“You’re thinking too much again.”

With her eyes downcast, the toes of her right foot pushed into the floor, she countered, “Maybe I am, but you could have called me.”

“Well, since I have your cell phone”—he threw that on the floor—“and you weren’t home to pick up your landline, the wild dogs didn’t know where you were, and Van Holtz and MacRyrie ignored my calls, I’m not exactly sure how I was supposed to call you.”

She cringed a little. “Okay. You have a point.”

“Thanks. I’m glad you think I have a point. I’ve gotta go.” He grabbed Blayne around the waist and lifted her out of his way, then he walked out. He was at the elevator when she cut in front of him, blocking the exit with her arms outstretched.

“I’m sorry,” she yelped. “Okay? I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

“You’re making me crazy!”

“I know!” She took a breath. “I know. I’m not trying to drive you crazy.”

“Not trying but succeeding nicely. Now move.”

“You’re going to end it because I’m unreliable, flaky, and often thoughtless?” She stopped, blinking hard. Her shoulders slumped. “Wait. I’d actually end it for those reasons.”

The last thing he wanted to do was end it with this impossible woman, but he wasn’t one of those guys who enjoyed constant drama in his life. It was distracting, and he couldn’t afford ridiculous distractions. Instead of saying that, though, he said, “Let’s talk about it later.”

Ice time. He needed ice time and twenty miles on the treadmill at fifty miles an hour to make him feel better. It would clear his head.

He pressed the elevator button and stepped inside when the doors opened. Blayne stood there, watching him. Seeing that wounded look on her face was killing him, but he didn’t know what else to do at this moment. They were really different, but he knew that wouldn’t matter if they both worked together to make their relationship perfect. But he would not subject himself to one of those relationships where only one person was doing all the work. Life was simply too short for that kind of misery.

“I promise I’ll call you later,” he said, punching the button for the first floor.

She nodded, stepped back. “Oh.” She leaned over and pulled out a piece of paper from the top of her sock. “If you’re looking for me later,” she said, handing him the slip, the old elevator slowly closing. “Here’s my schedule.” She gave a little chuckle. “I promised to do a bunch of stuff for Jess over the next couple of days before she brings the baby home, so I took your advice and wrote it all down.”

She gave one more wave and the doors closed, shutting her out.

Bo unfolded the sheetand stared at the lined notebook paper. She had a list of twenty things with lots of scratch-outs, that was in no particular or discernable order, written in bright purple ink, except for the important stuff that was in red, and random notes written in the margins.

And, at the bottom of the page she’d doodled two hearts. One had the initials G.O. and L.MR., and between the initials she’d drawn one of those honey containers shaped like a bear. The other heart had B.T. and B.N. and between them she’d drawn a seal, which she’d scratched out and replaced with a plus symbol instead.

The elevator doors opened on the first floor and Van Holtz was waiting there with several bags of groceries in his hands.

“Oh. You,” he said. He started to walk in and, without thinking, simply reacting, Bo shoved him back out of the elevator by his head and hit the elevator button again.

“You asshole!” Bo heard as the doors closed.

Blayne sat at Lock’s kitchen table, her chin in her hands.

“I’m sorry, Blayne,” Lock said, putting a bottle of water in front of her. “I should have told you he’d been trying to track you down.”

“It’s okay.” Blayne could be the bigger person here because she had Gwenie.

“It is not okay!” Gwen slugged her fiancé’s arm. “Not okay at all. You need to talk to Novikov and straighten this out.”

“Isn’t there something else I can do? Anything else?” Lock begged.

“No!”

Usually Blayne would try and stop the argument and soothe the hurt feelings, but she wasn’t in the mood. She was miserable. And had no one to blame for it but herself. But what could she say? She’d panicked. Panicked because for once she had a reliable, smart, non-sociopath as a boyfriend. Not a gentleman caller, but a boyfriend. And he loved her—despite her many fuck-ups.

To be honest, once she realized all that—panicking was her only option.

“Giving me your list”—a voice said from the kitchen doorway—“makes it impossible for you to actually use your list, unless you made a copy. Which I’m doubting.”

Blayne swallowed and looked over at the doorway.

“And maybe,” Bo Novikov went on, holding Blayne’s list up, “with some patience on my part and another forty or fifty years of hard work, we can get a list that makes a modicum of sense.”

“It makes sense to me.”

“That kind of says it all, doesn’t it?”

Smiling, Blayne scrambled out of the chair, over the kitchen table, and into Bo’s arms. He lifted her off the floor, and she put her arms around his neck, her legs around his chest, her ankles locking behind his back. He kissed her, and she felt all his love in that kiss.