Why I’d decided to go on this date was beyond me. There was nothing wrong with Amanda. She was beautiful and nice, but my heart wasn’t in it.

Kristen had been right: Stuntman Mike was a hunting dog. He was like a decoy, a call, and a retriever all in one.

I had stopped at a sandwich place before the Home Depot. It was by a yoga studio where a class had just gotten out, and I’d been approached by almost every woman within a fifty-foot radius. For being such a crazy shit, Stuntman Mike sure was in his element with the ladies. The little dog was all swagger and charm, letting them hold him while he licked their faces. Kristen had dressed him in a shirt that read I LOVE MY DADDY, and it had tipped the scales.

Amanda and I sat at a bar about ten minutes from Kristen’s house. I’d asked her to drinks instead of dinner so I could bail if we didn’t hit it off. She wore a pink, fitted dress and she smelled like peaches. Long brown hair, killer legs, nice eyes.

Too much makeup. Ordered some fruity, skinny martini with an umbrella in it. Doesn’t eat cheeseburgers.

She put the tips of her fingers on my knee. “I’m going to run to the ladies’ room.” She bit her lip, her hair falling in a cascade over her shoulder. “They have really great salads here. Want to get a table?” She winked at me and slid off the stool.

The ice cubes clinked in my tumbler as I took a swallow of my old-

fashioned and watched her walk to the bathroom.

I wondered what Kristen was doing.

I pulled out my cell phone and scrolled to her number. She picked up on the second ring. “Hey. What’s up?” she asked. I could hear her fingers tapping on her laptop.

“What’re you doing?” I leaned on the bar.

“Invoicing. Same thing I was doing when you left half an hour ago. That was quick. Unless you’re calling me to see if you and your date can use my guest room…”

I smirked. “Can I?”

“If you change the sheets,” she said without skipping a beat. “So what’s our story, then? I’m your sister? I’ll need details if I’m going to wingman you properly. And if she ends up being some crazy bitch who keeps showing up over here looking for you, I’m taking a hundred dollars off your paycheck per infraction.”

My laugh made the bartender turn around. “I don’t need your guest room. But thanks for the offer. I’ll keep that in mind. She’s in the bathroom.”

“You’re calling me while she’s in the bathroom? Oh my God, you’re bored as fuck.”

I chuckled. “I just spent twenty minutes listening to the benefits of an organic, vegan diet. I haven’t eaten dinner yet, and I’m craving pepperoni now. I’m, like, ten minutes from you. Want to share a pizza in a half an hour?”

“I could eat.”

I grinned. The color pink approached from my peripheral vision. “Text me what you want on your pizza,” I whispered. “Gotta go.” I hung up and swiveled back to my date. “I just got called in.” I pulled out my wallet and put a few bills on the bar. “I’m sorry to have to take off on you.”

She looked disappointed, but she seemed to believe me, which at the very least lessened my guilt at running out on her. I should have never asked her out in the first place. I just wasn’t ready. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

I picked up a pizza and some Stone Brewing dark ale and headed to Kristen’s, actually looking forward to going back over.

It occurred to me that this was what I should have been doing tonight

from the very beginning. I didn’t have to work at hanging out with her.

When Kristen opened the door holding Stuntman Mike, she was in curlers.

If I ever had any question whether she was remotely into me, her complete and utter lack of an attempt to impress me was the answer. She did not give a fuck.

I actually liked that she was herself in front of me. But the implication didn’t thrill me. It meant her feelings toward me were totally platonic. For all intents and purposes, I might as well have been the gay friend, or a brother or something. I was friend zoned, hard, and this was the proof. The more I got to know her, the more this bothered me.

She must really be serious about Tyler.

She plopped down onto the couch and put her laptop on her lap. “Wanna watch something?”

After moving her neat invoice pile, I set the pizza down on the coffee table. “Sure.” I sat down next to her and opened a beer for her.

There was something intimate about being in her house at night. The energy was different. The light was dimmer, and things seemed quieter. And I wasn’t there to work, which was a definite change in dynamic.

She took the beer I opened for her. “Thanks.” She gave me the remote. “I’ve gotta finish this billing though.”

“How about Death Proof ?” I asked, opening the lid on the pizza box. “You’ve already seen it, so you won’t miss anything.”

“Perfect.”

I scrolled through Netflix and found it. We sat there with Stuntman Mike between us wearing his BITCHES LOVE ME shirt, drinking beer and eating pizza through the first half hour of it. Then she did a final tap on her laptop and shut the lid.

“So what was wrong with her?” she asked, propping her feet up on the coffee table.

