people who had never purchased a Jonas Brothers album before. The campaign was meeting its goals. Everyone seemed more than satisfied.

Miraculously, although the goofy grin didn’t seem to leave his face much, Joe had been mostly silent throughout the meeting. He’d chimed in with flattery and praise when appropriate, but he’d managed to keep his snarky comments to himself. She didn’t want to choke him. This was a major first. This was incredibly pleasant. It made the meeting so much less tense for her. Absently she found herself wondering what he was on…he had actual ammunition this time and he wasn’t even using it.

When the meeting ended, she felt an uncharacteristic flood of relief. A surge of excitement. She did not want to go home and take a nap. She wanted to skip home and call her parents to tell them how amazing her campaign was going, how she was sure that in five days the sales numbers would show just how spot on her instinct had been. She wanted to have a celebratory drink, even though it was only 9:30 am. She almost wanted to laugh out loud.

Instead, she politely excused herself from the meeting just as soon as she’d paid the bill. Citing a long walk back to her home office, she shook everyone’s hands, adjusted her sundress, and stepped away from the table promising regular email updates with the new campaign numbers. Once outside she slid her sunglasses on and sighed happily, feeling the sun warm her fair, freckled skin. It had turned into a beautiful morning.

***

Against her better judgment, she stopped when she heard Joe call out her name. Apprehension, once again, came rushing back and just that quickly the morning no longer looked so beautiful. She’d been foolish to think she could escape that meeting unscathed. She’d been foolish to think, even for a second, that Joe could keep his mouth shut about anything. He’d been biding his time, sitting there grinning like an idiot, waiting to pounce. She did not want to hear it. She’d already begun to abuse herself again. She did not need his help. And yet, she stood and she waited, there behind the museum on the corner of 80th and Columbus Avenue. Waited for Joe Jonas.

When he caught up she immediately began walking again. She refused to give him the benefit of eye contact.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Back to my apartment. That’s where I work,” she intoned. She’d said that at the close of the meeting. Once again it seemed he hadn’t been listening to her.

“No, I mean…I know that. I mean, where is your apartment?”

“Why would that be of any interest to you?”

“Dunno, I’m just curious.”

Silence fell. He continued to follow her as she made her way around the corner of 81^st Street and headed east.

“Did you want to say something?” she asked, her guard rising against her will, “Perhaps make an obnoxious comment about what a slut I am?”

“I would never use that word,” he seemed shocked and at least a little injured by her insinuation. Guilt flooded into her stomach to mingle with her apprehension. “I just…I didn’t know if I was going to see you again. And I’ve been meaning to ask you about your name since that first day we met. So I thought, you know, that now might be my only chance.”

“What about my name?” her voice softened. Another sudden rush, this time of affection.

“Well, it’s just really unique. The pronunciation doesn’t look anything like it’s spelled, and I was wondering how that worked…and, you know, what it means, and how your parents—“ he halted suddenly, grabbing her arm and pulling her back off the street just as a taxi raced by, picking up the bottom of her dress in a gust as it passed.

“Woah,” she breathed, “Thanks.”

She hadn’t realized she’d stopped looking where she was going. Hadn’t realized she was standing in the middle of Central Park West. Her attention was entirely focused on Joe as he rambled. She loved her name, and although it was something people regularly commented on—just as they did her hair color—very few people showed genuine interest in its origin and meaning. She was floored and even a little bit flattered by his interest. Joe Jonas had just completely blown her expectations of him out of the water.

And then he’d kind of saved her life.