“Who’s a lucky little bitch? Huh? Who’s a lucky girl?”

I rolled my eyes at Mike, who was crooning to his wife’s pocket Chihuahua. Somehow our coffee meet-up resulted in to-go cups and the dog park.

Mike’s caterpillar eyebrows rose up and down as he pursed his lips and rubbed the tiny dog’s head. She yipped and trembled with excitement in his arms. I was a little worried she would pee on him.

It reminded me of Lizzie.

I shook my head as I sank onto a bench. “You look absolutely fucking ridiculous, man.” I took a small sip of my coffee, which was finally starting to cool down enough not to burn my mouth. “Is this how you’re going to be with a kid?”

He sat down beside me, his smile broad as he clipped a retractable leash to the lucky bitch’s collar and set her down on the ground. “Fuck, no. I’m having a boy.”

“You know that already? You just told me she was pregnant.” Mike was so excited to tell me when we met up that I think most of Starbucks heard the announcement as well. A few people even clapped.

“It’s a boy. I can just feel it.”

“Dude, it’s the size of a—fuck, what size is it?” My column didn’t get a lot of pregnancy questions. Well, other than a few from guys who didn’t want to end up in a “who’s the daddy?” episode of Maury.

“I looked it up. It’s a plum. Next up is a peach.”

I frowned, taking a bigger sip of my coffee. “Why is it always fruit?”

“Beats me.” Mike sucked on his iced latte.

“Well, congratulations. I’d ask if you were happy, but seeing as you’re grinning like a demented clown…”

“Yeah, well, you’ve got a weird smile on your face today, too, buddy.” He loosened the flexi-lead as the dog sniffed around the perimeter of the bench.

I did? Lizzie came into my mind for the tenth time that day, and my lips automatically curved. Shit, I did.

“You get laid last night?”

I shrugged. “I don’t kiss and tell.”

“Bullshit. You always tell me about your conquests. I live vicariously through you, remember? Maxie, no! Drop it!”

Bending over, I grabbed the half-eaten granola bar from the dog’s mouth and took the opportunity to walk away to the nearest garbage can. Mike was right—I had gotten laid the night before. And the night before that.

In fact, Lizzie and I had been spending more and more time together in the past few weeks. It was surprisingly easy to be with her, and not just in bed. The previous weekend, we’d discovered a mutual love of Harry Potter fanfic and ended up debating over which house we would each be sorted into, hypothetically speaking.

Give me a break. She had Hufflepuff written all over her.

When she didn’t believe me, I wrote Hufflepuff on her clit with my tongue until she agreed, shouting “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

I was still grinning at the memory when I sat down on the bench again. Maxie danced around my shoes.

“Yep, you’re getting laid,” Mike said. “Who is she?”

“Just someone I work with.” My coffee was almost finished, so I couldn’t hide behind it for much longer.

He hooted. “You fucked Miss Behave? You did, didn’t you? So, was she a virgin after all? Or is she secretly into some kinky stuff?”

“Somewhere in between.”

I looked away, playing with my empty coffee cup. While he was right—I normally told him about the women I dated—I found myself not wanting to share much about Lizzie. That reticence made me pause.

Why was I keeping it to myself? Was I ashamed of her? Was I embarrassed?

“Hmmm.” Mike stood. “Let’s go to the off-leash area. Maxie needs to get her ass kicked by some bigger dogs for a while.”

I followed him, and we watched a parade of dogs run around sniffing each other’s butts. It was like watching some kind of canine speed dating.

“Do you really live vicariously through me?” I asked my friend. That seemed kind of… sad and pathetic, honestly. Was that what happened when you settled down and got married?

Mike shrugged, his gaze fixed on the dog.

“Do you ever wish you were single again? I mean, really?”

He turned to me. “Not if it meant dating again,” he said honestly. “I don’t know how you do it. It’s a fucking minefield these days. That Ashleigh chick sounded pretty normal, all things considered.”

I’d never known Mike single, in fact. He had met his wife in college; they’d been together nearly ten years. That seemed to me an eternity to be with just one person. But then, my longest relationship had lasted less than a year. In my experience, the longer you dated a woman, the greater their expectations got. More time, more “romance,” more control.

More lies.