“Who?” “Your date.”

I shrugged. “Nothing in common. And I’m just not ready to date, I think.”

“Then why’d you ask her?” She looked at me, balancing her beer on her

thigh.

“She was a yoga instructor. Yoga pants.” I bounced my eyebrows. “Well, you are an ass-man.”

“Plus, I was being mobbed. I panicked.”

She snorted. “Do you realize how bendy she probably was?” She took a swallow of her beer. “You messed up, dude.”

I smiled, putting my beer to my lips. “Eh, I’ll be all right. Besides, women like that are too much work. The better looking they are, the crazier they are.” I’d had far too much experience with this.

“That’s not a universal rule. Sloan is hardly crazy at all and look at her.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. She seems like she could go off the deep end if the right guy pushed her. Brandon’s just too mellow to unleash the fury, I think.”

She laughed. I loved it when she laughed. Like a little reward.

“Well, your yoga instructor was a vegan, so at least you know she wouldn’t have boiled your rabbit. You smell good, by the way,” she said, like an afterthought.

“Thanks.”

She smelled good too. When she’d given me back my shirt, some of her perfume still clung to it, even though she’d washed it. Tart apples. I didn’t want to admit how many times I’d put that shirt to my nose. I didn’t want to admit that I’d wished a few times I could put my nose to her neck to see if it smelled different on her skin.

I reminded myself that she was taken. The good ones always were.

What I had sitting next to me was the “cool girl.” That rare woman who was gorgeous without being nuts. The girl in high school who hung out with all the guys, but she never dated any of them because none of them was mature enough for her. That girl who had a boyfriend who went to college and picked her up in his car after school. She could beat you at beer pong and had a football team who would kick your ass for saying one wrong word to her, but she’d never let them because she could handle herself.

“What?” she asked. “You’ve never seen a woman in curlers before?”

I was staring. Just sitting there, staring at the side of her face like a fucking creep. “I was just wondering what you were like in high school.”

“Less sarcastic. Skinnier.”

I smirked. “Drama club? Sports?”

“Orchestra.”

“I pictured you as head of the debate team for some reason.” She nudged me. “What about you?”

“I wasn’t into sports. I just kind of got through it. Not very memorable.” I drank my beer. “What kind of guys did you date?”

She looked back at the TV. “College guys, mostly.”

I knew it.

A cell phone rang from the end table to my right and Kristen bolted up straight. She put her beer on the coffee table and dove across my lap for her phone, sprawling over me.

My eyes flew wide. I’d never been that close to her before. I’d only ever touched her hand.

If I pushed her down across my knees, I could spank her ass.

She grabbed her phone and whirled off my lap. “It’s Sloan. I’ve been waiting for this call all day.” She put a finger to her lips for me to be quiet, hit the Talk button, and put her on speaker. “Hey, Sloan, what’s up?”

“Did you send me a potato?”

Kristen covered her mouth with her hand and I had to stifle a snort. “Why? Did you get an anonymous potato in the mail?”

“Something is seriously wrong with you,” Sloan said. “Congratulations, he put a ring on it. PotatoParcel.com.” She seemed to be reading a message. “You found a company that mails potatoes with messages on them? Where do you find this stuff?”

Kristen’s eyes danced. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you have the other thing though?”

“Yeeeess. The note says to call you before I open it. Why am I afraid?” Kristen giggled. “Open it now. Is Brandon with you?”

“Yes, he’s with me. He’s shaking his head.”

I could picture his face, that easy smile on his lips.

“Okay, I’m opening it. It looks like a paper towel tube. There’s tape on the—AHHHHHH! Are you kidding me, Kristen?! What the hell!”

Kristen rolled forward, putting her forehead to my shoulder in laughter. “I’m covered in glitter! You sent me a glitter bomb? Brandon has it all

over him! It’s all over the sofa!”

Now I was dying. I covered my mouth, trying to keep quiet, and I leaned into Kristen, who was howling, our bodies shaking with laughter. I must not

have been quiet enough though.

“Wait, who’s with you?” Sloan asked. Kristen wiped at her eyes. “Josh is here.”

“Didn’t he have a date tonight? Brandon told me he had a date.” “He did, but he came back over after.”

“He came back over?” Her voice changed instantly. “And what are you two doing? Remember what we talked about, Kristen…” Her tone was taunting.

Kristen glanced at me. Sloan didn’t seem to realize she was on speaker. Kristen hit the Talk button and pressed the phone to her ear. “I’ll call you tomorrow. I love you!” She hung up on her and set her phone down on the coffee table, still tittering.

