"Brett!” Kelsey shouted. “You did not just do that!"

"I told you I was going to."

"But I didn't think you were serious!"

She ran to the window and looked down five stories. Her clothes lay on the sidewalk. Half a dozen people were looking up, wondering where the garment shower had come from.

Correction. They knew where it had come from, because they saw the horrified woman standing naked at the window.

Aghast, Kelsey backed away, then spun around to face Brett. "I can't believe…I can't…I can't…" She kept sputtering, on the verge of hyperventilating, trying to put words to the terrible sin he'd just committed.

He grinned. "Now I guess you'll have to stay."

"The hell I will!"

She ran to his closet and flung open the door. She yanked clothes left and right, searching for something to put on. There. A robe.

She jerked it off its hanger and threw it on. She nabbed the only item of her clothing he hadn't thrown out the window—her shoes—and stuck them under her arm. She tied the sash of the robe as she ran to the living room, where she scooped up her purse and headed for the door.

"Kelsey, wait!"

She burst from his apartment, intending to cross the hall, slip inside her apartment, and plot how she was going to dispose of Brett's body after she murdered him.

Unfortunately, about that time Mrs. Paxton toddled down the hall with Tinkerbelle trotting at her side. Kelsey screeched to a halt to keep from mowing down both the poor woman and her tiny Chihuahua. Mrs. Paxton stared at her, her eyes wide with surprise.

Damn. First Edwin, now Mrs. Paxton. Pretty soon every tenant in the building would know exactly what was going on between her and Brett.

"Excuse me," Kelsey mumbled, sidestepping her as she fumbled through her purse for her keys. Once she had them in hand, she looked back over her shoulder to see Brett's head sticking out of his apartment through the partially‑closed door. Evidently even he drew the line at stepping into the hall while he was stark naked.

"Hello there, Mrs. Paxton," he said with a smile.

The woman looked back and forth between them. "What's going on here?"

"Nothing," Kelsey said, poking the key into the lock. "Nothing at all." Except that I'm on the verge of a homicidal rampage. Wanna hang around and witness that, too?

"Kelsey just needed to borrow my robe," Brett said.

She shot him an angry glance, thinking that was quite possibly the dumbest thing she'd ever heard from somebody who was supposedly smart.

She opened her door and slipped inside her apartment, her body was still reeling from the orgasm of the century even as her brain had nearly flatlined from the overdose of insanity Brett had just subjected her to. No way could she possibly feel any angrier or more embarrassed than she did right then.

She'd been right in the beginning. No matter how good he looked, Brett Hollister was a very bad man, one she needed to avoid at all cost, now and forever.

* * *

As Mrs. Paxton continued down the hall looking befuddled, Brett closed his door, naked as the day he was born and hating the fact that Kelsey had just stormed out of his apartment.

Well, evidently she couldn't take a joke.

He locked his door, then returned to his bedroom, where he looked out the window. Five stories down, he saw a disheveled woman pushing a shopping cart with a few new items added.

So much for retrieving Kelsey's clothes.

Irritated, he paced back and forth a couple of times, then fell into bed and stared at the ceiling, telling himself it hadn't been that big a deal, that if Kelsey wasn't so uptight it wouldn't have been a problem. But it didn't take long before his stomach churned with the feeling that maybe—just maybe—he'd gone too far.

He sat up suddenly, grabbed his phone, and dialed his brother's number. Jacob came on the line.

"Hold on," he said. "I have peanut butter on my hands."

Brett heard the muffled sound of water running, and then Jacob shouting. "No! Do not feed that to the dog! Justin! He'll only barf it up!" More commotion, and then Jacob came back on the line. "Kids. God." He took a deep breath and let it out. "Okay. What?"

"I'm going to tell you something that happened, and I want you to tell me if I was out of line."

"Yes."

Brett frowned. "I didn't even tell you what happened yet."

"If you have to ask, you were out of line."

Brett closed his eyes and sighed. In his head, he'd seen Kelsey's eyes fly open wide with surprise as her jeans and shirt and underwear floated down to the pavement below. Only in his version, her surprise would give way to laughter. He'd pull her into his arms, and he'd be so sexy and charming that she wouldn't be able to resist him, and they'd make love two or three more times until they both collapsed in an exhausted heap. Then maybe he’d take her shopping and buy her some clothes that actually did her beautiful body justice. Then he’d take those off her, and they’d go at it again. But in the real-life version, he was going to have to watch his back for the rest of his life in case she pulled out a gun, popped him in the head, and tossed him in the Hudson River.

"So what horrible thing did you do?" Jacob asked.

