You’re fucking smitten,” Candice said, her rivers of auburn brown hair shining in the afternoon sunlight that fell in through her office window in rays of gold, appearing like some kind of drapery over the arm of the couch she was resting on. Our firm was located on the topmost floor a building that looked down on the always chaotic Times Square. I loved it. I loved being able to look outside and see crowds of people at all hours of the day. The energy drove me, and today was no different. I was looking outside, down at a large crowd of tourists gathered around a sword-swallowing street performer as I talked to Candice about Zane. She was my partner in the firm and also one of my closest friends. We’d met in law school and had become inseparable since, both of us knowing we were bound to have our own firm one day. Fast-forward a few years, and we were sitting at the top of Times Square in an office that had De Luca, Lively & Associates written behind a lit-up waterfall as you walked in.

“I’m not smitten, Candice.” I watched as the sword swallower started juggling what appeared to be eggs. Some of his audience members seemed like they were getting too cold, standing outside while waiting for the big sword-swallowing finale. “I’m fucking sprung.”

Candice laughed at that. She was sitting on the red couch against the far wall. She’d kicked off her red bottoms and posted her feet up on the armrest, her hands behind her head. It was like a reverse therapy session, where the therapist lies down and the patient stands up. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Watch it all disintegrate in front of me, most likely. It’s what always happens.”

“Oh shut up, Enzo. You haven’t even given yourself opportunities to watch your chances wither up.”

Merda. She was right.

“When was the last time you dated someone seriously? Not since that Ryan guy, right?”

“You’re right, it’s been a while.”

Not since Ryan.

But Candice didn’t know the entire story about Ryan. He’d only lasted three months, but those three months were some of the worst months of my entire life, not to mention the following ones as well. I didn’t know why I still hadn’t talked about the extent of what Ryan did to me, not even with Candice, but I just couldn’t bring it up. When that man left my life, I wanted all signs of him gone, too, and that meant not even bringing his name up in conversation.

But that was almost three years ago. I had moved on from what he did to me. Especially over the past year, I really found myself accepting what had happened and allowing myself to trust other men again. I started sleeping around and having fun, something that had been absent since Ryan entered my life. But I still never fully felt myself open up around anyone. Not until Zane.

I felt like I made peace with what Ryan did to me, and that may have been one of the reasons why Zane was even coming into my life at that point. I was making room in my life for someone who actually mattered. Someone who deserved my attention.

Of course, he could always turn out to be a major coglione, too, but I highly doubt that.

No, Zane wasn’t like Ryan. There had been red flags from the start with that guy, which I ignored because he was a hot Instagram model and I thought that was all I needed.

Oh, how much I’d learned.

“You act so different with men compared to your cases. Thank God, because if you treated our cases like you treated guys you cared about, I don’t think we’d ever get anything done. You diddly-daddle too much.”

“I do not diddly-daddle,” I said, “unless we’re on the second date.”

We both laughed. The sword swallower down below moved on to his final act, pulling out a (surely fake) sword from out of a long black box. I wondered how his fingers weren’t freezing off in the cold. He wasn’t even wearing a coat, sticking to a look that reminded me of someone who’d travel the country chasing behind a punk rock band.

“Seriously, though, I’m nervous to make the wrong move. That’s never happened to me before. I can pick up and keep men entertained like it was my second profession. But with Zane, the table’s been flipped. Nothing feels the same. I’m constantly on my toes, making sure I don’t scare him off somehow.”

“Have you guys had sex yet?”

“No,” I replied, watching as the man below raised the sword up high into the air.

“Wow,” she replied, whistling. “It is serious, then.”

“We’ve hooked up, and that’s been explosive enough, I don’t think my body can handle full-on sex with him.”

“Well, if I see you walking into the office like a penguin, I’ll make sure to cover and tell the associates you had a really rough spin class.”

I snorted at that. “Thank you. I knew I could always count on you.”

“Obviously,” Candice said. The sword went down the man’s throat. Well, at least that’s what everyone around him thought. From my angle, I could clearly see the sword retract back into the hilt, his throat a black hole holding nothing but his tonsils.

All smoke and mirrors.

“How do you know I wouldn’t be the one topping?”

“Babe… come on,” she said as she sat up on the couch. She laughed as her hazel eyes dropped below my waist. “With an ass like that, it would be criminal if you weren’t a bottom. You’d seriously need to go to gay jail.”

“Is that the one where everyone drops the soap on purpose?”

“Exactly,” she said, laughing.

“Doesn’t sound too bad.” I moved away from the window, laughing along with Candice. These moments were very much needed, especially with the stress of Ricardo’s case hovering over me. Sleep had been hard to come by the past few days. With the court date approaching like a shadowy monster with its fangs bared, my gears were working on full throttle. I had another interview with him the other day and walked away feeling positive that he couldn’t have done it. I was working on overtime putting together a good defense in case Zane’s investigation didn’t pan out. It seemed like he was onto something, but that meant he had to talk to a gang member in order to figure it out, and that part scared me. If anything happened to Zane, I knew I would feel like I was the one responsible. I’d been the man who hired him and sent him off onto danger’s path. Of course, that was in his job description, but still, it made me nervous.

“Okay, fine. Say you do end up surviving a sexual encounter with Zane, all limbs and holes intact, what would you see happening from there?”

Damn it. Candice was good. Explicit, but also good. That’s why I loved her. Her sharpness was also invaluable in the courtroom, where she could shred apart a counterargument like it was a block of parmesan going through a grater.

“I see us… I don’t know. Being happy. Life feels good when I’m around him. Truly beautiful. Trust me, I like my life from before I met him, but when I’m with Zane, everything is different. La vita è più dolce con lui.” I sat down in her big leather chair. “Life is sweeter with him in it.”

“Okay, so maybe you should go into this thinking positive thoughts, not that you’re going to see anything disintegrate. It sounds like things are off to a great start, and nothing you do is going to ruin that, so just let things ride out the way they should. I’ve got a feeling you found a good match.”

“We’ll see,” I said, feeling hopeful and confident inside but knowing there were still some hurdles to jump.

That was when the buzzer on Candice’s intercom blurted through the room. “Hi, Ms. Lively, is Enzo meeting with you?”

I immediately recognized my assistant’s voice. I reached across the desk and pressed the button. “Hey, Liz. Yeah, I’m here. What do you need?”

“I’ve got a call for you.”

“Tell them I’ll call back in ten.”

“Sounds urgent. He told me to tell you it was Zane about Ricardo’s case. Told me you wouldn’t want to miss him.”

Candice gave a suspicious cough, one that sounded more like a laugh. “I’ll buzz you when I’m in my office so you can give me the call,” I said, hopping up from the chair.

“Be sure not to miss him,” Candice said as she took her place behind her desk, watching me with a smile as I closed the door, flashing a certain finger behind my back on the way out.