Inside my apartment, I immediately went to the bathroom and turned the bathtub faucet on until the water was nice and warm. I let it run while I disrobed and opened a bottle of red wine.

I wasn’t usually an afternoon drinker, but today I needed one. I only had two hours left to give Ned my yes or no, and the way my head was still pounding, I could use a little hair of the dog. Wine, a bubble bath, and my favorite Mary J. Blige album would be my counsel.

I eased into the warm water, a faint smile on my face as I leaned my head back, almost resting it on the porcelain of the tub. The red blend felt soothing on my throat.

To go undercover with Corbin, or not to go? That was the question, subconscious, that we were here to debate.

I’d like to call to the stand my first witness. The amazing sex.

Before Corbin and I’s romp, it had been months since I’d had any at all. It might have even been years since I’d had sex like that. I’d even surprised myself with how good it was. I’d never been a one night stand kind of girl—in the past I’d always thrived on an emotional connection with my partners. Yet with Corbin, it’d been different. Sexy, physical, and orgasmic. The chemistry was palpable, even though I couldn’t exactly explain why.

It wasn’t that sex with Ned had been bad. Who complains about sex anyway? Sex is like pizza. Even when it was bad, it was still pretty good.

Right?

Sex with Ned had been…nice. Just like most things with Ned, until we broke it off. He was a nice man who did nice things for me and made love almost in a reserved, obligatory way. As a result, I was underwhelmed throughout the relationship—only just now was I piecing together what I was missing.

Listening to Mary J Blige made me think back to the nineties and the music I grew up with. I liked to think it was the last early hip hop era, the golden era before music went soft. For some reason, I thought about the rap I used to listen to and a Jay-Z lyric stuck out in my head: It’s kind of hard to go back to hamburger helper after you’ve had that filet mignon.

What song was that lyric from? Did it matter? I sank further into the bubble bath, sticking my toes out of the water.

Take the job, my first witness said. Take the job and stop being so worried about what other people think about you. You’re too damn NICE, Eva.

I nodded at my thought, and I had to laugh. Did other people have conversations with themselves like I did?

I called my second witness to the stand, career progress.

I’ll be short, this witness said.

You damn well know you need to accept this job and go undercover. When else are you going to get an opportunity to take down a man as villainous as Reyes? If you don’t seize this opportunity, you’re going to end up pushing papers in ten years, at the same desk, and you’re going to be very pissed. Stop being so damn NICE and go after what YOU want for a change.

Career was right. Corbin out of the picture, I did want this job. I’d been wanting to go into the field ever since I found out how my cousin was gunned down, caught in the crossfire of senseless gun violence.

Plus, Corbin is so damn sexy, if you go undercover with him maybe you’ll…

My witnesses were starting to get a little bit out of control. Sex, pipe down. You’ve already taken the stand.

The Mary J Blige track “I’m goin’ down” played in the background, and I took another sip of my wine. I let her lyrics sound through me as I meditated.

I leaned back in the water and let my whole body submerge except for my face.

Both of the witnesses Sex and Career seemed to agree, but for different reasons. I knew what I had to do. There would be no more Little Miss Nice Girl. I had been running scared for far too long, afraid to take my career to the next level. It was time for me to do what it took to win, and I would start with my career. And although Sex made a strong case, I’d have to take sex with Corbin off the table for my own piece of mind. It was just a complication that I didn’t need.

I rose up out of the water, and fired off some texts.

Eva: I’m going to do this mission with you, I’ve decided

Corbin: Yes! More time with the prettiest girl I’ve ever met

Eva: But…

Corbin: Not a but. I don’t like buts. Unless we’re talking about your butt

Eva: I’m serious. No sex on this trip. And I mean it. You’re great and all but when we’re out of the Reyes’ sight, we drop the roles. Capiche?

Corbin: (two baseball emojis)

Eva: What does that mean?

Corbin: Can we at least round second base?

My phone buzzed suddenly, and I took a deep breath when I saw it was my brother Jake calling. I blew out the air and composed myself.

“Speak of the devil! I was just about to give you a call.”

“Oh yeah?” Jake replied. “Your ears were burning?”

I smiled. “Yes. I’m trying to make a difficult decision. Can I get your advice?”

“Of course.”

“If you had to do something really difficult...and it could end up being the best thing you ever did, but it could blow up in your face times one-hundred, what would you do?”

He paused for a moment. “Wow. Getting right down to business tonight, aren’t we.”

“I didn’t mean to bombard you. If you don’t want to answer…”

“Well what’s the opportunity?”

“I can’t say.”

“Ohh..it’s classified?”

“I can neither agree nor disagree with that statement.”

Jake chuckled. “Of course. My advice? All the good things in life come hard. And even if something good comes easy, we don’t appreciate it as much. So if I were you, I’d go for it, one-hundred percent. So you really can’t tell me?”

