I made the mistake of letting Anitra pick the restaurant, which meant I was trying to decide which gluten-free, vegetarian, dairy-free, organic meal sounded the least repulsive. It wasn’t that I didn’t like salads—though, honestly, who really likes salads?—but I was starving. I’d skipped lunch because Mr. Sabella needed me to drive across the city over my lunch hour to get a spare key made for one of the buildings we secured. A crew would be going in over the weekend to update their servers. There were at least eight other locksmiths within walking distance that I could have used, but he was insistent that I could only go to the one location on the roughest side of town. Like I’d told Gabriel, Mr. Sabella could be particular.

“You’re lucky you didn’t get shot,” Anitra said when I told her the story, pursing her lips, which she’d smeared in black lipstick, and shaking her head. “Why couldn’t he get one of the tatted up weightlifters who work there to do it?”

I shrugged. “It made the day pass quicker, so I didn’t mind.”

“You never mind anything,” Anitra said, closing her menu and folding her hands in front of you. “That’s your problem. It’s why you’ve been at this same job for so long. You need to mind things or pretty soon, things are going to start minding you.”

I was pretty sure that didn’t make any sense, but if I said that, Anitra would spend the rest of the evening explaining it to me. “Do you know what you’re going to get?”

“Raw lasagna with walnut meat.”

Unable to stop myself, I screwed up my face in disgust and confusion.

Anitra sighed. “It’s zucchini noodles with nut paste and spices. It’s good.”

I smiled at her, unconvinced. “Sure. I’ll just have a strawberry spinach salad with a vinaigrette.”

“That’s why you failed at going vegan,” she said. “You got bored eating salads all the time.”

“At least my salad doesn’t have walnut meat in it,” I mumbled.

Anitra heard me, but for once, she decided not to start a fight. One thing about being Anitra’s friend was that you had to have thick skin. She rarely kept her opinion to herself, and she was more than willing to tell you the multitude of ways in which you were failing to reach your potential. The other thing to know about being her friend: she could dish it out, but she couldn’t take it. You’d think being an artist would make her good at constructive criticism, but no. Not even close.

“I’m serious about minding things, you know?” she said, though she was never not serious. “I think you’ve gotten a bit too comfortable in your position there. You don’t have the drive you used to have. Don’t you want to be an artist?”

“I am an artist.”

“A working artist,” she clarified. “One who sells their work to pay the bills.”

Anitra was still a student at the Art Institute, but she sold enough work at amateur shows to pay rent on her microscopic studio apartment. She was even able to pay the landlord an extra hundred dollars every month to let her use the storage shed on the roof as an at-home painting studio. Like her apartment, it was small, but it was something.

“I have all my work posted online, I’m just waiting for the right buyer to come along. Plus, I’ve been working on a collection that will really boost my portfolio.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Anitra said. She must have noticed me roll my eyes because she reached out and touched my forearm lightly. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m hard on you because I care. And because you are the most talented artist I know. The Institute will connect you with people who can promote your work and find buyers. You deserve to be there following your dreams, not running around the city for some middle-aged man who stares at your ass and makes you fetch him coffee.”

“I only caught him doing that once,” I said. Though, that was a lie. Mr. Sabella regularly checked out my assets. I only told Anitra about it once because when I did, she insisted I talk to human resources and file a complaint and seek compensation for the “emotional hardship.”

Our food came, and Anitra’s lasagna looked even worse than I could have imagined. Though, she moaned with pleasure after each bite, making me wonder whether she was trying to convince me, or herself. I ate my salad quietly, unable to stop thinking about how I could have been having drinks with Gabriel instead.

“Are you still seeing that dancer?” I asked, hoping to get Anitra talking so I could slip into my own thoughts. Once she got going, she didn’t need much input from me.

She looked up from her “lasagna” like she’d forgotten I was there and then shook her head. “No, I haven’t seen him in a few weeks.”

“That’s too bad.”

Anitra shrugged. “We were never going to make it long-term, but it was great while it lasted. Dancers are very flexible. Did you know that?” She wagged her eyebrows, and I laughed. “I wasn’t looking for anything serious, but I’ll just miss having a bit of man candy I could call anytime I wanted.”

“I know what you mean,” I said, shoving a strawberry into my mouth. My salad wasn’t anything to write home about, but the strawberries were perfectly ripe, which was something.

Anitra raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at me. “Excuse me?”

“What?” I asked around a full mouth.

“What do you know about man candy?”

“Hey! I don’t date a lot, but I’ve had my fair share of casual relationships.”

Anitra barked out a laugh. “Come on, Linds. Be serious.”

“I am being serious.” At least, I thought I was. But judging by the look on Anitra’s face, she clearly disagreed.

