When the water was hot, she cupped her hands under the faucet and splashed it on her face. Alex only had bar soap, not the facial scrub she liked, but one of the rules of their whatever-this-was was that they wouldn’t leave things at each other’s places. He said that it was because he didn’t want his daughter to notice it when she came over, start asking questions, but she suspected it was more that he wanted to be perfectly clear that they weren’t dating.

She found him in the kitchen, still naked, rummaging in the fridge. He had a great body: gym-built muscles that were iron-hard but not flashy or ridiculous, black tribal tattoos around his biceps, nice legs, just enough chest hair. “Beer?” he asked.

“Sure.”

He came out with a couple of Sierra Nevadas, popped the tops, and passed her one. She leaned against the counter, the Formica cool against her bare skin. He opened the drawer, took out his reserve cigarettes, lit up. “Weird scene tonight.”

She nodded. “That guy’s a trip.”

“He’s an asshole.”

“Well, yeah. Didn’t take much to spot that.”

“What really happened?”

She ticked a fingernail against the label, peeling the edge up. “I think he was about to ask me out.”

“Johnny?”

“Mitch.”

He took a long pull of beer. “You know, if he ever does, I don’t want to stand between-”

She shook her head. “I’ve caught him looking, but I don’t think it’s anything serious.” The post-sex glow was fading and leaving in its place a familiar sadness. “Is he dangerous? Your boss?”

“Nah. I mean, he knows people. But he’s kind of a blowhard. One of those guys who used to be scary and isn’t anymore, not unless you provoke him. I just said that stuff to keep Mitch from doing anything stupid.” He shrugged. “I love the guy, but he’s not Holyfield. His idea of a good punch is left chin to right fist, you know?”

Men and their alpha politics. The feeling in her chest grew worse, coupled with a hint of panic that she’d been getting lately. Like she was in the wrong place. “Do you ever feel,” she hesitated, “like you missed something?”

“I miss my daughter.” He took another hit off his cigarette, then threw it in the sink half-smoked. “All the time I’m not with her.”

“That’s sweet, but not what I mean. I’m talking about something abstract. Like”-she took a sip of beer-“it used to be that when I went out on a Saturday night, I’d have this lightness inside, this openness. The night could go anywhere. I could meet somebody incredible, or dance in a fountain, or have a conversation that would blow my mind. Have something really amazing happen, an adventure. Something that mattered. Life felt… imminent. You ever feel that?”

He nodded, said nothing.

“I don’t get that much anymore. Now I just go out, I come home, I go to work and book trips to places I’ve never been, probably won’t ever go. There’s no meaning to any of it. Those days are gone, and nothing that amazing happened, and now I’m out of time. All there is left to do is wait to turn into my mother.”

“Would that be so bad?”

“Have you met my mother?”

He laughed. Dropped his empty beer in the trash and opened the fridge for another. “You know, when I was twenty, I had it all figured out. Finish college, go to law school, get a job in the city. Then Trish got pregnant.” He paused. “I wanted her to have an abortion. But she said she couldn’t live with herself. So I did the”-he made air quotes-“right thing. Quit school, married her, started bartending. Told myself I could take classes on the weekends.”

“But you didn’t.”

He shook his head. “But it was OK, because Cassie was born. Best thing I’ve ever done. Only thing, really. The moment I saw her, all red and wrinkly and screaming… I don’t know. That angsty feeling you were talking about, it went away. Just went away.”

“You still see your ex?”

“Trish? Every time I pick Cassie up. She’s remarried, a guy who works in the Loop, does something corporate. He’s OK.”

“What about her?”

“She”-he hesitated-“She doesn’t think much of me these days.”

They fell silent. Jenn could hear the hum of the overhead lights. Alex was staring at his beer bottle. They’d been sleeping together on the sly for more than a year, a secret in a group that supposedly didn’t have any, and yet this was the most intimate conversation they’d had. All the games the four of them played, the way they kept the world at bay with them, it wasn’t just the world that was excluded, she realized. They’d also held themselves in reserve from one another.

All she’d wanted from life was adventure, something that mattered, that was exciting and maybe a little bit dangerous and had rewards to match. And yet here she stood, naked in the kitchen of a guy she knew well and yet not at all. A fuck-buddy. She wasn’t taking risks or reaching for anything. She was just killing time.

“You know what?” Jenn finished her beer. “I think I’m going to go.”

Alex looked up, surprised. “Yeah?”

“I’ve got things to do in the morning. You know.” She dropped her bottle in the trash, went to the bedroom. Stuffed her panties and bra in her purse, pulled on her jeans and shirt, then sat on the edge of the bed to wrestle with her boots. The covers were still tangled from sex, and she had a flash of Alex beneath her, arching upward as she rode him, her knees astride his hips, sweat running between her breasts, her head thrown back. For a moment she hesitated, but that feeling was still there, frustration and faint panic and, yeah, a little bit of self-loathing, too. She finished zipping her boots.

At the door, she went with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Have fun with Cassie tomorrow.”

“Thanks. The four of us still on for breakfast on Saturday?”

“Sure,” she said, “whatever.”

“Hey.” He stood framed in the doorway, still naked. “You OK?”

“I’m fine.” Then she turned and went down the stairs to hail a cab.

CHAPTER 2

THE HEALTH CLUB WAS SWANK, one of those places yuppies paid big money to not use. Not the good doctor, though. Bennett had been watching for a while now, and apart from one very interesting weakness, the doc was about as exciting as oatmeal. Up in the morning, coffee with the wife-through the windows she looked like she’d once been pretty-then the gym. Thirty on the treadmill, thirty in the pool, a massage, a shower, and off he went.

Bennett liked people who kept a routine. Sure as a poker tell, it meant they had some part of their lives where they varied, went a little crazy. Everybody needed something to hold back the press of days. Dieters binged, teetotalers threw down punch at the Christmas party, faithful husbands got blown by flirty sales associates on business trips. Screwing up was wired into the DNA.

And thank God for it. Man had to make a living.

He walked in the front door of the gym, offered his pass to the pretty boy behind the counter, who said, “Your guest membership expires tomorrow. What do you say-ready to make a better you? Should I get the enrollment forms ready?”

“I’ll think about it,” Bennett said, then headed for the pool.

Four lanes, half-Olympic length, under bright fluorescent lighting. A fat woman in a bathing cap did a slow breaststroke, her expression painfully earnest. Beside her, the doc cut through the water with a nice clean crawl, four strokes to a breath, flip-turns at the end of the lane. He wore goggles and a Speedo, and managed three laps to every one of the woman’s. Bennett stood behind the glass and watched, chlorine in his nostrils.

After ten minutes, the doc pulled himself out of the water. He stood on the edge and stretched, then headed for the exit. The lady’s eyes tracked his retreating back, something like hunger in them. Bennett held the door open.

“Thanks,” the doc said.

“No trouble.”