I guess I’m picking her up, then.

When I get to Wrigley’s, she’s wearing a slinky peach-colored top with no bra and I guess it’s a skirt.

“Ready to go?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I tell her. “Where are we going?”

“The roof,” she says. “I put out a picnic basket. Come on,” she says. “Let’s talk.”

Either she doesn’t know what’s coming and she’s about to get blindsided, or she knows exactly what’s coming and she’s trying to fuck her way out of it.

Either way, this is going to suck.

We get up on the roof, and I double-check to make sure the door is propped open so, just in case she tries something particularly savage, I can make some kind of escape.

“You had sex last night, didn’t you?” she asks.

I’m usually not one to be at a loss for words, but the bluntness of the question catches me off-guard.

“What kind of question is that?”

“Now that’s got to be one of the oddest pronunciations of the word ‘yes’ I’ve ever heard,” she says.

She’s smiling, but I don’t trust that she’s this blasé about it.

“Yeah,” I tell her, finally.

“Your roommate?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I say again, quietly.

I don’t know what it is, but Wrigley has a real knack of making me unsure of myself.

“How was it?”

The tension gets to be too much, so I do the only thing I can.

I laugh.

“You can’t honestly expect an answer to that question,” I tell her.

She rolls her eyes.

“That’s all right,” she says. “I figured you’d be off getting your dick wet, so I made sure not to waste my night either.”

If Wrigley was someone else, I’d think she was making this up to try to make me jealous. Knowing her, though, I have no doubt she’s telling the truth.

“All right,” I say, shrugging my shoulders, trying to be nonchalant.

I’m not going to lie. I am a bit jealous.

That said, I’m much happier to be with Leila. At least she’s not going to go down on the cab driver if we get into an argument.

Wrigley’s laugh is an odd mix of lighthearted and flat out disturbing.

“Oh, calm down,” she says. “So, is that all you wanted to talk to me about? I’m starting to feel a little overdressed.”

“Overdressed?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she says. “Obviously, we’re not going to be making it exclusive with each other, but I see no reason why we can’t keep fucking until we’re bored.”

“I don’t think you understand,” I start. “I love Leila.”

“I’m sure you do,” she says. “Sex has a way of tipping the scales in that direction—especially for people like you.”

I ignore the barb.

“You don’t understand,” I tell her. “I can’t see you anymore.”

That smile is back, but the lighthearted aspect to it is gone.

“Oh, you can’t tell me you’re that whipped already,” she says. “I’m very discreet. I’ll even meet you at the office for your lunch break or dinner break, or whatever the fuck chefs do. We’ve got too much sexual chemistry for either of us to just walk away from it now.”

She’s fucking with me. She has to be.

I smile.

She smiles back.

“Really,” I tell her. “I’d like to stay friends, but we can’t see each other that way. Not anymore.”

“Oh,” she says. “All right, I get it.”

“Riggs—”

“Do you really think now is the time to debut a pet name?” she snaps. “Just what happened to make you such a pussy anyway?”

And I actually, for a moment, believed that things were going to be idyllic from here on out: how naïve.

“I’ll tell you what,” she says. “I know you’re basking in the glowing warmth of strange, so I’m going to give you today, tomorrow and—what the hell?—I’ll throw in Tuesday. After that, though,” she says, “I’m expecting your call.”

“I’m sorry, Wrigley,” I tell her. “It’s just not going to happen. We can be friends, but—”

“Has anything ever given you the impression that I wanted to be your friend?” she asks.

“The other morning, you told me that I should figure out what my feelings for Leila were,” I rejoin. “I thought you were—”

“A bit freaked about settling down?” she asks. “Uh, fuck yeah. I was willing to give it a shot, though, ‘cause you seemed so into the idea and I figured that it might not be so bad. Sure, I’d go a little crazy being with someone who starts bitching when I pull out a simple riding crop—”

“It might not have been such a big deal if you let me know it was coming,” I interrupt, clearly focusing on the wrong part of the discussion.

“Whatever,” she says. “Take your little vacation and spend some time going balls-deep in Ms. Goody-No-Clit, but we’re not done here, and I’m sure as hell not going to let you forget that.”

It sounds like a threat.

“What is that supposed to mean?” I ask.

“I have ways of burning your shit to the ground that you can’t even imagine,” she says. “Just think about it and tell me if I’m really the type of woman you want as an enemy.”

“I don’t want you as an enemy,” I tell her. “Really, though, I don’t want you as a friend either. You’re out of your fucking mind.”

“You know what they say about crazy chicks, though,” she says, licking her lips.

This conversation’s gone from surreal to disturbing to surreally disturbing and I’ve had about all I can take.

“Give me a call sometime if you decide to get your head out of your ass,” I tell her.

“I am pretty bendy,” she says. “You’re going to miss that before the week is out. Trust me.”

“I think I’ll live,” I tell her as I move for the door.

“You don’t know what you’re doing!” she calls from behind me.

I’m just surprised she hasn’t tried to dive tackle me or something. Then again, violence is only really her thing if it’s in the bedroom.

What the fuck was I thinking coming here?

“Dane!” she yells behind me, and I turn around.

She’s sitting on the ledge of the building, her legs spread. She doesn’t have to move her skirt for it to be apparent that she’s not wearing any underwear.

“Your brain can tell you whatever it wants to, but you know your dick is going to miss me,” she says, playing with herself—I don’t know how else to describe it—aggressively.

The present moment is easily on my list of top five ridiculous things I’ve ever witnessed with my own two eyes. Even for that short a list, this is remarkably near the top.

“Get off the ledge,” I tell her as calmly as I can, witnessing someone actually going crazy before my very eyes. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“What? Do you think I’m going to jump?” she screams at me as I open the door to the roof.

I really want to kick the cinderblock she used to prop the door open but I resist the urge.

“I have too much to fucking live for!” she screams.

It’s not until I hear the clatter of Wrigley’s stilettos on the hard ground of the roof that my resistance fails and, as soon as I’m completely inside the door, I knock the cinderblock over.

A second later, she’s pounding on the door, and I’m actually starting to feel sorry for her. It had been a terrifying, if somewhat silly, spectacle, but I haven’t exactly been treating her very well.

On the other hand, I’m pretty sure that if I were to open the door now, she’d come through with balled fists, and I have no illusion about which one of us would win a physical confrontation.

When it comes to betting on a fight, always, always, always put your money on the one who’s not going to pull any punches.

I may be a dick, but I’d never raise my hand to a woman. I’m a dick, not a coward.

That said, I’m also certain that Wrigley doesn’t have a no-assault rule so, to ease my conscience and keep my eyeballs and spleen from ending up in Wrigley’s shadow box, I find the burly maintenance guy and tell him, “I think someone’s stuck on the roof. I’ve been hearing all this pounding and scratching up there. You should probably check it out.”