“Um, right. Just, ah, send me the bill.”

Then she hangs up.

With a sigh, I tuck the phone into my pocket. We have a connection, a different sort of one, but I think we’re both caught off guard. I did enjoy talking to her, and generally speaking, I’m not a phone person. I text, I email, but spending thirty minutes on the phone isn’t something I’ve done in a long time. The lights to Tanner Security, which is housed on the ground floor and garden level of the townhouse that I bought with the inheritance I received when I was twenty-one, are off. I glance upward to see if my sister is home.

All the rooms are dark with the exception of the front bedroom on the fourth floor. She’s home, then, but doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.

My sister and I were close once. When I was shipped home after my unfortunate run-in with an IED in Afghanistan, she was still in high school. I hadn’t wanted to live at home and I hadn’t wanted to have a live-in nurse, so Sabrina volunteered to come and stay with me. It worked out great. By the time she began attending Columbia, I’d become self-sufficient again, learning how to redo simple things I’d once taken for granted—such as buttoning my shirts. I solved that by wearing pullovers. She’d since moved out, but still spent a lot of time with me.

Yet somewhere along the line, possibly the moment she met Tadashubu Kaga, she stopped appreciating having me as a big brother and started accusing me of interfering with her life.

While I admire Kaga and view him as a friend, I don’t want him anywhere near my innocent baby sister. He’s a powerful and wealthy man with very specific taste in women.

I finger the phone in my pocket, wondering what Natalie would say about this. She and Graham seem pretty close. I have the phone out and in my hand before I realize what I’m doing. I just met this woman. Hell, I hadn’t even met her. I talked to her on the phone for nearly thirty minutes and I’ve been inside her apartment, but we aren’t even friends and I’m thinking of calling an agoraphobe for fucking advice?

I need to go inside and take a long cold shower.

When the phone rings, my heart thumps like a fucking twelve-year-old’s until I see my mom’s face on the screen.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Are you still working? I can hear the noise on the street. You should be inside having dinner. It’s nearly eight o’clock at night.” She sighs, an exhale of frustration.

My mother has been nagging me about working too much and this moment of insanity is proof she’s right.

“I’m going in right now and eating a cow,” I reassure her.

“Save some for your sister,” she replies. “She’s looking tense and hungry these days.”

The last thing I want to think about is what might be causing Sabrina’s unhappiness. I shuffle that thought toward the back of my head and lean back against the stone railing of my stoop and enjoy the brisk night air as Mom catches me up on the news of her friends. She murmurs something about my ex looking me up but that’s another thing I don’t care to pay any attention to. After I promise to feed Sabrina, Mom lets me go.

I put the phone away and jog up the stairs. The front door has a lock and key, but it’s for show. Access to my townhouse is gained through a biometric hand scanner and voice recognition. I press my hand against the pane of glass in the door that serves as the scanner and give an audible command. The three locks disengage and a chirp of the alarm acknowledges my entrance.

I wonder if Natalie would feel more secure with a system like this—

Stop, I order myself.

This is not me. I don’t obsess over women. What I need to do is sit down, evaluate what I know, suggest a security system, and start viewing her as a client, not a potential bedmate.

In the kitchen, I find that Sabrina hasn’t totally written me off. There’s a plate of pasta covered in plastic wrap with a note that says “reheat, two minutes.”

“Bless you, my child,” I murmur as I stick the plate into the microwave. I can boil water, operate a microwave, and cook a steak. That’s about the extent of my cooking skills.

“You’re welcome.”

I hide my surprise and turn nonchalantly to lean against the counter. Sabrina stands at the entry of the kitchen, her arms crossed and her mouth pressed into a hard line. Despite her angry stance, I see confusion in her eyes. She loves and hates me at this moment.

“Mom called to make sure you were eating.”

“I ate earlier. Tiny came up an hour ago and said you were out on a call.”

“New client,” I answer. Tiny’s an investigator for Tanner Security, but she’s also married to Ian, whose best friend is Kaga, so I know where this is headed—nowhere good. The only mystery is how long it will take for us to get to the subject of him.

“Is it Kaga? Is he in trouble in any way?” she blurts out.

Not long, apparently. I pinch my nose because just the thought of her wanting to know about him gives me a headache. “Bri, honey,” I begin, but before I can finish my thought, she interrupts me.

“What? I can’t even ask about him?”

“What purpose does it serve for you even to imagine yourself in a relationship with him?”

“We’re friends.” She’s stubborn.

“If you were friends, then you wouldn’t need to ask how he’s doing.” Immediately I regret my words as she turns ashen and the skin around her lips whitens as her lips thin. “Aw, fuck me, honey. I’m sorry. I love you and I just want to make sure that you’re happy in life.” Pushing away from the counter, I move toward her, but she backs away.

“Really? You could have fooled me. Every action you take is designed to keep me away from people I love!”

She loves Kaga? She doesn’t even know him. I reach a hand toward her. “Sorry you feel that way.”

“If you were truly sorry, you wouldn’t do this. You’re only sorry that I’m mad at you.” She whirls on one foot and runs out of the kitchen and up the stairs. My leg aches too much to run after her and frankly, she’s right.

I’m sorry she’s mad, but I’m not wrong about her and Kaga. Their differences are too vast.

The microwave dings and my stomach growls in response.

For a moment, I let my forehead rest on the heel of my hand. Maybe I’m thinking about Natalie because she’s the one woman in my life that I haven’t disappointed . . . yet.

CHAPTER SEVEN

NATALIE

“In my next book, I’m killing off the protagonist on the first page.”

“Because you’re tired of success and you want to shit all over your readers?” Daphne doesn’t even look up from the magazine she’s paging through as she predicts the demise of my career.

“How can I write about anything even remotely brave and heroic when I can’t even put my hand on the doorknob without puking and fainting?”

“It’s fiction. You can’t do martial arts either, but your famous protagonist, Soren Blake, is a master at it. You haven’t flown in outer space and fucked three alien dudes, or if you have, you are completely holding out on me.”

“Why are we friends again?” I stare out onto Howard Street, wanting the six-feet-three, 260-pound Jake Tanner to reappear. I hadn’t gotten a good look at him the other day and my image of him is fuzzy. I’ve crafted him with a Seth Rogen physique, which is comforting for me. The guys with the real hard bodies are usually the biggest jerks. In my fantasy, Jake Tanner is a sweetheart who helps old ladies across the street and talks to virtual strangers on the phone for thirty minutes or so. The fact that it isn’t entirely a fantasy makes it all the more amazing. This guy texted me, talked to me, and flirted with me, all without meeting in person. He knows I’m fucked up in the head, but still made time to chat.