She tries to move away them but I grab a hold of her, pulling her onto my lap. I grunt when she straddles me, pain stabbing my side from my injury as her knee hits it.

"Shit, sorry," she says, panicked when I wince, but I grip tightly to her hips to keep her there, shaking off her apology.

"It was my fault," I say, clenching my jaw. "I should've known better."

I stare at her, hands shifting from her hips, running up her back. I grip the back of her neck, pulling her to me, and kiss her as ringing echoes through the room. My phone. I try to deepen the kiss, but Karissa pulls back. "Do you need to get that?"

I shake my head, kissing her again and again, as she whispers against my mouth, "don't you... need to... at least see... who it is?"

"I know who it is."

"Who?"

"My mother."

She pulls away completely as the ringing stops, her gaze briefly darting across the room toward my phone. "How do you know?"

"Because it's my birthday."

I try to kiss her again, but she resists, her palms flat against my chest.

"Your mother," she says. "Is she as pleasant as your father?"

"Few people are as pleasant as Giuseppe Vitale." I shake my head. "My mother's a good woman. You'll never meet a nicer person."

"So why don't you ever see her?" she asks. "Why didn't you take her call?"

"Because she's better off without me," I say. "When you love people, you want what's best for them, and sometimes what's best for them isn't you."

"You said that about me once," she says. "You said you loved me, and you wanted what was best for me, even though you thought what was best for me wasn't you."

"I meant it," I say. "But I'm also in love with you, and I'm a selfish son of a bitch. It was wrong, but I wanted you… I want you. So I'm keeping you."

She laughs dryly. "You're keeping me."

"Yes."

"You ever consider maybe your mother wants to keep you, too?" she asks. "I don't mean that in a creepy kind of way, you know… I mean, like, just because someone's bad for us doesn't mean we don't want them in our lives, anyway. I was still willing to give up everything for you."

"You were."

"Yes."

"Past tense."

Her brow furrows. "What?"

"You said you were willing," I say, "not that you are willing."

She considers that as she climbs off of me, getting to her feet. "Yeah, well, I guess I'm still deciding."

"Deciding what?"

"Whether or not I want to keep you."

My phone starts making noise again as Karissa grabs our discarded pudding containers to throw them away.

"You should answer that," she says. "Talk to your mother."

I don't correct her as she walks out, but it's not my mother this time. The ring is different. It's vague, barely noticeable, but it's a different tone. Ray.

Sighing, I get to my feet and shuffle across the room, snatching my phone off of my desk. I stare at the screen for a moment before pressing the button to silence the ringing.

Unlike my mother, he's not calling to wish me a happy birthday. He probably doesn't even realize it's today.

"Let's do something," I call out to Karissa when I hear her move around the kitchen. "Grab some lunch or something."

She appears in the doorway. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

My phone starts ringing again right away, once again blaring Ray's tone. Karissa eyes it curiously. "You don't have anything else you'd rather do?"

I send the call to voicemail and turn off the phone as I shake my head. "No. Nothing."

"What's Cobalt?"

My eyes turn to Karissa when she speaks. I'm not even off our street and she's already asking questions out of nowhere. "Cobalt?"

"Yeah, Cobalt."

"Where'd you hear that?"

"That detective," she says. "I heard him mention Cobalt, that it's where the shooting happened. I know it was weeks ago, but I was just thinking, and well... what is it?"

"It's a chemical element," I say, "and a shade of blue."

"Yeah, and it's also the name of a Chevy car," she counters, "but that doesn't tell me where you were shot."

I fight a smile at her brusque tone. "You didn't ask where I was shot."

"Fine," she says. "Where were you shot?"

"In my side."

"Naz…"

"In Greenwich Village," I say, knowing she's not going to drop it. "Cobalt Social Club."

She curves an eyebrow at me. "A social club?"

"Yes."

"You're a member of a social club."

"Yes."

"Is that a euphemism? Like a gentleman's club?"

"No, no strippers. No women at all, generally, although sometimes they bend the rules. It's more of an exclusive hangout that you need membership to get into."

"And what do you do there?"

"Socialize," I say. "Drink."

Conduct business.

Plot schemes.

"So it's a special kind of club," she reiterates. "Where you drink and hang out with other men like you."