SUNDAY, October 24

1

HER HUSBAND’S ALMOST HOME. He’ll catch her this time.

There isn’t a scrap of curtain, not a blade of blind, in number 212—the rust-red townhome that once housed the newlywed Motts, until recently, until they un-wed. I never met either Mott, but occasionally I check in online: his LinkedIn profile, her Facebook page. Their wedding registry lives on at Macy’s. I could still buy them flatware.

As I was saying: not even a window dressing. So number 212 gazes blankly across the street, ruddy and raw, and I gaze right back, watching the mistress of the manor lead her contractor into the guest bedroom. What is it about that house? It’s where love goes to die.

She’s lovely, a genuine redhead, with grass-green eyes and an archipelago of tiny moles trailing across her back. Much prettier than her husband, a Dr. John Miller, psychotherapist—yes, he offers couples counseling—and one of 436,000 John Millers online. This particular specimen works near Gramercy Park and does not accept insurance. According to the deed of sale, he paid $3.6 million for his house. Business must be good.

I know both more and less about the wife. Not much of homemaker, clearly; the Millers moved in eight weeks ago, yet still those windows are bare, tsk-tsk. She practices yoga three times a week, tripping down the steps with her magic-carpet mat rolled beneath one arm, legs shrink-wrapped in Lululemon. And she must volunteer someplace—she leaves the house a little past eleven on Mondays and Fridays, around the time I get up, and returns between five and five thirty, just as I’m settling in for my nightly film. (This evening’s selection: The Man Who Knew Too Much, for the umpteenth time. I am the woman who viewed too much.)

I’ve noticed she likes a drink in the afternoon, as do I. Does she also like a drink in the morning? As do I?

But her age is a mystery, although she’s certainly younger than Dr. Miller, and younger than me (nimbler, too); her name I can only guess at. I think of her as Rita, because she looks like Hayworth in Gilda. “I’m not in the least interested”—love that line.

I myself am very much interested. Not in her body—the pale ridge of her spine, her shoulder blades like stunted wings, the baby-blue bra clasping her breasts: whenever these loom within my lens, any of them, I look away—but in the life she leads. The lives. Two more than I’ve got.

Her husband rounded the corner a moment ago, just past noon, not long after his wife pressed the front door shut, contractor in tow. This is an aberration: On Sundays, Dr. Miller returns to the house at quarter past three, without fail.

Yet now the good doctor strides down the sidewalk, breath chugging from his mouth, briefcase swinging from one hand, wedding band winking. I zoom in on his feet: oxblood oxfords, slick with polish, collecting the autumn sunlight, kicking it off with each step.

I lift the camera to his head. My Nikon D5500 doesn’t miss much, not with that Opteka lens: unruly marled hair, glasses spindly and cheap, islets of stubble in the shallow ponds of his cheeks. He takes better care of his shoes than his face.

Back to number 212, where Rita and the contractor are speedily disrobing. I could dial directory assistance, call the house, warn her. I won’t. Watching is like nature photography: You don’t interfere with the wildlife.

Dr. Miller is maybe half a minute away from the front door. His wife’s mouth glosses the contractor’s neck. Off with her blouse.

Four more steps. Five, six, seven. Twenty seconds now, at most.

She seizes his tie between her teeth, grins at him. Her hands fumble with his shirt. He grazes on her ear.

Her husband hops over a buckled slab of sidewalk. Fifteen seconds.

I can almost hear the tie slithering out of his collar. She whips it across the room.

Ten seconds. I zoom in again, the snout of the camera practically twitching. His hand dives into his pocket, surfaces with a haul of keys. Seven seconds.

She unlooses her ponytail, hair swinging onto her shoulders.

Three seconds. He mounts the steps.

She folds her arms around his back, kisses him deep.

He stabs the key into the lock. Twists.

I zoom in on her face, the eyes sprung wide. She’s heard.

I snap a photo.

And then his briefcase flops open.

A flock of papers bursts from it, scatters in the wind. I jolt the camera back to Dr. Miller, to the crisp “Shoot” his mouth shapes; he sets the briefcase on the stoop, stamps a few sheets beneath those glinting shoes, scoops others into his arms. One tearaway scrap has snagged in the fingers of a tree. He doesn’t notice.

