“Cute,” I said, pointing to the jacket, which was black.

“It’s too tight.” He tugged at the sleeves. “Everything is too tight. I thought being in love would give me the motivation to lose ten pounds, but it’s been the opposite.” Q worked out religiously and attempted every diet he heard about, but so far the flawless gay-man physique evaded him.

“You look great.” This was true. Happiness, even if it hadn’t translated into weight loss, made Q’s gray eyes sparkle and his skin gleam.

“Thanks. Is this new?” He fingered my waffle-cotton duvet cover.

“It’s old, actually.” I had been using a beautiful ivory spread that Sam and I had registered for and gotten as an early wedding gift. But once everything with Sam blew up, I tucked it in the closet for the time being.

“Is this where the magic happened?” Q patted the bed.

“Here and in the kitchen.”

“Tell me.”

“His name is Theo.”

“Nice. What’s he do?”

“Owns a Web design software company.”

“Like a real company? Or is he one of those guys who says he has a company, but it’s really him in his pajamas in his studio apartment?”

“From what I hear, it’s a real company, with some big profits.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“Jane.”

“How is she?”

I almost said, In deep shit with her husband. But I held my tongue, since I’d been on a stop-swearing campaign for a while now. The other reason I didn’t say it was because I didn’t believe in telling one friend another’s business. “She’s great. She’s the new anchor at Trial TV, that start-up legal network that launches Monday.”

“It’s perfect for her.”

“I know. And she’s taking me with her.”

“What?”

“She asked me to be a legal analyst, kind of a reporter. What do you think? Ridiculous?”

He sat back and crossed his arms. “I think it’s brilliant. You’re TV pretty. You’ve got that great red hair and that crazy big smile. And you could talk your way out of a Turkish prison.”

“But I’m a lawyer, not a journalist.”

Q held up a palm in protest. “Are you kidding? Hardly anyone is a journalist anymore. Trust me, the business news stations are always on at our house, and they’ve got these sweet little children broadcasting from the trading floors. Don’t tell me any of those kidlets are journalists. Besides, you’re a lawyer, which means you know how to talk and to think on your feet. That’s what they want.”

“I guess.” Now that I was away from the drinks Jane was buying and the enthusiasm she projected, I was a little unsure. “God knows I need the money. Unlike you.”

Q smiled. “Yes, I am a kept man, and I love it.”

“So everything is sunshine and roses with you two?”

“I have to wear sunscreen all the time, and there are no thorns.”

“Wow. It sounds different than it was with Max.”

“It is different.”

“But you were in love with Max.”

“I was. At one point. In the only way I knew how to be at that time. And then somewhere it turned into me loving Max like a family member. I still love him, even though he won’t return my phone calls. But what I have now is that I’m intensely, absolutely in love, Iz. It’s like…It’s like…”

He trailed off, and I glanced over at him. He was staring into the distance, at the back wall of my bedroom, but it was as if he was watching a sunset fall over the Aegean Sea; he looked that ecstatically happy.

I felt a shiver of envy run through me. Because that’s how I used to look when I thought about Sam.

“Anyway,” Q said, coming out of his dreamy fog, “enough shoptalk, enough about me. Tell me about this Theo guy. How old? With a name like Theodore and his own company, I’d say forties, but since it’s software, I’m going with thirty-six.”

I purposely didn’t meet Q’s eyes in the mirror as I fastened my silver hoop earrings. “Bit younger than that.”

“Thirty?”

“Little younger.”

“Twenty-five?” Q said, surprised.

“Not exactly.”

“Twenty-three?” His voice was incredulous now.

“Um…Twenty-one?”

He whistled and clapped. “Damn, girl. That’s illegal in some states.”

I turned and leaned against my dresser, facing Q now. “You would not believe how sexy this kid is.”

“Oh, this is going to be trouble.”

“No, it’s not. It’s not going to be anything. It was just a…a thing.”

Q laughed, his gray eyes glinting. “Believe me, I think it’s about time you unleashed your inner slut. I applaud you for it. But this thing is going to be a train wreck.”

“No, it’s not. I might not even see him again.”

He laughed harder, throwing his head back. “Who are you kidding? You’re hooked.”

“No, I’m not.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “And why would it be a train wreck?”

“The young ones always are.”

“But he’s older than his years. He’s been working since he was in high school. He went to college for a year. Stanford, I think. He has his own company.”

“Train wreck. In the best way. Believe me, I think you need this kid. He’s going to get you all hot and bothered and loosen you up. It’s exactly what you require after all this seriousness with Sam.”

We grinned at each other, and I had to admit, I kind of agreed with him. And despite the wisecracks, it was nice to have Q back the way we used to be.

“And I want to thank you,” Q continued. “I have been so bored lately, and now I’ve got a front-row seat for this show.”

“Why have you been bored?”

He sighed. “You know how it is. I was miserable when I was working, but…”

“Excuse me?” I put my hands on my hips. “You were miserable when you were working with me?”

“No, no. You know I loved working with you. I just didn’t love the work I was doing. I wasn’t meant to be a legal secretary.”

“But you’ve been taking acting classes again since we left the firm.”

“I quit. I’m too old for it now.”

“You’re in your early thirties!”

“And you should see everyone in these acting classes-they’re in their early twenties. Like your boyfriend.”

“Shut up.”

“I am so going to love this show.”

I moved away from the dresser. “There’s no show, and there’s no train wreck.”

Q swung his feet over the side of the bed and stood. “Yes, there is, and, honey, I’m going to be here until the last curtain call and the last crash.”

7

I looked at Jane across the table. “Jane, I’m…Well, I’m kind of shocked.”

She blew on her half-full mug of coffee, clearly annoyed, then pushed it away.

We were at a coffee shop on Chicago Avenue. And after Jane gave me a bunch of details about Trial TV-the mission of the network, what I’d be doing there, instruction on landing news stories and writing them-she just announced that yes, she’d gone home with that writer last night, and no, as Zac had said, it wasn’t the first time something like that had happened.

“Why are you shocked?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” I stirred a few Splendas into my second green tea. “I guess because I thought you were on top of it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t get mad at me. I’ve seen you get dragged around by your agent on occasion, but generally you seem like someone who’s got it together.”

“Izzy, nobody has everything together.” She shook her head and glanced away from me. When she turned back, she looked suddenly exhausted. “Nobody’s perfect. Didn’t you find that out when Sam disappeared?”

“Yeah, but I know why Sam did what he did.”

“And if you’re so fine with that, then why aren’t you back together?”

A good question. One Sam had been asking me, one I’d been asking myself for months.

A few years ago, when Sam and I discussed getting married, I had journaled about it, I had visualized it and debated the pros and cons. I talked to Sam about it, and I talked to my friends about it. And the conclusion I came to in my heart was…Yes. I wanted to be married, and I wanted to be married to Sam. But the big wedding Sam desired and my mother supported entirely had completely overwhelmed me. I was just about to talk to Sam about scaling it back, maybe even cancelling it, when he disappeared. So much had happened since then, and now something felt stuck in our wheel, dragging Sam and me slower and slower.