I thought a lot about how I’d feel if Dean walked into my life again, especially since I’d started sleeping with Vicious. I thought I’d feel shame, hurt and regret, maybe even sadness. But with him standing in my living room, all I felt was anger and a little annoyance. He looked at me like we were strangers, not exes.

To some extent, we were both.

Dean trained his gaze back at me reluctantly, like Rosie was the reason why he’d come here in the first place. “Right. I just wanted to let you know that for what it’s worth, I fully support your relationship with Vic, and I’m not saying that because he kicked me out of New York to stay here and chase you like a puppy and begged me to talk to you.”

It sounded more rehearsed than a Broadway show.

I cocked an eyebrow at him and folded my arms over my chest. “You don’t care?”

He shook his head. There was something light about him. Not just his body language, but his expression too. I believed him.

“We were kids. He was jealous, and you were…” He licked his lips, considering his next word.

He was still my first. My first lover. My first boyfriend. My first sexual partner.

Dean’s eyes dropped down as he finished softly, “And you were with the wrong guy. I never should have stepped between the two of you, but I did, and I don’t regret it for a second. We were a good couple, Millie, but Vicious and you…”

Another pause. Rosie listened closely behind us. Her face told me she was pretty sold too. Dean just had it in him. The ability to sound genuine and believable, no matter what he said.

“You were obviously meant to be together. Even if I didn’t completely believe that before, I do now, because of the sacrifices he made for you. That’s a first. And a last. Give him a chance, Millie. He deserves at least that.”

I loved the silence that followed Dean’s speech. We all processed it. Everything that had been said. Without being dramatic, Dean told me that he was okay with what Vicious and I did. With what we were, and weren’t. With what we could have been or could be, if I still wanted to.

“You should probably stay for coffee,” Rosie said then, still reading on her iPad.

“Nah.” He shrugged, jerking me by my shirt into a big suffocating hug.

It felt nice.

It felt safe.

But mostly, it felt platonic.

“If I stay, I’ll hit on your sister, and that’d be really messed up, now wouldn’t it, Millie?” he whispered into my ear.

And just like that, the touching moment was gone.

I had a blast at my new job. Brent was talented and worldly and knew everything about everything. We talked art every day and got ready to throw another event, an exhibition in which we planned to show twenty contemporary paintings about nature and love.

One of those paintings was going to be mine.

And it was going to be quite interesting, too. It wasn’t a cherry blossom tree, like I’d thought I’d paint.

But it was definitely a true definition of the word love.

Rosie had started working as a barista again. She was feeling well. We ate pasta a lot, but sometimes bought ground beef and made meatballs. She understood how much the exhibition meant to me, so she let me paint into the late hours of the night while locking herself in our bedroom. (We only had one and we happily shared it.) I opened all the windows, even though it was still cold, and hoped for the best.

There were so many questions I wanted to ask Vicious. How come he was still in New York? What happened with his father? Was he poor now? Well, not poor, obviously. More like un-rich. And what were his plans for Jo?

But I bit my tongue and said nothing every time I poured myself out of the station and saw his tall, broad frame, wrapped in a delicious suit and overcoat. He’d nod curtly and join me as I walked.

Two and a half months after he started escorting me home, it happened. The inevitable moment I’d expected, but dreaded.

He wasn’t there to see me home.

My face fell and my muscles slacked when I realized he wasn’t waiting for me. It wasn’t so bitterly cold anymore—though nowhere near warm—so I shook myself out of my coat and walked a little too fast out to the street to inspect. Maybe I’d missed him. Maybe he’d gone around the corner to the Turkish grocery store to get himself a cup of coffee. He liked their bitter, muddy coffee. Every time he came early enough, he treated himself to a cup and drank it while he was waiting for me.

He also read the Wall Street Journal and checked the Asian stock exchanges on his phone. It was almost like he made this arrangement about his downtime with himself.

I looked around, my eyes gliding over the brick buildings, the throng of people hurrying everywhere, the old brewery staring back at me, and the industrial buildings rising from the dirty crumbling concrete.

He wasn’t there.

My heart sank. I should’ve known his little mission had an expiration date. There was only so much a man could take, and especially a man like Vicious, who’d never had to beg for a date before. I’d refused to give him ten minutes of my time to listen. Not even five. He had every reason to stop coming.

I knew all that, but it didn’t make me feel any better.

I plugged my earbuds back into my ears, shoved my hands into my pockets and made my way to the apartment, passing by all the junkies sitting on the sidewalk against walls and holding cardboard telling their sob stories. I always fumbled in my pocket and gave them some change. And I always tended to give the change to the people with the dogs.

I crossed the street and jaywalked back to my apartment, almost reaching the entrance of my building, when I saw him. He jogged from the direction of the subway, looking a little flushed. Vicious. I bit down my smile and tugged the earbuds out of my ears. When he was about a foot from me, he stopped, straightening his tie with his hand.

“Hey,” he said. His hair was a disheveled mess, and I liked it. I liked it a lot.

I remembered how it felt in my hands when he went down on me in Dean’s office. I cleared my throat and nodded. “Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, yeah. I just wanted to let you know that next week, on Thursday, I won’t be able to make it. Something came up. I’ll call a taxi and make sure it picks you up from work.”

“No need,” I said. “You owe me nothing. And besides, I have an exhibition at work that night. I’ll probably stay until late, anyway.”