Rita again, plunging her arms into her sleeves, pushing her hair back. She speeds from the room. The contractor, marooned, hops off the bed and retrieves his tie, stuffs it into his pocket.

I exhale, air hissing out of a balloon. I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath.

The front door opens: Rita surges down the steps, calling to her husband. He turns; I expect he smiles—I can’t see. She stoops, peels some papers from the sidewalk.

The contractor appears at the door, one hand sunk in his pocket, the other raised in greeting. Dr. Miller waves back. He ascends to the landing, lifts his briefcase, and the two men shake. They walk inside, trailed by Rita.

Well. Maybe next time.

When Saul dies, Simon is in physics class, drawing concentric circles meant to represent the rings of an electron shell but which to Simon mean nothing at all. With his daydreaming and his dyslexia, he has never been a good student, and the purpose of the electron shell—the orbit of electrons around an atom’s nucleus—escapes him. In this moment, his father bends over in the crosswalk on Broome Street while walking back from lunch. A taxi honks to a stop; Saul sinks to his knees; the blood drains from his heart. His death makes no more sense to Simon than the transfer of electrons from one atom to another: both are there one moment, and gone the next. Varya drives down from college at Vassar, Daniel from SUNY Binghamton. None of them understand it. Yes, Saul was stressed, but the city’s worst moments—the fiscal crisis, the blackout—are finally behind them. The unions saved the city from bankruptcy, and New York is finally looking up. At the hospital, Varya asks about her father’s last moments. Had he been in any pain? Only briefly, says the nurse. Did he speak? No one can say that he did. This should not surprise his wife and children, who are used to his long silences—and yet Simon feels cheated, robbed of a final memory of his father, who remains as close-lipped in death as he was in life.

Because the next day is Shabbat, the funeral takes place on Sunday. They meet at Congregation Tifereth Israel, the conservative synagogue of which Saul was a member and patron. In the entryway, Rabbi Chaim gives each Gold a pair of scissors for the kriah.

“No. I won’t do it,” says Gertie, who must be walked through each step of the funeral as if through the customs process of a country she never meant to visit. She wears a sheath dress that Saul made for her in 1962: sturdy black cotton, with a dart-fitted waistline, front button closure, and detachable belt. “You can’t make me,” she adds, her eyes darting between Rabbi Chaim and her children, who have all obediently slit their clothes above the heart, and though Rabbi Chaim explains that it is not he who can make her but God, it seems that God can’t, either. In the end, the rabbi gives Gertie a black ribbon to cut, and she takes her seat with wounded victory.

Simon has never liked coming here. As a child, he thought the synagogue was haunted, with its rough, dark stone and dank interior. Worse were the services: the unending silent devotion, the fervent pleas for the restoration of Zion. Now Simon stands before the closed casket, air circulating through the slit in his shirt, and realizes he’ll never see his father’s face again. He pictures Saul’s distant eyes and demure, almost feminine smile. Rabbi Chaim calls Saul magnanimous, a person of character and fortitude, but to Simon he was a decorous, timid man who skirted conflict and trouble—a man who seemed to do so little out of passion that it was a wonder he had ever married Gertie, for no one would have viewed Simon’s mother, with her ambition and pendulum moods, as a pragmatic choice.

After the service, they follow the pallbearers to Mount Hebron Cemetery, where Saul’s parents were buried. Both girls are weeping—Varya silently, Klara as loudly as her mother—and Daniel seems to be holding himself together out of nothing more than stunned obligation. But Simon finds himself unable to cry, even as the casket is lowered into the earth. He feels only loss, not of the father he knew but of the person that Saul might have been. At dinner, they sat at opposite ends of the table, lost in private thought. The shock came when one of them glanced up, and their eyes caught—an accident, but one that joined their separate worlds like a hinge before someone looked away again.

“You look tense,” Duane remarked between spoonfuls of chili.I realized I’d been frowning at the line of cars revving their engines. I glanced at Duane and lifted my chin toward the starting lineup.

“I’ve heard stories about cars smashing into the rock walls, and head-on collisions causing broken bones and leaving people unconscious.”

“Those rumors are true.”

