The Knicks haven’t been good since Willis Reed¸ and I suppose it’s a measure of Ian’s steadfastness that he still pays good money for this type of torture. And if there’s anyone who has money to burn, it’d be him.

Ian Kerr is a billionaire. When he plays poker, there are only a few people in the world who can afford to sit with him. I’m not one of them. I only have a few million to my name, and unlike Ian, who transformed himself from a street rat who ran small cons on the Atlantic City boardwalk, my paltry millions are inherited from my grandfather. The Tanners have a long history of modest wealth based on the founding branch having manufactured and sold gunpowder during the Civil War—a decent work ethic interrupted by a few spendthrifts means our money has lasted but hasn’t grown.

Besides, a seven-figure net worth in the city is nearly a dime a dozen. One in twenty New Yorkers can lay claim to that.

“Watching the home team lose makes me thirsty,” I declare and hold up my arm to signal the beer hostess.

Kaga’s lip curls. “How can you drink that piss water?”

“Don’t have much choice here.”

Kaga’s one of those men whose fortune rivals Ian’s. His large Japanese conglomerate distributes everything from domestic beverages to some of the best brandy known to man. Kaga’s making inroads in the international real estate community as well. Soon half of New York will be owned by Kerr and the other half by Kaga. Since both pay me a lot of money to do investigative and security work for them, I’m completely fine with their impending takeover. Could be worse.

It was Ian’s and my mutual interest in cars that led to our first meeting at a Long Island body shop that worked on foreign sports cars. I was getting my tires rotated on my Audi A8, one of my few extravagances, and he was eying a custom remake of a 1970s McLaren F1, which cost about as much as an apartment on the Upper East Side.

When he found out what I did for a living, he had me investigate a couple of principals in a company he’d wanted to take over. It worked out well, and after that the acquaintance grew into a sort of friendship. Through him I met Kaga, who’d done a few deals with Ian, and I’d connected with these men, despite our varied backgrounds.

Kaga and I had watched with bemusement as Ian fell hard for Tiny, just a year earlier. He’d seen her on the sidewalk and told me she was the one.

The one to what? I’d asked.

She’s going to either remake me or break me, he’d answered.

I’d been remade and broken and I wasn’t interested in going through that again, but I won’t deny that seeing Ian and Tiny together has made me feel . . . restless. Maybe that’s why my thoughts have been lingering on Natalie. She’d been bent by a rough hand but was fighting back. That’s intriguing to me in a way that the popular supermodel who has been gazing longingly in our direction isn’t.

“You should take her up on her offer,” Kaga says, dipping his head toward the model.

“I think you’re the one she’s trying to consume with her eyes.”

“No, I don’t think she’s that discriminating. Any one of us would do.” He nudges me as the beer arrives.

“Not interested.” I take my beer with my prosthetic and give the server a twenty. “Keep the change.”

Her eyes widen in surprise that I can hold the plastic cup, but holding things isn’t an issue. Gross motor tasks are fairly easy for me. It’s the fine motor skills that are problematic.

“I thought you had finished with your journalist friend.” Kaga makes a shooing gesture toward the waitress and she scurries away.

“I did. What about the girl over there don’t you like?” It’d be nice if he started seeing someone. That way Sabrina could move on.

Kaga weighs his response carefully, his tension visible. Finally, in deference to our friendship, he says, “I am not interested either.”

He wants to say that he has interest in only one woman and, to give him credit, I haven’t seen him with anyone in recent memory. Granted, he is not in New York for great swaths of time, so he could be fucking a dozen different women in different cities, but Kaga’s too decent for that. It’s his honor that keeps him from Sabrina as long as I disapprove. But it’s also his honor that has gotten him into his current predicament.

I take a long draft of the flavored water that the Garden serves as beer. A shift reveals Ian’s interest has been drawn away from the game. Both of them look at me expectantly.

“You have to clean house first,” I say in answer to the unstated question as to when I’ll give my blessing.

“Maybe I will,” he responds quietly. Ian nods in satisfaction and turns back to the game.

I hide my surprise by lifting the beer again. It looks like I’m not the only one unsettled by Ian and Tiny’s pairing.

“Sir, would you like to come out at halftime and be honored for your service?” A dark-suited young man with a lanyard around his neck proclaiming his position as Entertainment Staff appears at my side.

Kaga covers his face to hide a smirk, while I try to summon a smile to soften my emphatic response.

“No. I never served. I lost my hand in an unfortunate meatpacking incident,” I lie.

The young man colors and his gaze flicks behind him. “I must have been mistaken then. So sorry to have bothered you.”

As he leaves I scan the crowd behind him, only to see my old therapist, Dr. Crist, in the mix.

I give him a one-fingered salute with my prosthetic, which he acknowledges with a wave and a laugh.

“You know him?” Kaga asks.

“Isaiah Crist served in the army during the first Gulf War, and suffered a hip disarticulation.” At Kaga’s raised eyebrows, I elaborate. “His amputation is at the hip instead of below the knee like mine.” I tap my lower left prosthetic. “After he was medically discharged, he went back and got his head-shrinking degree. He’s expensive as fuck and has a clientele list that would make your head spin, but I met him when he was doing pro bono work down at Bethesda.”

“What was that all about then? I know you do not enjoy being on display.”

“He’s just fucking with me. It’s an army thing.”

Kaga looks unimpressed. “Did the nosy journalist turn you off women?”

“The game must really bore you if we’re delving back into my personal life.”

“Yes,” he says with a grin and an expectant look. I’m not ready to talk about my surprising attraction toward Natalie. I can’t explain it to myself yet, but I’m honest enough to admit it exists.

I like her taste in books, her plucky attitude, and her unwillingness to be cowed by her fear. She’s interesting in a way that the other women I’ve been with since I was discharged haven’t been. That may be a bigger reflection on me than the women of New York, though.

“When I have something to share, I’ll be sure to call you up right away,” I reply.

“I’d share my own personal female woes, but I suspect it would make you uncomfortable.”

“You’d be right.” The last thing I want to hear is what he wants from my sister. But I like Kaga, so I add, “Sorry.”

Kaga shakes his head slightly. “Your devotion to your family is one of the things I admire most about you, so there is no apology necessary. But you realize it is in my best interest to see you helplessly in love like our friend Ian.”

Ian gives a nod of acknowledgment, though he doesn’t turn away from the game. “He’s right. You need to pair up so that Tiny has someone to do shit with when we go out to dinner. She’s tired of your single asses. If you aren’t going to give Kaga and Bri your blessing, then you need to step up.”

“Oh well, then I’ll get right on that for your wife. Hey, single lady, want to hook up for an unspecified period of time? My buddy’s wife is tired of talking to penises when we go out.”

“I’d phrase it slightly differently,” Kaga offers unhelpfully.