If I’d learned anything from my parents’ divorce when I was a teenager, it was that all of those things led to nothing but acrimony. I still suspected that my father had been happy when my mother died, even though they’d been apart for a few years. To be honest, I resented the fuck out of him for that back then. Hell, I still did.

That was why I prided myself on being honest in my column. People needed to hear the truth about relationships, even if it hurt. Better to sting now than scab over later. It was human nature to pick at scabs, which always made the scar worse. Then again, an ounce of prevention was worth a pound of cure. Actually, make that 0.05 of an ounce—the average weight of a condom.

I was a guy’s guy; I knew a lot of stupid shit.

“Yeah, well, I don’t date,” I said to Mike as we watched Maxie get hit on by a miniature schnauzer. She wasn’t alone; it was a veritable love fest.

It seemed like most people at the dog park were couples. Mocking me. The few single guys I saw were probably using their dogs to try to pick up chicks. There was only a handful of women alone, so good luck to them.

Wait. Across the field I spotted Lizzie’s friend Dara, playing fetch with a tennis ball. Sorry, her dog was playing fetch with Dara throwing the ball. She hadn’t seen me yet, and I turned away from her.

Mike’s voice interrupted my observations. “How many times have you fucked Miss Behave?”

“Her name is Lizzie, and I haven’t counted.”

He side-eyed me. “Do you have meals with her?”

“Sometimes.”

“Conversations? Like, outside of bed?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you ever gone shopping together?”

Did a bookstore count? “I guess.”

“Dude, you’re dating,” he informed me. Before I could respond to that, he hit me with the next blow: “Maybe that’s why your column has been kind of…”

I frowned at him. “Kind of what?”

“I don’t know. Lost its edge a little. You used to be a sharp motherfucker. Maybe that’s just what happens when you work with someone like that, right? You lose creative control.”

“I still have creative control. I write whatever the fuck I want.” I scowled. “And by the way, you’d better rescue Maxie if you don’t want puppies in your house as well as a baby.” Fucker. Sucker.

Mike cursed and went to chase his dog.

---

Fuck. I closed the tab on the browser. Goddamn Mooney had taken this conversation between Miss Behave and Cubicle Crush and ran with it. Lizzie had gotten into it, as well, thinking that she was some kind of matchmaker.

I wanted to punch myself in the throat. Why? Why had I thought that sending that first email was a good idea? Answer: I hadn’t thought, clearly. It was supposed to be a flirty little joke, but somehow it had snowballed into a whole… thing.

Yet I felt compelled to keep emailing her. Maybe Lizzie did have some kind of magical power as Miss Behave that drew people to her.

Maybe there was something to be said for telling people what they wanted to hear, instead of broadsiding them with the ugly truth.

But wait? Was this what I wanted to hear? That sex meant love? Or that it didn’t? See, this is why I was a better advice columnist than Lizzie. She was too ambiguous sometimes. Too behaved.

A Guy’s Guy would have told Cubicle Crush to back the fuck off, unless he preferred his hook ups to turn into clingers. If he didn’t plan on actually dating her, he shouldn’t have ridden the office photocopier. That was always a bad idea.

I rubbed the bridge of my nose, my head spinning from berating my anonymous self. Damn it.

“Something wrong?” Soft hands landed on my shoulders and squeezed. I nearly jumped out of my chair.

Lizzie’s hazel eyes were clouded with concern as she sank into the office chair beside me in the conference room. It was time for our weekly meeting.

“No, nothing. It’s fine.” I rolled my shoulders back, as though the movement could shake off the memory of her touch. then I pointed to the center of the table. “I brought you a Caesar salad.”

Her chair squeaked as she reached over for it. When she popped it open, she turned to me and beamed.

“Aw, Ash! No croutons, half dressing and—”

“—extra lemon,” I finished. I’d heard her order it like that enough times while we were out.

She squealed and spun in her chair. “You remembered!” Rising halfway out of her chair, she darted into my personal space and kissed me on the corner of the mouth. “I lo—” Her voice broke off as I whipped my head toward her.

I stared at her, my lips parted in shock.

Lizzie blinked at me, then at the salad. “I love it this way,” she said quietly. “Thanks.” After that, the only sound in the fishbowl was her stabbing her salad and it crunching in her mouth.

I hadn’t realized my heart had stopped until it started again, like I’d been hit with a defibrillator. Clear!

There was no way—no way—that she had been about to say “I love you” right? Absolutely no way, whatsoever.