I felt my frown deepen. “Why would anyone do it, then? If it’s so dangerous?”

He shrugged. “Because it isn’t easy, it takes patience and skill. Because it is dangerous and it’s fun to be a little scared sometimes.”

“A little scared?”

He gave me a crooked grin, his eyes on my mouth. “That’s right. Just a little.”

I snorted my disbelief. If dirt racing made Duane a little scared and sky diving wasn’t all that dangerous, I wondered what could possibly frighten Duane.

At the same moment a shot went off. The cars lurched forward and sped out of the starting line like demons from hell, the engines drowning all other sound. My eyes were glued to the action in front of me, how the cars—some old, some new, all souped-up—slipped and skidded all over the dirt track. Two of the seven spun out at the first turn, one of them bouncing off the rock wall.

I sucked in a startled breath and felt Duane’s hand close over mine. “He’ll be fine. He wasn’t going that fast.”

I leaned against his solid frame and watched the remainder of the race with rapt attention. Only three of the cars made it to the finish line and it was sickeningly close. The whole affair was irresponsible and dangerous, and I thought I’d disdain it.

I was wrong. I loved it. My heart was beating fast and yet I was sitting still.

I loved the sound of revving engines, the smell of engine oil mingled with smoke and earth. I loved the general air of excitement, comrade, adventure. I loved how these people loved their cars and raced them hard, used them, risked them. When the cars sped by I felt the rush of wind, the vibration in my chest.

Of course it helped seeing the people who crashed walk away from their cars with no assistance, looking more upset about losing the race and what had befallen their automobiles than about their cuts and bruises.

It was thrilling and everything seemed larger, brighter, clearer—likely a byproduct of the adrenaline pumping through my veins.

I surmised the turns were by far the most dangerous part of the race. Maintaining control of over a thousand pounds of steel, around a sharp corner, while traveling in excess of ninety miles per hour, on a dirt track basically sounded impossible to me. But some of the cars managed it beautifully, artfully.

By the end of fourth race I’d basically crawled into Duane’s lap, and I squealed unthinkingly each time the cars rounded a curve. My squeals made Duane laugh and he held me tighter.

As soon as the—five this time—remaining competitors crossed the finish line, Duane peeled my fingers from where I’d dug them into his legs.

“Having a good time?” He nuzzled my neck, kissing it, then set me away and stood.

I turned to him and I’m sure my eyes were huge, as was my smile. “Yes, I’m having the best time. I never thought I’d enjoy all this craziness, but it’s amazing and I’m so glad you brought me.”

He gave me and my run-on sentence a distracted half smile as he pulled out a pair of leather gloves from his jacket. “Good. That’s good.”

I glanced between him and the gloves he was pulling on, felt my own smile wane. He took off his jacket and handed it to me.

“Where are you…?” My mouth couldn’t quite form the question because I already knew the answer. Abruptly, my heart thudded in my chest quite painfully, jumping around like it was trying to break free.

“Oh my God, Duane. Don’t you dare.”

Geno’s was a small Italian restaurant about a mile from my office. They had good food and a cozy atmosphere, which made it a great place to have an informal meeting with an old friend.

The hostess greeted me at the door and let me know that my party had already been seated. She escorted me through a maze of tables to a corner booth in the back.

The restaurant was busy, but not packed. Still, getting the back corner booth with no one sitting at any of the immediate tables surrounding it told me either luck was with Daren today or he’d pulled some strings. My bet was on the strings.

Daren, my college roommate for two years, had called out of the blue this morning, asking if we could have lunch. He introduced me to the lifestyle I’ve lived for the last five years. Although he’d graduated a year ahead of me, we’d kept in touch through e-mails and the occasional phone call. Until I ran into him last month at a BDSM party, I hadn’t seen him since his graduation day.

My Mentor was always more social than me, so seeing him at a party wasn’t exactly a shock. I just wasn’t aware that he had moved back to Minneapolis. It had been a pleasant surprise.

Sitting down across from my friend, I took the menu from the hostess.

“Kelly will be around to get your drink orders in a minute.”

