Trev mercifully changed the subject without questioning her. “You saw last week’s USA Today poll, right? Favorite sitcom heroines? Scooter Brown came in third after Lucy and Mary Tyler Moore. You even beat out Barbara Eden.”

She’d seen the poll and couldn’t bring herself to care. “I hate Scooter Brown.”

“You’re the only one who does. She’s an icon. It’s anti-American not to love her.”

“The series has been off the air for eight years. Why can’t everybody let it go?”

“Maybe those perpetual reruns blasting out all over the globe have something to do with it?”

She pushed her sunglasses on top of her head. “I was a kid when the show started, only fifteen. And barely twenty-three when it ended.”

He took in her red eyes but didn’t comment on them. “Scooter Brown is ageless. Every woman’s best friend. Every man’s favorite virgin.”

“But I’m not Scooter Brown. I’m Georgie York. My life belongs to me, not to the world.”

“Good luck with that.”

She couldn’t let herself do this any longer. Perpetually reacting to external forces. Unable to set her own counterforces in motion. Always acted upon. Never acting. She drew her knees closer and studied the rainbows she’d asked her manicurist to paint on her toenails in the vain hope of cheering herself up. If she didn’t do this now, she never would. “Trev, what would you think about you and me having a little-a big romance?”

“Romance?”

“The two of us.” She couldn’t look at him, and she kept her eyes on the rainbows. “Falling very publicly in love. And…maybe-” She pushed out the words. “Trev, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time…I know you’re going to think it’s crazy. It is crazy. But…If you don’t hate the idea, I was thinking…we should at least consider the possibility of…getting married.”

“Married?” Trevor’s feet hit the deck.

He was one of her dearest friends, but her cheeks burned. Still, what was one more monumentally humiliating moment in a year filled with them? She unlocked her arms from her knees. “I know I shouldn’t be dumping this on you out of nowhere. And I know it’s weird. Really weird. I felt that way when I first started thinking about it, but when I considered it objectively, I couldn’t see a big downside.”