After a remarkably stressful night at the hospital, I get off work and head to the gym. I’m tired, but I want to blow off some steam on the court. I’m running later than usual, and Alex is already here when I arrive.

“No Reid today?” I changed before I left work, so I just take off my sweatshirt and toss my wallet, keys, and phone on top.

“No, he had something come up.” He passes the ball to me.

I nod and dribble a few times. Our weekly basketball sessions are pretty casual. If we can make it, we show up. If not, it’s no big deal.

Alex and I shoot around for a little while to warm up, then play a game of twenty-one. I beat him—barely. When we were kids I could never take him; he had that big brother power over me. I’ll never forget the first time I won. I don’t know which one of us was more shocked. Now we’re pretty evenly matched.

After our game, we sit on the floor, courtside, while we catch our breath. I take a drink of my water and wipe the sweat from my forehead.

“Okay, I have a question for you.” I’m not sure if I should bring it up, but this thing with Linnea has been killing me. I trust Alex more than anyone. He’ll give it to me straight if I’m out of my mind. “Scale of one to ten, how bad would it be if a guy had a thing for his nanny? Theoretically speaking.”

Alex raises his eyebrows at me. “So, we’re pretending this isn’t you?”

“I never said it was me.”

“Are we also pretending the nanny isn’t the guy’s former sister-in-law?”

“That’s… okay, there are additional circumstances that make this guy’s situation complicated, how about that?”

“I guess I’d have to give that a five, maybe a six,” he says. “There is the issue of you being her boss.”

“Didn’t say it was me.”

Alex gives me a quick eye roll. “Sure. Anyway, he’s her boss, which makes it a little complicated. I can see why he’d hesitate.”

“Plus, if he goes for it and it goes bad later, he doesn’t just lose a girlfriend,” I say. “His daughter loses her nanny. And his daughter loves her.”

“Yeah, that takes it up to a solid seven,” he says.

“And she’s so much younger,” I say. “She’s twenty-two. What girl her age wants to be with a guy who has a kid already? Shouldn’t she be out dating? Hanging out with friends?”

“Are we still pretending this isn’t Linnea?” he asks.

“No,” I say, grudgingly.

“I’ll be honest, the age thing doesn’t seem like a huge problem,” he says. “Linnea gets along so well with all of us. It’s not like we have nothing in common with her. I don’t even think of her as being really young. She’s just… Linnea.”

“Yeah, that’s true.” I hadn’t thought about it that way before. But even though she’s mature, it doesn’t mean she’s in a place in her life where it makes sense for her to be with a guy like me.

“The sister-in-law thing is a little awkward, though,” he says. “Would her family have issues with that?”

“Undoubtedly,” I say. “They weren’t happy when I married Melanie. I can’t imagine they’d be excited for me to start dating their other daughter.”

“That’s tough,” he says. “But is that a good reason not to give it a shot with someone?”

“It’s not a deal-breaker. Just a factor,” I say. “How do you get along with your in-laws?”

He shrugs. “They’re nice people. They kind of look at Mia like she’s some kind of anomaly though. I don’t think they understand her, or really try to, and it rubs me wrong.”

“I think Linnea gets the same thing from Steve and Margo,” I say. “She’s different, and they don’t really know what to do with that.”

“She is a lot different than Melanie was,” he says. “I’m actually kind of surprised you’re into Linnea enough that you’re thinking about it. She seems like Melanie’s opposite. I figured if you ever took a chance with someone again, it would be with someone more like Mel.”

I look away for a moment. It’s hard to be honest about Melanie—feels like I’m dishonoring her memory. “Yeah, I can see why you’d think so. But the truth is, if Mel was alive, I don’t know if we would have lasted.”

“What makes you think that? I thought you guys were good together.”

“We were,” I say. “And don’t get me wrong, I loved her. When we met, I was attracted to her drive. She was so self-assured. Knew exactly what she wanted. She was really dedicated to medicine, and I was too, so we had that passion in common. But you know, I think she was too much like Mom.”

Alex winces. “But she wouldn’t have walked out on Charlotte.”

“No, she wouldn’t have,” I say. “Not the way Mom walked out on us. But I think ultimately that drive would have been a wedge between us. Knowing what it’s like to raise a child, it would have been hard to balance everything. I’ve had to make compromises in my career in favor of being a father. I don’t know if she would have been willing to do that for her family. I think her career would have come first, and that would have become a big problem for me.”

“God, why did we both do that?” Alex asks.

“What?”

“Marry women so much like Mom,” he says. “Janine was practically Mom’s clone. I don’t know how I didn’t see it at the time.”

“You were young,” I say. “You got caught up in Janine’s decisiveness. That’s kind of how it was with Mel. Although I will say, Mel had a heart that was actually beating. I’m not convinced Janine did.”

“Me neither,” Alex said. “It worked out in the end, though.”

“Yeah, you and Mia, man…” I laugh softly and shake my head. “You guys are so good together, sometimes I wonder if you’re hiding something. But I don’t think Mia could pull off a double life. She’d blurt out the truth.”

“She doesn’t blurt out that my alter ego is a woman who writes romance novels,” he says.

“Good point,” I say. “How’s that going, by the way?”

“Great,” he says. “I’m even branching out. Next month I’m releasing the first in a sci-fi series under my own name.”

“No shit?”

He grins. “Yeah. I learned a lot writing as Lexi, so I took that and restarted my sci-fi series. It sucked to start from scratch after all the time I’d spent on it. But it’s a thousand times better, and I actually finished it. Kendra’s editing it now, and I’m halfway done with the second book. The Lexi-train is still going strong, so I can take some time to write other stuff. It’s pretty cool.”

“That’s really cool,” I say. “Good for you.”

“Thanks.” He takes another drink of his water. “You know, I think you should go for it with Linnea.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he says. “You wouldn’t be thinking about it seriously if you didn’t really like her.”

“I just don’t want to fuck things up,” I say. “Dating her would be complicated.”

“You just have to decide if it’s worth the risk,” he says. “Look, this is going to sound like I’m making shit up for a Lexi book, but I mean it: If it’s real—if there’s something there—you aren’t going to be able to deny it forever. And if she feels it too, well…” He shrugs.

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” I say. “Maybe I need to give it a shot. Take her out. Talk to her. See if she’s even interested. Because that’s the other obstacle; I don’t know if she is.”

“She is,” he says, completely matter-of-fact.

“How could you possibly know that?”

He raises an eyebrow at me. “You guys both have a thing for each other and I think you’re the only ones who don’t realize it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, we can all tell,” he says, casting me a sidelong glance like I’m a dumbass. “We see the way you look at her. How have you not seen the way she looks at you? I don’t know, man. It’s hard to believe you’re that blind.”

I have seen the way she looks at me. Maybe. I wasn’t sure if it meant anything. But I think Alex is right. If there’s something between us, we won’t be able to deny it forever.

“All right, well, thanks.” I grab the ball and stand up. “Ready for another game?”

“Sure,” he says, getting to his feet.

“And Alex?”

“Yeah?”

I tuck the ball under my arm. “Don’t say anything—especially to Mia. Or Kendra. I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet, or how she’s going to react. I can’t come on too strong. If she says no, I don’t want to make her feel like she has to quit. I can’t let Charlotte lose her. No matter what.”

“Of course not,” he says. “And I have a feeling you guys are all going to be fine.”

I nod and dribble the ball back out onto the court. Taking a chance with Linnea might be a huge mistake. But maybe at this point it’s a mistake not to.