Thanking her, I set the menu down without looking at it and faced Daren. He was nearly my exact opposite. Where I had brown hair, he had blond. His eyes were a baby blue, whereas mine were a vivid hazel. I was tall and lanky, even though I’d buffed up some since college. Daren, on the other hand, was four inches shorter and could have easily passed as a body builder.

Today he looked nervous, which was rather unusual for him. Not unheard of, but definitely not common either. Needless to say, it piqued my curiosity.

“So do you want to tell me what’s up?”

“I will in a minute,” he said, looking over my shoulder. His behavior gave me a negative feeling. “Do you know what you want, Stephan?”

“Yes. I come here all the time.”

“Good.” He sounded relieved.

And then Kelly was there asking for our orders.

As soon as she left, I raised my eyebrow in question, but he ignored me. “You’re still running the family business, I see.”

“Yes,” I said, not sure what he was getting at. I doubted it had anything to do with why he’d called me. “I’m still head of The Coleman Foundation, but since it’s a not-for-profit, I’m not sure you could say it’s the family business.”

He waved it away. “Same thing.”

I waited, but he didn’t continue so I decided to play along. “You’re still consulting?”

Daren released a sharp breath. “Yeah.” He leaned toward me. “Are you still looking to collar a sub?”

So that’s what this was about? “If I find the right one, yes.” I noticed his shoulders relax, and he sat back a little. “What does that have to do with anything?” I asked, truly confused.

The subject that I did not currently have a submissive came up during our conversation last month at the party. I hadn’t played with anyone in the last six months. No one had struck my fancy, and most of them reminded me too much of Tami.

Daren had been with his submissive, Gina, since college. They were well matched in likes and dislikes and were much more open in their relationship than I personally preferred. I did not share my submissives, nor did I play with others when in a relationship. Many did, like Daren and Gina, but I’d never found it to be appealing. What was mine was mine.

Kelly came back with our drinks, so Daren waited for her to leave again before answering. “Because I found a girl for you.”

“Daren,” I warned, shaking my head. This was another no on my list. I didn’t enjoy being set up. Logan, my best friend, and his girl, Lily, had tried to set me up more times than I could count. I wasn’t interested.

“Hear me out. She needs your help.”

This aroused my curiosity. “What do you mean she needs my help?”

“I know how much you like to help people, Stephan. I mean, look at what you do.”

I was in complete disbelief. “Helping fund medical care for those who can’t afford it is a little different than taking on a submissive. Is she already a trained sub? Is she looking for a Dom?”

“She’s a slave.”

A slave. I didn’t have a problem with that, fundamentally. It was a complete power exchange. Slaves gave up all control of their lives, their bodies, to their Master or Mistress. Some women, and even some men, choose to be slaves. For most slaves it was a comfort to have someone else make the decisions in their lives for them, to give up complete control to someone else. That didn’t sound like the case here if she needed my help.

“Okay,” I said, drawing out the word, still not quite sure where Daren was going with this.

“I was at a party Saturday night. She was there. Her name is Brianna, and she belongs to Ian Pierce.”

I knew of Ian solely by reputation. I’d never met him personally. He was well-known in the community, but from what I heard, he was into pain and humiliation. And he already had a slave. “What happened to his other one?”

“Oh, she’s still there. Alex was at the party as well. Brianna is a new acquisition.”

“And you don’t think she wants to be?”

“No,” he said firmly. “I don’t.”

“Maybe she’s into what Ian does.”

“Trust me, she’s not,” he said, shaking his head. Then he added, “I wouldn’t have come to you otherwise. And if you had seen her Saturday night, you would know it, too.”

I considered this bit of information. There was no doubt in my mind that Daren believed what he was saying. If this girl didn’t wish to be Ian’s slave, I couldn’t sit by and do nothing. How to help her was the problem. My options were limited.

“What do you want from me exactly? It’s not like I can call the police and have them storm the place just on my word. Or yours for that matter.”

He leaned in again, clasping his hands in front of him, but then had to pull back when our food arrived. Daren took a bite, and then looked me straight in the eye. “I have a collared sub, or I’d do it myself. Plus,” he said with a smirk, “you have more money than I do.”

It was then I got it. “You want me to buy her.” It wasn’t a question, and he didn’t deny it. The thought of “buying” a woman turned my stomach, but if what Daren said was true, I couldn’t just leave her there.