Brett squeezed his eyes closed at the memory. "I threw a woman's clothes out my bedroom window."

Dead silence.

"Jacob?" he said.

"You live on the fifth floor."

"Yeah, I know.

"May I ask why you did such a thing?"

"Because I'm the biggest dumbass in the history of the world, that's why!"

"Well, at least you recognize that."

"I thought she'd think it was…you know." He winced. "Funny."

"Funny? Brett? What planet are you living on?"

"I know. I know! I just didn't want her to leave!"

"And that's supposed to make her want to stay? Fear of walking home naked?"

"She lives just across the hall."

"Like that matters?"

Brett groaned inwardly. The longer Jacob talked, the worse this sounded.

"How did she get home if she didn't have her clothes?" Jacob asked.

"She stole a robe out of my closet."

"Good for her. By any chance, is this the woman you couldn't get?"

"Yeah," Brett said glumly.

"I think we've determined why. Here's some advice: Wise up and stop being a wise ass."

Brett groaned inwardly. Another gem from the Tao of Frank.

"You haven't told me much about this woman." Jacob said. "What does she do for a living?"

"She's a cop."

"Seriously? That's perfect. When you get out of line, she can kill you. I like that." Then he laughed. "Did you tell her about the time you got arrested for swimming in the fountain at City Hall?"

"No!" Brett said. "And you're not going to tell her, either. Trust me—she wouldn't be impressed."

This sucked. Brett had finally hit on something that had impressed Kelsey—his education and intelligence—and then he’d done something so monumentally stupid she’d probably never speak to him again.

“Maybe you’re right," Brett said.

“No maybe about it," Jacob said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some dog barf to clean up."

He hung up, leaving Brett feeling even worse than before. He had to fix this. He had to.

If only he knew how.

* * *

A few days later, Kelsey sat in the middle of Angi's living room floor, irritated beyond belief. An Ikea TV stand should have been a simple thing to put together, but when Angi had thrown all the hardware into a big pile, mixed up the pieces, and lost the directions, even Kelsey was having a problem assembling it. What should have been a thirty minute job had turned into two hours.

“Next time,” she told Angi, “I want you to call me before you even open the box. Understand?”

“I still don’t know what happened to the directions,” Angi said, holding two of the boards together so Kelsey could twist the crummy little Allen wrench that came in the box. “I must have thrown out the little booklet with my stuff to recycle.”

“Your organizational skills suck. It’s a wonder you can get through an ordinary day.”

Angi smiled sweetly. “Why do I need my own organizational skills when I have you as a friend?”

“There,” Kelsey said, giving the wrench one last twist. “I think that’s it. Help me stand it up.”

They each took a side, picked it up, and shoved it against the wall.

“Looks great,” Angi said. Then she glanced at the various cords sticking out of her TV, and her face fell. “Uh-oh.”

“What?”

“I don’t suppose you know how to hook up all that stuff, do you?”

Kelsey sighed. What was it about common sense that made half the population avoid it like a flesh-eating virus? “If you’d written down what you did to disconnect it, you could have reversed the process to hook it up again.”

“Wow. That’s logical. Wish I’d thought of it.”

“Why didn’t you get Paul to do all this? Guys know how to do anything if a TV is involved.”

“We don’t have that kind of relationship.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. The kind where if I need something, he has to come whether he wants to or not. Unless I want sex. Then he’s over here in ten minutes.”

Kelsey stopped and looked at Angi. “You’re thirty years old. When’s that going to change?”

“Hey, you’re in the same boat. When’s the last time you had a real relationship?"

Kelsey turned away. "It's been a while."

"There's always Brett."

She had a flashback to what happened between them two nights ago. She felt an instantaneous flush of heat, then slapped herself for even thinking about it. "No. No way."

"You told me that the night you were together, he wanted you to stay.”

“Well, we don’t always get what we want, do we?”

“So why didn't you stay?" Angi asked.

"Because he's crazy. I don't like crazy."

"Kelsey, let me explain something to you. On a crazy scale of one to ten, a guy as hot a Brett can be an eight. That's allowed."

"Eight? Are you kidding? He blew past eight a long time ago. Try twelve."

"Oh, come on."

Kelsey hadn’t intended to discuss what had happened in Brett's apartment, but it was time Angi understood just how insane he really was. She told the story, starting with the water guns, moving to the sex part, and then ending with Brett tossing her clothes out the window, emphasizing that his actions were totally out of line, beyond the pale, maybe even criminal. To her surprise, Angi smiled.

"Why are you smiling?" Kelsey asked.

"You told me you weren't going to have sex with Brett again. So…was it as good the second time?"

