“A pity about the nearly part,” Vaughn mutters.

“Pretty sure a professional singer’s not going to love her bedroom smelling like smoke,” I say as I make a mental note to fix the stairs.

Finn swears under his breath and goes to the window, wrestling it open before lighting up, keeping his arm out the window as he idly blows the smoke outward.

“Classy,” Vaughn mutters. “Still, the guy has a point. Does this girl know what she’s getting into?”

“I told her I didn’t know what kind of condition the house was in. She said she didn’t care.”

“Huh. Fucking weird, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t ask you.”

“Yeah, well, how about you start?” Vaughn says. “You know I’ve got your back no matter what, but I’ve gotta tell you, it looks like you’re on a downward spiral here.”

“Just because he’s got better things to do than play golf with you every morning doesn’t mean he’s in a downward spiral,” Finn says.

“Shut up, Reed. You don’t like this any more than I do,” Vaughn says.

I glance at Finn. “That true?”

Finn shrugs, his shoulders big and bulky beneath the tight black T-shirt. “I’m not complaining about you ending things with the ice princess, but you’ve been actin’ weird ever since.”

“At least tell us what’s up,” Vaughn says as I bend down to pick up the toolbox. “Yvonne called, said she couldn’t get ahold of you. You getting cold feet?”

“I don’t wanna fucking talk about it,” I mutter.

My word choice always becomes less precise when I’m around Finn.

The guy brings out the other side of me. The one that doesn’t belong with Vaughn at the golf course, the one that doesn’t marry women like Yvonne Damascus. The one who spent the first half of his life living in a two-room trailer and the second half of his life trying to balance weekends in that same trailer with weeknights in a sprawling mansion in snobby Village St. George.

Finn represents one side of my life; Vaughn represents the other. It’s a juggling act even on the best days to fit into both worlds.

These are not the best of days. Lately I haven’t been sure that I want to fit into either.

“What time did you say this chick was arriving?” Finn asks around his cigarette.

“Tomorrow morning,” I say, rapping my toe against a funny-looking floorboard and wincing when it buckles.

“Huh.” Finn exhales and looks out the window.

I know that tone. “What?”

“Seems she might have gotten here early,” he says, a second before the quiet afternoon erupts with the sound of my dog losing his mind, mingled with the shrill piercing yap of a much smaller dog.

“Seriously?”

Finn shrugs and nods. “There’s a girl outside.”

“Shit,” I mutter as I head toward the stairs, dodging the two broken ones.

Ranger’s about as good a dog as they come, wouldn’t hurt a fly. But he’s a big dog with a big bark, and one serious weakness: gleefully humping smaller dogs. He’s a rescue, and though he was fixed after they brought him in, he’d already gone through canine puberty, or whatever. He’s still got the fierce urge to hump, although it’s more habit than hormones.

I exit out the front door just in time to see my big brown Lab leap forward, his clumsy paws finding the shoulders of a blond girl who lets out a shriek, holding a cat above her head like that scene from The Lion King.

“Ranger, no! Down.”

I run forward, my hand finding the collar of my dog and yanking him backward as I search the ground to find the source of the small-dog barks still piercing the air.

Then I register that the sound is coming from above, and realize…

The cotton ball isn’t a cat.

That orange piece of fluff is a dog, and Ranger is apparently in love.

“What the heck is wrong with your dog?” the girl says as she slowly lowers the puffball from over her head, cradling the hideous little monster against her chest as it continues its high-pitched bloody-murder yips.

“At least my dog is actually a dog,” I say, staring in horror at the pointy face of a canine that could fit in one of my hands. “I’ve seen dust bunnies bigger than that thing.”

“Dolly’s a Pomeranian,” she says, setting a hand on top of the monster’s head. “She’s supposed to be this tiny.”

“Well, Ranger’s a Lab. He’s supposed to be this normal.”

“He attacked me,” she says, giving Ranger a wary look as his tongue hangs out the side of his mouth, his eyes locked lovingly on Dolly.

“He didn’t want you, he wanted the…dog,” I say, forcing myself to acknowledge that the creature in her hands might be part of the canine family.

“For what, dinner?”

I don’t respond, because now that the crisis is averted, I’ve managed to shift my attention from the dogs to the girl, and…

Holy shit.

I’m not sure I’ve ever been sucker-punched by equal waves of lust and disdain before.

Jenny Dawson is hot as hell.

I knew that going in, but up close she’s even more mouthwatering. Her white skirt is short and tight, her legs long and toned.

She’s wearing some billowing pink top, so I can’t get a good look at what’s happening there, but it doesn’t really matter. I’ve always been a legs man, and I can’t stop looking.