I needed more information and ignored my food as it grew cold on my plate. “What makes you think he’d be willing to part with his property?”

Daren gave me a devilish smile. This was the Dom I knew. He could be quite twisted when he wanted to be. “I asked,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “In fact, I told him about you. Said you might be giving him a call.”

“You what?” I nearly shouted. I couldn’t believe he’d told this man I might be interested in anything without talking to me, let alone the purchase of another human being.

Daren looked around us, and I followed his gaze. Everyone in the restaurant was looking at us. That was something we definitely didn’t need, so I lowered my voice to almost a whisper. “Explain.”

“Look, when I saw the girl, I thought of you. She has brown hair and blue eyes. I know how much you like brunettes.”

I scowled, but he ignored me. “She’s really pretty, and scared to death from what I could see,” he said pointedly before continuing. “So I simply asked Ian if he was planning to keep her now that she was fully trained. He asked if I was interested. I told him no, but that I knew of someone who might be.” He shrugged. “I didn’t tell him you’d be looking for a submissive, though, Stephan. If you do this, you’ll have to go in acting like you’re looking for a slave.”

My mind raced. If I did buy her, what would I do with her? What would she be like?

I couldn’t just leave her there that was certain, not if she was there against her will. It just wasn’t in me. If I could help, then I had to.

Could I do what needed to be done? Could I treat a woman like a piece of meat? Buy her?

But how could I not, given the alternative?

“Okay.”

CHAPTER ONE

Olivia

He didn’t touch me. He could have—he had the perfect reason to—but he didn’t.

Instead he bent to collect my papers before the breeze could whisk them away. Instead he picked up my satchel from the sidewalk and asked if I was okay. Instead he stood between me and the busy street while I brushed the dirt from my palms and tried to swallow the knot of frustration stuck in my throat.

Instead he just waited. I had the strange thought that he would wait forever.

August 7

Adhesive sandcastles, flip-flops, and smiling suns cover the windows of the shops lining Avalon Street. The bed-and-breakfasts are filled with guests, and boats dot Mirror Lake like stars in the sky. University students crowd the coffeehouses, and both tourists and locals stroll through downtown with ice-cream cones or sodas in hand. Children, skin browned from the sun, scurry along the paths leading to the shore.

“Sorry, miss.” The shaggy-haired fellow at the outdoor drink stand gives me a smile of apology. “We’re out of lemonade.”

Of course they are.

I push a damp tendril of hair away from my forehead and look at the chalkboard menu again.

The sun has started to set, but it’s still roasting out. My pantyhose are shrink-wrapped to my body, and the elastic band is gouging my waist. My toes ache from being crammed into heels all day. And though I refuse to look, I’m quite certain there are sweat stains under the arms of my silk blouse.

“Okay. An iced tea, then.” I push two dollars at the guy and take the plastic cup, poking a straw into the hole. I don’t much like iced tea, but the cup is cold and wet, and the liquid feels good going down my dry throat.

I scan for an outdoor table, but they’re all filled with clusters of people enjoying their drinks.

I grab my paper bag of groceries, pull up my satchel strap, and trudge down the sun-baked street, feeling like a bone-weary schoolmarm amidst the happy, relaxed summer crowd. My ponytail slips farther from the loose clasp, welding more strands of hair to my neck.

Home. Our small, two-bedroom apartment sits above a row of shops overlooking Avalon Street. The sight of the wrought-iron balcony, laden with plants in fat, colorful pots, elicits a welcome sense of relief.

I increase my pace despite the blister forming on my heel. The minute I step into the building foyer, I drop the bag, kick off my shoes, and sink onto the bottom step of the stairs. I suck in another mouthful of iced tea. Sweat trickles down my spine.

“Hey, beauty.”

The deep, masculine voice resounds inside me. I look up at the top of the stairs where Dean is standing. His dark hair is messy from him dragging his hand through it, his shirt is wrinkled, and the sleeves are pushed up to his elbows. His tie is unknotted and loose, the buttons of his collar unfastened to expose the tanned V of his throat.

Warmth, both spicy and sweet, curls through me at the sight of him. Dean’s seamless combination of Brilliant Professor and Hot Hunk never fails to quicken my blood.

