"Another time then," Ray says, taking a step back, pulling Brandy with him before she can object. "Do what you gotta do, Vitale."

I watch as he backs up, serious eyes fixed on me for a moment, before he finally turns around. Sighing deeply, I close my eyes as I shake my head, before brushing it off. I can feel the tension in my muscles, tension him retreating won't ease.

I should've gone with him.

I should've picked loyalty.

But I couldn't, not this time.

I failed his test.

"Where to now?" I ask Karissa, reopening my eyes. "Anymore suggestions?"

She sighs, slowing putting up her window. "How about somewhere where nobody knows either of us?"

"I think we'll be hard pressed to find a place like that in New York."

The stock ticker scrolls by along the top of the laptop screen as I jot down a few ideas on a scrap piece of paper. I'm trying to pay attention, to riddle out a potential new scheme to get Ray off my ass, to try to placate the man, but movement in my peripheral keeps distracting me.

Karissa has abandoned her usual seat in the den, opting to scour the shelves near me instead. She pulls books off, glancing at their covers, flipping through the pages before shoving them back on. Sometimes in the same spot, other times wherever they'll fit.

I had them alphabetically ordered.

I'm trying not to be irritated by it.

My gaze flickers toward her, breathing a sigh of relief when she bypasses War & Peace without even hesitating. She ultimately settles on something further down the room, clutching it to her chest as she turns away from the bookshelves. Catching my eye, she smiles before strolling past me, her gaze flitting to the computer screen.

She tends to mind her own business, but what little she sees is clearly not what she expected.

Her footsteps falter as she looks back at me. "Do you have a portfolio?"

"A portfolio?"

"Yeah, you know, an investment portfolio. That's what it's called, right? When you buy stocks and stuff?"

"Uh, yeah, it is. You learn about that from Melody?"

"Pfft, no, what would she know about that stuff?"

"Well, her father's an investment banker, isn't he?"

She stares at me, blinking a few times as she considers my question, but she doesn't answer it. She doesn't have to.

Rhetorical question.

"You know, it freaks me out how much you know about people," she says, retreating to the other side of the den. "And for the record, I learned about portfolios from that talking E-Trade baby."

She's dead serious as she says it. I let out a laugh, shaking my head, as I turn back to the screen and try to focus again.

It's pointless, though.

Even across the fucking room she still distracts me.

Sighing, I close the laptop and stand up, strolling over to where she sits. She has the book she snatched from the shelf open in her lap. I sit down beside her, curious about what she settled on.

J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan

Huh. "Ever read that before?"

"Nope," she says. "I figured you had a copy around here somewhere, though, since you could quote it."

"Yeah, it's a good one. I have most of the classics."

"I noticed." She stares down at the page for a moment before glancing at me. "Can I ask you something?"

"If you really must."

She laughs. "Yes, I must."

"Then I'm listening."

"You have all these books and all these movies, this massive entertainment set-up, but you don't have any music."

She grows silent, eyes regarding me like she's waiting for an explanation about what she just said.

"That was an observation," I point out. "That wasn't a question."

She rolls her eyes. "Why is that, Naz?"

"Why don't I own any music?"

"Yes," she says. "I mean, you don't have a radio or anything. You don't even listen to music in the car when you drive. No Mp3s or CDs or eight-tracks or whatever kind of wind-up phonograph shit they had when you were a kid."

"Phonograph? How old do you think I am?"

She rolls her eyes. "Practically ancient. I'm already starting to see some gray in that hair of yours."

She's being playful, but it wouldn't surprise me with the stress I'm under. I'm aging every fucking minute dealing with her. "First of all, if I'm going gray, it's because of you. You make me crazy. And secondly, I don't have any music because I find it pointless."

She gapes at me.

Gapes at me like I just confessed to being a murderer.

Scratch that, she didn't seem this damn distressed when she actually realized I was one of those.

"How the hell can you find music pointless?"

"Because it's just noise," I say. "It serves no purpose except to fill the silence, but I happen to enjoy the silence, personally."

The more I talk, the more horrified she looks. "Are you fucking with me?"

"No," I say. "But I'd like to be—"

"Fucking me," she interjects, cutting me off. She's finishing my thoughts. I'm getting predictable. "I know you would. But I just... wow. Really, Naz? My mind is blown right now. How can someone seriously not like music?"

"Why do you listen to it?" I ask, raising an eyebrow as I motion toward the tangled earbuds she has lying on the arm of the couch. "Why do you walk around here with those always in? Other than the fact that it keeps me from trying to talk to you, of course."