“And what did you two talk about?” I asked, arching an eyebrow. I liked that she’d talked about me. Liked it a lot.

“Just sexually objectifying you. The usual,” she said, shrugging. “Nothing a hot fireman like you can’t handle.”

A hot fireman like you. I did my best to hide my smirk. “So do you do this to Sloan a lot?” I asked.

“All the time. I love messing with her. She’s so easily worked up.” She reached for her beer.

I chuckled. “How do you sleep at night knowing she’ll be finding glitter in her couch for the next month?”

She took a swig of her beer. “With the fan on medium.”

My laugh came so hard Stuntman Mike looked up and cocked his head at me.

She changed the channel and stopped on HBO. Some show. There was a scene with rose petals down a hallway into a bedroom full of candles. She shook her head at the TV. “See, I just don’t get why that’s romantic. You want flower petals stuck to your ass? And who’s gonna clean all that shit up? Me? Like, thanks for the flower sex, let’s spend the next half an hour sweeping?”

“Those candles are a huge fire hazard.” I tipped my beer toward the screen.

“Right? And try getting wax out of the carpet. Good luck with that.” I looked at the side of her face. “So what do you think is romantic?”

“Common sense,” she answered without thinking about it. “My wedding

wouldn’t be romantic. It would be entertaining. You know what I want at my wedding?” she said, looking at me. “I want the priest from The Princess Bride. The mawage guy.”

I took a swallow of beer. “I’d put my wife in a chair when I’m supposed to pull off her garter, and I’d dance around her to ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’ like in Reservoir Dogs.”

“Yes! And I’d want my husband to show up at the last minute all red like in The Hangover. The pictures would be awesome.”

I turned back to the show with a smile.

This is the date I should have been on tonight. This was a date I would have gone home with.

“Hey,” she said, leaning her head back on the couch and looking at me. “I’m sorry I was rude to you when we first met.”

I chuckled. “So you’re going to stop giving me shit about my driving?” “No. You’re a horrible driver. I meant that stuff.”

I laughed.

“I had a bad week. You caught me on a really rough morning.” “Why?” I took a drink of my beer.

She paused for a moment like she was debating whether or not to elaborate. “Well, you know Miguel quit on me. And my period was pretty crappy. I haven’t really been sleeping, and that morning I met you, someone tried breaking into my house—”

“Wait, what?” My mood changed in an instant. I sat up and set my beer on the coffee table. “Someone tried breaking in here? Who?”

My reaction seemed to surprise her. “Look, you can’t tell Brandon about this. Sloan doesn’t know. She’s all into these crime shows and her imagination would just run wild. I don’t need her freaking out on me.”

“Did you call the cops?” “Of course.”

“Did they catch him?”

She shook her head. “They found a couple of cigarettes in the backyard and a beer can. It was three in the morning. Stuntman started barking. I walked the house and came around to the back door just in time to see the doorknob jiggle. The door was locked and they took off when I turned on the porch light. What?”

The look on my face must have been as pissed off as I felt. This was not

fucking okay. She was here by herself, all 110 pounds of her, and somebody tried coming in here to do God knows what to her. “Do you have an alarm system? A gun?” Why was she so fucking blasé about this?

“No. But soon I’ll have a Tyler. Nothing better than an armed Marine, right?”

I frowned. “You shouldn’t be here alone.”

“I’ll be fine.” She waved a hand at me. “I didn’t tell you to get you all worried. I just wanted you to know why I lost it on you. It was kind of the final straw in a week from hell. There was that and then Miguel quitting, and I was just exhausted and annoyed and you’re such a bad driver, hitting people at intersections—”

“Have the police followed up with you? Has anyone else reported break- ins?”

“No. But last night—” She stopped like she caught herself. I waited. “Last night what?”

“I found another can and two cigarette butts out there this morning.”

My jaw clenched. That was it. “I’m staying the night here until Tyler comes back.” I was dead serious. And no wasn’t an option.

Her face went soft. “While I appreciate the gallantry, you’re at the station half the time anyway.”

“And on those days, you go to Sloan’s. If you don’t, I’m telling Brandon what’s going on.”

She blinked at me.

“Look, if this were one of my sisters, I would hope that someone would do the same thing for her. You shouldn’t be here by yourself with nothing but the dog equivalent of a rape whistle to protect you. This fucker obviously knows you’re here alone. What if he would have gotten inside? Or grabbed you while you were walking the dog?” I got up.

“Where are you going?”

“We’re going. I’m not leaving you here while I run home.” “Run home for what?”

“To get my gun.”