I grabbed my coat and made my way out of my office after we finished the show. Judith was still typing away on her computer, paying her dues as a junior reporter. She actually had the audacity to look pissed again, for a reason beyond my grasp or care. Most women were content to simply spend time with me, in any capacity. Yet Jude got to get fucked, have lunch dates, and have me pay for her fucking life—granted, unbeknownst to her—and she still acted like I was public enemy number one.

After a grueling ratings meeting with the bigwigs earlier today, I’d taken my father aside and explained to him, again, that if he ever touched Jude, I was going to unleash his dirty laundry, one stained panty at a time, and kill the pristine Laurent name he’d been riding all the way to the bank.

Anyway, seeing as pussy wasn’t in the cards for me tonight, I decided to settle for going face to face with a dick.

I’d pay Phoenix fucking Townley a visit.

Phoenix lived in SoHo, which hardly surprised me. It was a great place to find any of your vices, from crack and dope to dead prostitutes. I located his new address in his HR file and took an Uber straight to his house.

He opened the door on the third knock, wearing nothing but white briefs. His blond curls fell on his forehead, his face flush with the humidity that knocked New York on its pale ass on the verge of every summer. He no longer looked like a kid, and it bothered me that he’d continued aging, while Camille stayed frozen, and that Judith might see him in that light—as a man, and not a bad-looking one at that.

“Cel.” He greeted me with no particular tone to his voice, like my presence on his doorstep was ordinary.

He left the door open, turning around and ambling back to his couch in a silent invitation. The apartment was small, new, and hip. And yes, I died a little using the word hip, even if just in my mind. I strolled directly to the red-bricked, trendy kitchen with intentions of fixing myself a drink. But the cupboards were full of bullshit ramen noodles. I opened the fridge and found nothing but root beer, pink lemonade, and nyloned wet cat food. Not a drop of alcohol in sight.

“Just because you’re a pussy doesn’t mean you need to eat like one.” I slammed his fridge shut, groaning.

“There’s a stray under my building that I feed. Lost souls connect to one another in a quiet way. If you’re looking for booze, hate to break it to you, but I quit.” He freefell to his couch with a thud, slouching and flipping channels on his TV. Was he expecting a medal? A bright sticker? Or maybe just for me to not punch him in the face.

Phoenix settled on BBC America. I hated that he wasn’t stupid. It made hating him more difficult.

“Mouthwash?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“Pot?” Everyone had fucking pot, even my fifty-seven-year-old Eastern European housekeeper, who also had a crucifix the size of my bathroom dangling on her meaty neck.

“Quit everything,” he said. “The alcohol, the drugs—”

“The whores?” I cut in, swiveling around and cracking open a can of root beer. I took a sip, decided it tasted like rotten anus, and dumped it in his sink.

Last time we’d had an actual conversation was when he’d tried to convince me to talk to my father about sending him packing to the Middle East. I’d said I’d try, and I sort of had, but in all honesty, I wasn’t convinced he deserved my sister. Also, I had no power over my father, especially when it came to Cam. He’d barely let me hang out with my own sister when we were kids, deeming me the troublemaker and her his princess.

The time we’d seen each other before that, Phoenix and I hadn’t really done much talking. I saw Camille upset after the entire doped-whore incident and had decided to rearrange the attributes of his face. A broken nose and three cuts in his eyebrows later, Phoenix had a pretty clear idea of my feelings toward him.

Consequently, he knew this was not a social call.

He shook his head, staring at the ceiling, his hands tucked under his head. “I never touched the prostitute. We scored some drugs together, yeah, but she was half-naked because she was an idiot and tried to seduce me. I never cheated on your sister. I was a fucked-up boyfriend, sure, but I never wronged her.”

“I’m sensing I should somehow be impressed by this revelation.” I yanked his fridge open again, this time trying the sugar-free, organic pink lemonade.

Spat it out.

Maybe sober life is punishment enough for Townley Jr.

“Not everything is a battle of words and power, Cel.”

He was the only person to call me that, and I’d never understood why. We weren’t close, before or after he’d dated Camille.

“You know, I tried to call you several times after she died,” he told me. “I couldn’t stop going over the last thing I said to her, the last thing she said to me, when we were about to meet in Turkey.”

I rubbed my jaw, moving it from side to side. I’d come here to warn him that my stay-the-fuck-away-from-Judith warning for Mathias extended to him. But somehow, we were now talking about Camille. It was the second time today I’d had to share her memory with someone else.

Not to be a sappy shit, but I really did miss my sister every single minute. She was the only thing that had resembled normal in my family. With Cam, things had been simple.

I loved her, and she’d loved me.

I’d had her back, and she’d had mine.