Kelsey gaped at her. "That's not the point of the story!"

"Then what is?"

"He threw my clothes out the window!"

"So did you try to retrieve them?" Angi asked.

"Are you out of your mind? Somebody might have thought I was the idiot who threw them out!"

Angi sighed. "Actually, I think it's kind of romantic."

"Romantic?"

"Yeah. He wanted you to stick around. I was at Paul's the other night. As soon as we had sex, he grabbed the remote and turned on a ball game. After that, I'm not sure he even realized I was in the room."

Kelsey hadn't considered that. But it didn't change a thing. There were just some things men shouldn't do, and throwing a woman's clothes out a five-story window was one of them.

"It just proves that Brett and I aren't compatible. I'm wasting my time."

"So what else are you going to do with your time? Sit at home and watch Francine swim around her bowl? Opposites attract, you know."

"Yes. They attract each other, and then they kill each other.”

Angi shrugged. "Fine. Throw him back. There are plenty of other women out there who'd love to land that fish. But I'm going on record as saying it's the wrong thing to do."

Angi didn't understand. This only proved what Kelsey had suspected since the day she’d met him. Brett was wrong, wrong, wrong for her, and the farther she stayed away from him, the better.

Just then, Kelsey's phone rang. She pulled it from her pocket and looked at the caller ID. The instant she saw it she froze, her heart pounding with dread. No. Not again. I can't deal with her. I just can't.

Swallowing hard, she hit the button to ignore the call and shoved the phone back into her pocket. "Come on, Angi. Let's get this TV hooked back up."

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing."

"Oh, yes it is. You have that look on your face."

"What look?"

"The one where you clench your teeth so hard your jaw nearly cracks. Who was the call from?"

"Doesn't matter. Hand me that coaxial cable."

Angi looked at her speculatively for a moment, and then her face fell. "Oh, my God. It was your mother. She found you again."

Even after all these years, just the sight of her mother's name on a caller ID could make Kelsey's stomach turn over with anxiety. It brought back every bad memory she'd tried so hard to bury, every moment of drama and chaos her mother had created.

"Yeah," Kelsey said. "She found me. But it doesn't mean I have to talk to her."

"Maybe you should."

"No way."

"No, really. See, I was watching this thing on Oprah a couple of weeks ago—"

"Stop right there. This isn't something I can just Oprah my way out of."

"Did she leave a message?"

"Don't know. Don't care. Now, will you please hand me that cable?"

Angi complied, and Kelsey attached it to the back of the television, screwing it in a little harder than necessary. She hated this. In her mind their relationship had ended the day she'd turned eighteen, but her mother still insisted on showing up out of the blue every once in a while and stirring the pot all over again.

"Wonder what she wants this time?" Angi said.

"The same thing she always wants. To screw up my life as much as she possibly can."

"Maybe she's changed," Angi said. "I was reading Good Housekeeping in my doctor's office, and this article said that when people have an addiction problem and hit rock bottom—"

"Hey!" Kelsey snapped. "If Oprah can't handle the situation, how is an article with the Good Housekeeping seal of approval going to help?" She turned back to the spider's web of cables, suddenly getting confused about which one was which. She sat back and took a deep breath, then started in again.

"It really bothers you, doesn't it?" Angi said.

"Yes. These cords definitely bother me."

"Like maybe you haven't really resolved all the crap you dealt with when you were a kid. I'm not sure it's good to just ignore the situation."

"So now you're a shrink?"

"It's not like you to bury your head in the sand about anything. It probably means you're repressing a lot of anger and fear and—"

"Angi, I swear if you start quoting Dr. Phil, I'm letting you figure out these cables on your own. That means you'll be without a TV. Remember how you get when you don't have a TV?" Kelsey made a snorting noise. "Speaking of anger and fear."

"Okay. Fine. I'll shut up now." Angi rose to her feet. "Why don't you finish hooking it up, and I'll pour us a drink? Then we can poke around on Netflix. Or is this a bad time to offer you alcohol?"

"No. Actually, that sounds good. Pour away."

Kelsey had always known that alcohol itself wasn't a problem. If a person couldn't handle it—that was a problem. Kelsey had no problem adhering to a two-drink maximum. So why was it so hard for her mother to do the same?

As Angi headed for the kitchen, Kelsey sneaked a look at her phone. Yes, her mother had left a message. And no, she had no intention of listening to it or returning it. In fact, if her mother persisted, Kelsey would do what she did last time. She'd change her phone number. No matter how big a pain in the ass that was, in the end it was worth it to preserve the calm, orderly, predictable life she'd fought so hard to have.