“When have you ever had a no-strings-attached relationship with a sexy hunk of man?” she asked, head tilted to the side, her dark hair brushing against her shoulder.

“Aaron,” I said, remembering the first man I’d been with after I moved out of my parent’s house. He had bright blonde hair, blue eyes, and had been a high school quarterback. My inner-teenage nerd freaked out every time he was around.

Anitra shook her head hard. “No. He was a boyfriend.”

“No, he wasn’t!”

“Lindsay,” she said, leveling her gaze at me. “He kept an overnight bag at your place and you cried for two days when he moved away.”

“So,” I said, my face flushing slightly. “I can be sad about the end of a casual relationship.”

“No, you can’t. That’s what ‘casual’ means. Inconsequential, no big deal, take it or leave it.”

I jutted my chin out and tried to think of the other men I’d been with, but there honestly hadn’t been many since I’d been working for Sabella Security, and I knew Anitra wouldn’t classify them as no strings attached relationships, anyway. Braden was a gorgeous musician with a shaved head and calloused fingers from constantly playing his guitar. He was phenomenal in bed and I went to all of his shows for six months until I caught him with his calloused fingers deep inside a groupie in the green room. Anitra had seen me right afterwards because I’d directed my cab to her address. She spent the night wiping snot off my face and stuffing me with freezer burned rocky road ice cream. Then, there was Jon the biologist, Victor the architect, and Deonte the dentist. I still had boxes of each of their belongings in my hall closet, so I had to assume they wouldn’t count as casual, either.

“Well,” I said, pushing my salad away and taking a long sip of my lemon water. “It just so happens I’m casually seeing a man right now.”

Anitra narrowed her eyes at me and a slew of questions poured out of her. “Who? You haven’t said anything about a new man? When did you meet him? How long have you been seeing one another?”

“It’s new,” I said. Remarkably new, in fact. So new it wasn’t even actually happening yet, but Anitra didn’t need to know that. “He is new to the city and moved in across the hall from me. He is gorgeous—the very definition of man candy.”

“What’s his name?” Anitra asked. It was clear she thought I was making Gabriel up.

“Gabriel,” I said. And then, just to prove to her he was real, I spouted off everything I knew about him, including a detailed description of his tall, muscular frame, his thick dark hair, and his icy blue eyes.

Anitra shook her head.

“I barely know him,” I said annoyed. “So, don’t try to tell me this is a relationship. I know for a fact he is not my boyfriend.”

“And it should stay that way,” she said, pointing at me with a hooked finger. “Now is the time for you to focus on your dreams. Finish your collection, get into art school, quit being a dickwad’s receptionist.”

“I can focus on my dreams and enjoy my sexy new neighbor. I’m an adult, Anitra. I don’t need you to tell me how to live my life.” I felt like a teenager rebelling against their mom. I’m a grown up! Besides, there was no risk of dating Gabriel. I couldn’t deny the raw sexuality he exuded, but he barely spoke, and when he did, it was in single-syllables. Not exactly boyfriend material.

Anitra twisted her lips to the side and nodded her head. “Yes, honey, you do. I’m here to be the little angel on your shoulder, encouraging you to get off your ass and make your dreams come true. Actually,” she said, bending over to dig through her purse. “I brought you something.”

She slapped a folded piece of paper on the table, and even though I wanted to cross my arms and sulk, I was too intrigued not to pick it up. It was a print-out for an Art Institute scholarship.

“They were handing these out in a few of my classes this week. They want us to distribute to worthy people. And if you aren’t worthy, no one is,” she said. Anitra always knew when to soften her approach, when to say something nice and reel me back in. “You just need to send in some of your best work and an essay. It would pay for an entire year.”

I stared at the paper, imagining a world in which I could actually quit my assistant job and study painting. In which I could sell art and learn from some of the best professors in the country.

“It’s due in a couple weeks. Will your collection be done by then, or have you been too busy with your new boyfriend to paint?”

I wadded up my napkin and threw it at her face. She easily dodged it and scooped the strap of her bag over her shoulder and stood to go to the counter to pay. “This could be your big break. The watershed moment that separates your old life from your new life. Now is your time.”

“You sound like a motivational speaker,” I said, rolling my eyes. “But I have been painting all week, thank you very much.”

“Good. Keep it that way,” she said with a hooked finger.

As I stood behind my friend, pulling out my wallet and sorting through my crumpled cash to pay for my mediocre salad, I decided I shouldn’t tell Anitra that I’d spent all week perfecting the portrait of Gabriel I’d started the first day I met him. That would only illicit another lecture. Besides, I had more than enough stuff to show the scholarship committee. I’d painted enough that I could afford a little distraction. Especially if that distraction had rippling back muscles and a square jaw so sharp it could cut glass.