“Hi.” I duck my head and sip the iced tea.

“Thought you were working late.” He descends the stairs to where I’m sitting and picks up my satchel.

“Yeah, well.” A lump forms in my throat. “I got fired.”

Jesus, Liv. Don’t cry.

“Fired?” Dean drops the satchel and sits beside me on the step. He reaches out to brush my hair away from my sticky neck. “What happened?”

“A screw-up with the printer for tonight’s opening. They got the names of a couple of the big donors wrong, even though I emailed them the information twice and sent a hard copy. Mr. Hammond blamed me anyway.”

I hate sounding like a victim, even if that is the truth.

“That’s not right, Liv. Wrongful termination is—”

I wave my hand to stop him. “Forget it, Dean. It wasn’t that great a job. Hammond was always complaining that I made too many mistakes. Which I did not.”

“Want me to go beat him up?”

“Kind of.” My white knight…

“C’mere.” He slides an arm around me and pulls me closer.

Even though I’m hot and gross and probably smelly, I burrow against him with a sigh. Just the feel of his strong chest beneath my cheek is soothing.

When he eases the clasp out of my long hair and finger-combs the tangles, then moves his hand up to knead the muscles of my nape, I think I could quite happily sit there for the next hour or three.

“I offered to try and fix the problem, but he told me to pack up and go,” I say.

“Their loss.” He brushes his lips against my temple. A tingle sweeps clear down to my toes. “Besides you said the artwork was crap anyway.”

“It was.” I take another sip of tea. “Bunch of junk glued onto canvases. I could make us a fortune doing that. Hell, maybe I will. Olivia West, the Dumpster-diving artist.”

“That’s my girl.”

RAIN FELL FROM the sky in sheets. It’d only been drizzling when I’d boarded my private jet not even a half hour earlier. Now, I could barely see the airport outside my window.

“No, babe, it’s not a big deal. I just would have liked to see you while I was in town. It’s been a while. That’s all,” I said, shifting the phone to my other hand.

Dipping my finger into the empty glass that had once been the home of gin and tonic number three, I stared at the melting ice as I stirred it in a circle.

Her raspy, sleep-filled voice no longer sounded anything like that of the little girl I’d met when she was only five. But, after sixteen years, Robin Clark no longer resembled that child, either.

“I swear I thought the shower was next weekend. I got my dates mixed up. I’m so sorry,” she lied. She did that a lot.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s cool,” I said, pretending to believe her. I did that a lot.

And it killed us both a little more every time I did.

“I love you, Cookie,” she whispered.

I wasn’t sure if that was a lie or not anymore.

But I knew one thing was true. “I love you too, kid.”

We sat in silence for several seconds, neither of us willing to hang up. However, neither of us knew what else to say. A million words hung between us, but none of them would solve anything. God knows I’d said them all over the last five years. Still, she’d never heard any of them. Not really.

With my heart physically aching, I swallowed hard and bit the bullet. “Listen, I’m about to take off. I’ll be in L.A. for a show next week. Why don’t you come and we’ll hang out for a few days?” It was an honest invitation.

I didn’t receive an honest response.

“I’ll be there!”

“I’ll have Carter set it up. I’ll come by tomorrow afternoon and give you the details. I can’t stay long, but maybe a quick dinner or something.”

“Perfect.”

We didn’t linger with drawn-out goodbyes. A few seconds later, my phone was off and I was once again gazing out at the pouring rain, wishing I were anywhere but on a plane.

Carter, my head of security, settled in the seat beside me and opened the latest issue of Sports Illustrated magazine.

My stomach clenched when the plane jerked as we backed away from the gate.

“Tell Levee I love her, okay?” I said to Carter without dragging my eyes off the terminal disappearing in the distance.

“Here we go,” he mumbled, closing his magazine and turning his attention my way.

“Can you do me a huge favor? If I don’t survive, make sure it’s open casket and I’m wearing-“

“Blue. It makes your eyes pop,” he finished for me.

“Right, but-“

“But your eyes will be closed, so you should wear green instead. It looks better with your complexion.”

“Yes, but-“

“But your complexion will be ashy since you’re dead and all. So let’s just go with a sleek, black suit. It’s timeless.” He arched an incredulous eyebrow.

