Page 52 of Dirty Work

I lift the beer can to my lips and tip it back, letting the crisp, amber liquid slide down my throat and buying me a few seconds to come up with an appropriately nonresponsive response to Connor’s prying. “What is this, twenty questions?”

“If it is, I’ve got a long way to go. I’m only up to four so far.”

“Five,” I amend after doing a quick mental tally. “But who’s counting?”

“You are, apparently.” I hear shuffling, then the soft click of a laptop closing that tells me he’s shut down his computer, leaving him with nothing but me to focus on.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

“So are you going to answer me or not?” he continues.

“I forgot the question,” I lie.

“Is the sexy pet sitter—sorry, executive concierge—still squatting at your place?”

“One, her name is Ainsley. Two, she wasn’t squatting. She was there to lend me a hand—pun totally intended—until my arm got better. And three, no. She moved out before I flew down here.”

“Trouble in paradise?”

Yes.“No trouble. I didn’t need her anymore, so she left. Simple as that.”

Even as they leave my mouth, the words feel wrong. Stupid. Pointless. Flat-out false. Because I can’t imagine a time when I won’t need Ainsley. Who else would take me to a diner full of drag queens? Or play strip Scrabble with me? Or kick my ass at Skee Ball, win a fucking florescent green alien and give me the best goddamn blow job of my life, all in one day?

She’s like the yin to my yang. The sparkle to my seriousness. The Yoko Ono to my John Lennon, without all the adultery and breaking-up-the-band crap.

Then what are you doing alone in a Miami hotel room, drinking already warm beer and lying your ass off to your best friend?my subconscious screams at me.Get on the next plane to New York and make things right with her.

I dismiss my subliminal musings as the ramblings of a pathetic, lovesick fool—there’s no use pretending, at least to myself, that I haven’t fallen hard for this woman—and polish off what’s left of my warm beer, crushing the can in my fist and tossing it at the garbage can. It bounces off the rim, the hollow, tinny sound echoing the emptiness inside me.

It doesn’t matter that I want her more than my next breath. Ainsley’s made it perfectly clear with her tersely worded responses to my texts that all I am to her now is a client. Roscoe’s temporary fur daddy. Any shot I had at something more with her—like maybe a real, romantic relationship—has sailed.

“Come on, man,” Connor scoffs. “You can’t bullshit a bullshitter. Especially one who’s known you most of your life.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Another lie. It’s getting easier. Although I’m not sure it’s any more convincing.

“You expect me to believe you shared an apartment with her and didn’t get it on? Or at least do some heavy petting?”

I shrug, even though he can’t see it. I need this conversation to be over. “Last time I checked, it’s a free country. You can believe whatever you want.”

“You know, I saw her last week,” he says out of the blue as I’m about to make some excuse to hang up.

“Ainsley?” I ask, trying to sound disinterested, which is pretty much the furthest thing from what I’m feeling at the moment. So much for hanging up. I’m gripping my phone so hard I’m afraid the screen might shatter. “Where?”

“At Le Bernadin,” he says, naming one of Manhattan’s most exclusive—and most expensive—restaurants. “With another guy. Wall Street type. Impeccably tailored three-piece suit. Trendy haircut. Rolex Yacht-Master.”

“Are you kidding me?” I snap, bolting upright. My free hand fists in the thin hotel bedspread. The image of Ainsley being wined and dined by some Wall Street wolf makes me wish I had another beer can to destroy.

“Gotcha.” I can almost hear the smug smile spreading across Connor’s face. If I could, I’d reach through the phone and smack it off. “I knew that would smoke you out. You hooked up with Ainsley, and now you’re jealous.”

“Did you or did you not see her with another dude?”

There’s a long pause, during which I contemplate no less than fifteen ways to murder Connor and hide the body, before he answers, “Not.”

My fingers slowly unclench, releasing the bedspread. “You’re a real asshole. You know that, right?”

“You say asshole, I say friend. Someone had to force you to face facts.”

“And what facts are those, exactly?”