I blow out a stream of air and then decide what the hell. He already knows I have issues. “I’ve been trying to force myself to go outside, leave my apartment.”

“Is that safe?”

“It’s how I won before. After—” I don’t even like to bring up the attack, but I force it out. “After the attack, I got scared of everything and everyone, but after like six months of solitude, I started going a little stir-crazy, so I tried to leave. I got as far as the stairs—I lived on the second floor—and had to turn around and go back. But I kept going back and I’d mark down in a little journal how long I stood there. After a couple of weeks, I looked at my log and saw I had stood five minutes outside my door. That was . . .” I try to find the right word to describe my triumph that day. “I felt like I’d won the Pennant and the Super Bowl all at the same time.” Please don’t find this pathetic, I cringe.

“I understand,” he says. “When I took my first step with the prosthetic, it felt as good as when I’d passed Ranger School.”

Okay, he did get it. Wait, did he say prosthetic? “You have a prosthetic?”

“Yes, left hand, left leg, below the knee.”

“Wow.” I didn’t know anyone who had a prosthetic. A couple of my characters in the Dark Worlds series had biomechanical limbs, but I’m a science fiction writer, so I can write any kind of thing I please, within the rules of the world I’d built. While I’d done some research, I had no idea what it meant to have a prosthetic.

“Is that a problem for you?”

There’s a hint of defensiveness behind his strong voice. If he only knew how exponentially more attractive he just made himself, he’d be frightened. He’d suffered a terrible blow to his body and probably his self-image, yet he had started his own business and is clearly very successful or Oliver would have never hired him. He is someone who’s overcome. Basically the person I want to be someday.

“No, not at all. I was just thinking how amazing you must be.”

“How do you figure?” He snorts.

I shrug, but he can’t see me. “Because you’re a bad-ass at protecting other people. Not to mention you can go outside whenever you want.”

“Are you saying you would give your left arm to be able to walk in Central Park?” It’s a joke. At least I think it’s a joke, but I’m not sure, so I don’t respond right away. He clears his throat. “Bad gimp joke. Anyway, let me know when I can come over and install the system.”

I chew on my lip. I’d like him to come over right now. I’d like to look at him, his tall frame, his prosthetics, what I presume to be a sweet and decent face. But then if I puked, passed out, or did anything embarrassing, I could kiss all my dreams good-bye. Actually, no, that’s all I’d have left of him—those dreams. “This will require you to come inside, right?”

“It would.”

“I . . . I just don’t know.”

“Can I help you in any way, honey?”

It is the endearment that does me in. Whatever defenses I had against him, and I didn’t think I had many, tumble down. I want to impress him, but more than that, I want to know him.

“I don’t get you.”

He doesn’t answer right away and I like that. Maybe I read more into it than I should but his hesitation makes it seem like his response is important enough to him that he’s not going to throw out a glib answer. “I like the sound of your voice.”

“Really?” I’m skeptical and thrilled all at the same time.

“Really.” Sometimes his responses are so dry I think he must be making a joke. “Why don’t I bring some food over?”

“Why?” I ask like a fool.

“So we can share a meal. Get to know one another.”

“What if—what if I can’t open the door?”

“Then I sit on one side and you sit on the other.”

“You’d do that for me?” My heart pounds frantically at the thought—half in panic and half in excitement.

Another of his long thoughtful pauses follows before he answers. “You’d be surprised what I’d be willing to do for you.”

For the next few hours, I write and then take breaks to practice opening the door. I visualize my portly fellow with the receding hairline—I added that detail because it fit with my safe image of him—outside, wearing khaki cargo pants, tennis shoes, and a white polo. No flannel. I shake my head and remove the receding hairline and replace the white polo with a dark blue polo, otherwise he looks too much like the cable repair guys on television. By the tenth time, I’m able to make it to the doorway and twist the knob. I don’t open it yet. While my palms are sweaty and my knees are weak, I don’t feel bile at the back of my throat and I’m still standing up.

Success. I can do this. I can let him in. I shut out the little voice in my head that chirps Dr. Terrance would not approve.

Excitedly, I call Daphne and tell her about my impending date. “Can you fall in love with someone you’ve never seen?” I ask as I straighten my hair. The wispy brown locks usually have a slight curl in them, but I want to look older and sophisticated.

“Sure. Isn’t that how Internet relationships are? You email someone or chat with them and then just confirm your lust in person. Why? Is this about the winky face person? The lumbosexual?”

“The lumbowhat?”

“That’s the type of guy who is spending thousands of dollars to look like he’s in a back-country camping ad, but he doesn’t camp. He just looks like he does, and he’ll cry if you show him a picture of a cute puppy. Hence the flannel and the inappropriate use of emoji.”

“No. He is definitely not a lumbosexual.” Jake didn’t seem like the crying type.

“Should you even be talking to this Jake guy? Have you cleared it with Dr. Terrance?”

“I don’t have to have permission from Dr. Terrance to make a new friend!” I exclaim, affronted.

“I’m just saying that so soon after your meltdown at the elevator, it doesn’t seem wise to invite some stranger into your apartment.”

“He’s going to sit on my balcony. He’s not even coming inside to act on my lust,” I point out.

“He’s bringing food and wants to get to know you better. That’s what guys do when they want to get in a girl’s pants.”

She’s right, but I’m okay with that because if all he wants is sex and I can actually follow through, that would be it’s own small miracle. “True, but what if I’m not pretty enough for him? Because for a guy to take on a basket case like me, he must either have no other options or he thinks I’m supermodel pretty.”

“You are very pretty,” come the words of a best friend.

“I’m not a dog, but I’m no model.” And model types are everywhere in New York. A guy like Jake who owns his own business and his own home would be attractive to them. Hell, he’d be attractive to 99.9 percent of the single heterosexual ladies in the city and half of the married ones too.

According to the little information that the Internet reveals, Jake owns an Upper West Side townhouse worth at least five million according to some real estate site. His mother was a lawyer and his father was a banker. Both are retired. He holds a degree in business management from Columbia, plus there’s the added benefit of a touch of danger. He was a soldier and wore a uniform. I found a picture of his platoon—or what I think might be his platoon—on Google but I didn’t know which of the dirty-faced, camo-wearing guys with guns was him. There isn’t much else that Google coughed up about him. “It’s all academic. I’ve not made a new friend or acquaintance since, you know, before.”

“There’s a first time for everything. By the way, the pages you sent me today were brilliant.