Lifting my glass in the air, I rattled the ice at Susan, my personal flight attendant. She was busy buckling herself in for takeoff, but she flashed me a warm, motherly smile in acknowledgement that she had seen me.

“So maybe we’ve had this conversation before,” I told Carter.

He rolled his eyes. “Every time we fly.”

I huffed but didn’t bother explaining. He knew exactly how terrified of flying I was. He’d been there the day it’d all begun.

You would have thought that, after having traveled the globe for years, a simple two-hour flight wouldn’t have been a problem. My racing heart and sweating palms argued otherwise.

In the eight years since my career had taken off, I’d gone from a somewhat-popular YouTube personality to the king of the music industry when Levee and I’d released our self-produced debut album, Dichotomy. Filled with half of her tracks and half of mine, it had soared to the top of the charts. There hadn’t been a radio station in the country not playing our music. In a matter of weeks, our careers had exploded, which had forced the whole world to take notice.

The following years had been a whirlwind. Grammys, record deals, fame, fortune, security. I could have retired six months after I’d started and never wanted for anything again. Well, that’s not totally true. The one thing I really wanted could never be bought.

I wasn’t even sure it could be earned.

It was something so rare that I feared it didn’t actually exist.

Love. Unconditional. Unwavering. Eternal. Love.

I’d given that to exactly two people in my life.

I’d only received it in return from one.

I’d been born a gay man. There had never been a moment in my life when I’d been remotely sexually attracted to women. If I had been, I would have married Levee Williams the second I’d laid eyes on her. Because I’d known, just that fast, that she was going to be the best thing that ever happened to me.

And she had been.

Riding the state’s dime to college, I’d branched out on my own at eighteen, armed with nothing more than a guitar and a headful of mediocre lyrics.

In a lot of ways, alone felt better.

In most, it felt worse.

Luckily, within weeks of starting my new adventure, I’d met Levee at a local bar on amateur night. She wouldn’t admit it, but she’d been attempting to hit on me when she’d first strutted over after her set. I understood how she’d misinterpreted my intense stare while she’d performed. But, when her kind, brown eyes lit as our gazes met, I knew, straight or gay, I needed to meet that woman. That night, over beers and more laughs than I had ever experienced, we bonded over music. Less than two weeks later, I moved in with her. Part of my heart bound to hers in a way I had never felt before. With no parents, no siblings, not even a foster mother who’d taken a liking to me, I’d spent most of my life searching for the sense of belonging she gave me only minutes after we’d met.

I fiercely loved that crazy woman. And it amplified as the years passed when I realized the feeling was mutual.

Levee was more than my best friend. Outside of Robin, she was the only family I’d ever had.

Which really meant she was the only true family I’d ever had.

I’d heard that God wasn’t exactly stoked about homosexuality, but come on. What kind of a masochist sends a gay man his soul mate with boobs and a vagina?

Especially considering she was now married to Sam Rivers and six months pregnant with his baby girl.

I’d tried dating over the years, but the few men I’d found interesting had found me temporary. I was good for a night of fulfilling their secret fantasies. But that’s where it ended. I guess that’s what I got for having a thing for straight men. I couldn’t stop myself though. It wasn’t the sex. As a celebrity, I had plenty of men vying for my attention. Ass was easy to come by. But the high that came from being with a straight man, knowing he was going against his own genetic coding just for one night with me, made every minute of the pain worth it.

Those forbidden encounters were a drug.

And I was a junkie.

The hunt of finding that perfect blend of brute masculinity and subtle curiosity.

The chase of teasing and taunting, ramping them up until they were unable to get my clothes off fast enough.

The victory as they finally broke, giving in to the one desire they had never considered before they’d landed in my crosshairs.

That was the high.

But it was always followed by the crash.

Including the inevitable spiral down when they realized what they had done.

Some freaked, slinging insults and threats at me as if I had somehow magically cast a spell and charmed their dick into my mouth. Some wore their shame on their faces, gathering their clothes and rushing from the room without a backward glance. Some felt the high too and came back for seconds, desperate for more.

But they all left, one way or another.

Always.

Chapter 1

My name is Adrian Birch, and I’m nobody.

