“It’s okay. Why?”

“I sometimes wonder what it feels like. To have a mother.”

I raised an eyebrow. I loved Maman, but I couldn’t commit to saying we had a great relationship. For one thing, we were business partners, and I knew she’d run me over for the right price. Still, she was better than my father, not that it said a whole lot.

“Depends on the mother. I have a feeling your father is better than both of my parents combined, so I wouldn’t worry,” I mumbled.

“My ill father,” she added.

“Not for long. The secondary growths are shrinking, and he’s responding very well to the treatments.”

“And how do you know that?” She stopped walking, her entire body pointing at me, like an arrow.

I shrugged. “I visit him every Sunday when you go to the library.”

It wasn’t a big deal. We were both Yankee fans, and it wasn’t like I had anything else to do. My career was my life, which meant that on Sundays, I had no life. My soft spot for Robert had nothing to do with Judith, and I certainly didn’t want her to think I was expecting anything in return. Plus, I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea about a relationship. Rob was still certain she was with Milton, so my money was on her not really counting on our fuck-buddies status to last past this season.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.” She smiled, but she didn’t look surprised.

I always arrived a few minutes early. I tried to tell myself it was because I didn’t want Jude to bump into me on her way to the train, but in practice, I liked to stop at the Polish deli and watch her through the window as she walked to the station with her headphones deep in her ears. I always wondered what she was listening to.

“Yeah. Well.” I resumed our walk.

She followed, jogging behind me. “You can’t just walk away from this conversation. You’ve been visiting my dad and taking care of him and you haven’t even told me,” she panted.

I liked her little pants. I wanted them against my palm as I fucked her somewhere public, where no one could hear.

“Watch me do exactly that. Walk away from this conversation.”

“Célian, why?”

“Why am I walking? Because I can. Because I have legs. Why am I walking away from this conversation? Because it’s pointless, and it doesn’t mean what you think it means.” I stopped again, this time in front of an old record store with signs in Spanish covering its display window. I wasn’t even sure if it was open, but I wanted us to stop talking, because I wasn’t ready.

Calling it a relationship was one thing.

Acting like we were a couple was another.

I pushed the door. I walked in, and she slipped in after me. The place was dark, with only vinyl records in sight. A man who looked like Meatloaf (the singer, not the dish), was snoring behind the counter, dribbling into a copy of NME. Judith immediately shut up and started browsing.

Nice save, asshole.

Getting her into a record shop was like giving a baby a pacifier. Only hotter, because I still remembered her playlist and had imagined fucking her to it countless times while we were close to killing each other in the office.

“Did you know Barry Manilow didn’t write his song ‘I Write the Songs’?” She slid said singer’s record out of a batch, grinning at me.

I didn’t. I liked that I didn’t. My general knowledge was usually superior to everyone else in my vicinity—came with the territory of making news and having to know everything about anything. But Jude was just as hungry for information as I was, which made her even more attractive. Not to mention lethal.

“Did you know ‘Jingle Bells’ was originally written for Thanksgiving?” I countered.

“Impossible.” She made a shocked face, her jaw slacking. I laughed. She poked me with the tip of the record she held. “The British Navy uses Britney Spears’ songs to scare off Somali pirates. I shit you not.”

We were playing like this now?

“The piano Freddie Mercury plays in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is the same one Paul McCartney plays in ‘Hey, Jude’,” I countered, leaning into her face and flicking her little nose. “Hey, Jude.”

Was I flirting? I was. But why? It didn’t make any sense. She was already mine in all the ways that mattered. She was in my bed. I’d shoved my fingers in every single hole in her body. Why was I doing this?

She walked across the aisle, her shoulder brushing my arm, and dropped the record back in its place, picking another one instead. I didn’t see what it was and decided I didn’t care.

“Queen and Jimi Hendrix never won a Grammy. Justin Bieber did,” she whispered, her grin signaling that she had won the battle.

“I didn’t give you your iPod back because I wanted to keep a piece of you with me,” I admitted.

And won.

And lost.

And what the fuck?

“What?” Her smile wiped off so quickly, you’d think I’d told her I’d been giving her father placebo drugs for the past few weeks.

I picked up the record she was holding and walked over to the register to pay for it.

Judith Humphry didn’t want me to buy her nice things. But that didn’t stop me from wanting to. Because the truth was, I’d never been taught how to show affection. I was taught how to buy it.