The three of them looked back and forth like they were trying to communicate telepathically. He had them worried, he could see it.

Then Trish said, “Oh, Alex.” She sighed.

“What?”

Scott shook his head.

“What?”

“I’m afraid,” Douglas said, “it doesn’t work that way.”

“Why not?”

“May I ask where you got this money?”

“No.”

“All right. In that case, it’s a reasonable assumption that your previous failure to pay has not been inability, as you’ve claimed. You’ve simply been holding out.”

“No, that’s not true.” Shit, shit, shit. He spoke quickly. “It’s a bonus. From my job.”

“A twelve-thousand-dollar bonus for a bartender?”

“Well, not all of it. Some of it is money I borrowed.”

“From a bank?”

“From friends.”

“I see. That, I’m afraid, only further proves that you are not capable of supporting, um, Cassie, on your own.”

“No, that’s-” It was all getting turned around. “Look, what does it matter where it came from? It covers what I owe.”

“It matters a great deal, Mr. Kern. But even setting that aside for a moment, I’m afraid that child support isn’t like paying off a football bet. You can’t just come in with the money when you have it. The purpose is to provide a solid household for the child.”

“Listen, you slick-”

“Alex.” Trish spoke softly. “I should have known you’d try something like this. You couldn’t just let things be.” She turned to him, hit him with steady brown eyes. “You always did things the hard way. Always denied what was right in front of you. Ignored the facts that didn’t fit AlexVision.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Please. Can’t you accept reality? Can’t we do this without ruining everything?”

He stared at her, his mouth open. “What are you talking about?”

“I know you think you’re doing this for Cassie. But you’re not. You’re doing it for yourself. And I’m begging you. Please don’t. Please?”

Alex looked around the table. “Do you honestly think I’m going to just sit back and let you walk out with my daughter?”

Trish lowered her head to one hand, closed her eyes. It was a gesture he remembered well, a pose she held while she was gearing herself up for something. The recognition brought a surprising stab of sentiment.

Finally, she raised her head, looked at the lawyer, and nodded.

Douglas said, “Mr. Kern, I’m sorry to have to do this, but in light of your pattern of missed payments, and at the request of my clients, I’m going to recommend to the judge that this settlement be reexamined, and specifically that visitation rights be limited, if not removed altogether.”

“What?” He felt his stomach fall away.

“In addition to which, while this case is being considered, I would ask that you make no attempt to see the child without seventy-two hours’ notice, and only in the presence of one of the parents.”

“I’m one of the parents.”

Douglas sighed. “I’m sorry, Mr. Kern. I know this must hurt. Please understand that all of this is for the good of the child.”

“Her name is Cassie.”

There was a long silence, and then Scott said, “It’s time for you to leave, Alex.”

He stared at each of them. The lawyer, bland and lethal, a fountain pen in his hand. Scott marking his territory. Trish seemed like she was about to cry, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. His hands shook, and the pulse in his head seemed loud. “What are you saying? Are you-”

“I’m sorry, Alex,” Trish said to the cabinets. “I tried to warn you.”

HE WAS DRUNK. That much he knew. That much made sense.

It had felt good to key the lawyer’s Lexus on his way out, leaving a wicked scratch across the driver’s side. But that hadn’t erased the memory of what had happened, and the idea of staring at the walls of his shithole apartment was intolerable. So after driving back to the city, he’d gone to the shithole bar at the end of the block instead. It was one of those places no one knew the name of, a too-bright space decorated with neon signs for cheap beer. He’d taken a stool and asked the bartender for three shots of Wild Turkey, done them in quick succession, and gestured at them again.

“Bad day?”

“Fuck you.”

The man had snorted, shrugged, then poured the shots again. “Hope you choke on them.”

“Me too.” He picked one up, knocked it down, then put his elbows on the bar and his head in his hands.

How had it come to this?

Alex was the first to admit that nothing in his life made much sense. Hadn’t since he hit adulthood, really. There was a myth that everybody’s life proceeded according to a larger plan. Where he’d gotten that idea, he wasn’t sure, one of those things picked up in childhood, along with the idea that love lasted forever and that the good guys won and that it was never too late to change everything. It was a lie, all of it. Your buddies didn’t come in at the last second to save you. Things didn’t work out. People weren’t happy. Or if they were, that was just so that when unhappiness hit, it stung worse.

And yet the fabric of the lies was so dramatic, so interwoven into every facet of his life, that he didn’t know where to begin to untangle it. Every story his parents had read at his bedside, every teacher in every school, every sermon he’d ever heard, they all taught that life made sense. That if you tried to live well, and if you looked hard enough, there was a pattern and a plan.

But here he was. Here they all were, he and Jenn and Mitch and Ian. Four people of good health and no major handicap. They should have been happy. Content. Hell, just satisfied. He’d have settled for satisfied.

But was Ian, with his flashy suits and expensive apartment? Mitch, with his won’t-harm-a-fly mentality and quiet daydreams? Jenn, hoping purpose would just land in her lap? They had everything going for them and nowhere to go.

It was close to one in the morning by the time he hailed a cab, drunk, tired, and desperate for comfort.

SHE’D BEEN AFTER the maintenance crew to fix the lock on the foyer of her apartment building for months, but Alex was glad to see they hadn’t yet. He pushed through, climbed the stairs, hesitated in front of Jenn’s door, then rapped three times, hard. He was wobbly on his feet and in his heart, and he just wanted to burrow deep into soft sheets warm from her body, breathe in the smell of her, and let himself fall into the abyss. He banged again. Waited a few moments, and was about to knock a third time when he heard footsteps.

The door swung open. Mitch stood inside, wearing jeans and no shirt.

Alex stared. Spun, glanced around the hallway. Had he somehow given the cabbie the wrong address? What was-this was the right place. He turned back to the door. Mitch said nothing, just crossed his arms. There was a hint of swagger in his pose, bare chested and with messed-up hair, the guy clearly wanting him to do the math.

The corner of Mitch’s lips curled into a slight smile. “What’s up, Alex? What do you want?”

Comfort. Safety. A fresh start.

The life I imagined.

“Nothing,” he said and turned away.