Don’t mind me. Carry on doing your somebody things. I’ll just be over here, taking up as little space as possible. No, really. I like it this way. This is how it’s always been.

The best way to explain my childhood would be to have you imagine a kid’s painting. Picture a rainbow — red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. Add some grass if you want, a big-ass happy sun. Now add a small, muddy blob in the lower right, a toadstool or a rock. That’s me. The rainbow is my sister, Amanda. You look at our family and you see the blinding, beautiful rainbow and go, “Wow, just look at that!” Then you spot the blob and say, “Oh, did your brush drip? Never mind, we’ll cover that with a fridge magnet.”

I wasn’t a bad kid. Never a troublemaker, not much of a drama. But if you opened up Amanda’s paint box, you had all the original ovals of colors, vibrant as the day you bought it. Open mine, and you’d find a drab spectrum of brownish gray, everything blended together and no chance of a rainbow.

My sister’s default is wide-eyed joy and possibility, and mine is a sort of involuntary gloom — not one I wallow or revel in, but not one I’ve ever been able to kick, either.

Amanda and I are fraternal twins, and our eggs were as different as Fabergé and scrambled. Amanda is fair and pink-cheeked, with irises like gems cut out of the pure blue sky. Whereas I’m thin and dark, with what my mother calls “gypsy eyes,” probably to try to make me feel mysterious or interesting. Hangover eyes. A bit squinty, their edges the color of a ripe bruise.

I was a deferring pregnancy, a wispy shadow hiding behind Amanda’s robust fetus that my parents didn’t even discover was a second daughter until nearly the third trimester. A uterine wallflower, that was me. Amanda burst forth screaming and vital, and I slipped quietly into the world behind her, never one to want a fuss made.

I stayed that way through high school, the invisible girl. Not odd enough to mock, not ugly or fat, just so remarkably unremarkable that I simply blinked out right before your eyes, blending into the wall, where I liked to be.

The only point in my life when I could’ve been described as anything resembling dynamic would’ve been the not-quite two years I spent addicted to Vicodin. For the middle portion of that period, I moved back in with my parents so they could keep an eye on me. Or keep an eye on the wild animal they’d invited to inhabit their house, sleepwalking through her days, hungry and snarling when the fleeting pacifism of chemical hibernation wore off. When I came down off those suckers and wanted more . . . I was ballsy. I was fearless. I was dumb as shit, and I stole anything that wasn’t nailed down.

Dear Misha,

So, have I ever told you my secret shame?

And no, it’s not watching Teen Mom like you. Go ahead and try to deny it. I know you don’t have to sit there with your sister, man. She’s old enough to watch TV by herself.

No, actually, it’s far worse, and I’m a little embarrassed to tell you. But I think negative feelings should be released. Just once, right?

You see, there’s a girl at school. You know the kind. Cheerleader, popular, gets everything she wants… I hate to admit this, especially to you, but a long time ago I wanted to be her.

Part of me still does.

You would absolutely hate her. She’s everything we can’t stand. Mean, cavalier, superficial… The kind who doesn’t have a thought stay in her head too long or else she needs a nap, right? I’ve always been fascinated with her, though.

And don’t roll your eyes at me. I can feel it.

It’s just that…given all of her detestable attributes, she’s never alone. You know?

I kind of envy that. Okay, I really envy that.

It feels like shit to be alone. To be in a place full of people and feel like they don’t want you there. To feel like you’re at a party you weren’t invited to. No one even knows your name. No one wants to. No one cares.

Are they laughing at you? Talking about you? Are they sneering at you like their perfect world would be so much better if you weren’t there, messing up their view?

Are they just wishing you’d get the hint already and leave?

I feel like that a lot.

I know it’s pathetic to want a place among other people, and I know you’ll say it’s better to stand alone and be right than stand in a crowd and be wrong, but… I still feel that need all the time. Do you ever feel it?

I wonder if the cheerleader feels it. When the music stops and everyone goes home? When the day is gone and she doesn’t have anyone to entertain herself with? When she removes her makeup, taking off her brave face for the day, do the demons she keeps buried start playing with her when there’s no one else to play with?

I guess not. Narcissists don’t have insecurities, right?

Must be nice.