“I can’t.”

He sighed. “Alright I guess...I’m just a little worried about you. That’s all.”

“You didn’t call to give me a free counseling session. What did you call for?”

He laughed, and I could see that boyish smile forming on his face, even through the phone.

“I’m getting married.”

I choked on the air, cleared my throat, and then coughed some more. “Excuse me?”

“I said I--”

“I understood the words! Is this a trick?”

He chuckled again. “Not a trick.”

“Jake, the last time we spoke your position on marriage wasn’t exactly...favorable.”

“Oh you mean when I’d sworn off the idea of considering the idea of marriage? Well, that was post-break up Jake. New Jake has a new girl...and she’s incredible.”

“What the...I haven’t even met her yet.”

“Well you should come to Chicago soon and meet her. She’s amazing. Deal?”

“Deal. Wow. Lot of ladies are going to be disappointed that the bad boy of baseball has finally settled down.”

“They’ll live.”

I glanced at the time. “Oh, damn, Jake I have to go. I’ll look for the details in the mail. Bye bro, I love you.”

“Bye Eva. I know you’ll make the right decision, whatever you decide.”

I hung up the phone with a new resolve, knowing exactly what it was I had to do.

* * *

The afternoon light sneaked into Ned’s office as he paced around the room, tie half undone, sweating up a storm as usual. I sat on the two-seater couch with my legs crossed. Corbin picked up a bowl of pistachios from Ned’s coffee table and sifted through them, looking for the easiest ones to eat as Ned reacted to our plan.

“I don’t feel comfortable with this, Eva. You want to go undercover as Corbin’s arm candy, his mistress? How did you come up with this plan, anyway? I can’t in good faith approve this mission. What if you have to, you know, do stuff?” Ned shook his head vigorously.

I furrowed my brow. What were we, in sixth grade? “Do stuff? It’s an unorthodox plan, but we need to be unorthodox to catch Luis Reyes. That’s exactly why he won’t suspect it. And yeah, we might have to lay a couple of kisses on each other. I promise I won’t use any tongue, though,” I winked.

Corbin chimed in. “If you have a better idea, Ned, I’m all ears. I, for one, think we should consider ourselves lucky to have a woman like Eva who fits the bill for my sidepiece and can play the part convincingly.” He cocked his head at me and winked.

Ned did a double take at the word sidepiece, and loosened his tie further. I had a feeling he had a personal reason for resisting this plan.

“And how on earth do you know she can play it convincingly? Eva is a nice girl, Corbin. I have my doubts she can act as badly as she’ll need to.”

My heart recoiled when Ned said the words nice girl. This was precisely the image I was trying to correct. How could I correct it without compensating too far in the ‘bitchy slut’ direction? It was a fine line I had to walk.

Ned loosened his tie and looked back and forth between the two of us, shaking his head. “Fucking great. Jesus. Just what I need: a goddamn vigilante squad. What a dynamic fucking duo! Our ex-con superstar and my first time field agent coming up with their own ideas. I thought Eva being Corbin’s long lost cousin was a splendid idea.”

Ned turned his back to look out the window for a moment, and Corbin and I exchanged a look. He stuck his tongue out and mouthed the words you’re hot.

“Fine,” Ned finally said. “You’ve convinced me. Damned if it’s not the craziest plan I’ve ever heard, but shit, you’re right Eva. We need to be unorthodox to catch Reyes.” He ambled over behind his desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a tiny electronic chip, barely the size of his thumbnail.

“This,” Ned said, “is your lifeblood. It’s a voice transmitter, recorder, and GPS tracker all in one once we activate it. This baby is how we are going catch him. It’s what we will use in trial once we finally have the bastard extradited.” He held it up to the light.

“It looks easy to lose,” Corbin said. “Not to mention, Marco is going to be suspicious if we have a tiny piece of amazing technology.”

Ned reached in his desk and pulled out a rubik’s cube. “We’ll hide it in this. Middle yellow square.” He popped off the yellow tab of the cube, hid the chip inside it, and replaced the tab. He spun it a few times and it certainly looked just like a normal rubik’s cube again.

Ned walked around his desk until he was right in front of Corbin. “Listen. You take care of her, okay?” he put the rubik’s cube in Corbin’s hand.

“I like puzzles,” Corbin says, picking up the cube and spinning it a few times. “Shouldn’t be too hard to keep an eye on.”

“I’m not talking about the damn rubik’s cube, Corbin. I’m talking about my agent,” he motioned toward me. “And document everything with that cube. I want Luis Reyes recorded talking about the millions of dollars he’s made selling cocaine. I want hard fucking evidence.”

I stood. “We’re cutting it close. Marco wants to meet us in a couple of hours, and I don’t even have my bags packed.”

I needed to work on my skanky girl wardrobe, which was seriously lacking.

Ned nodded. I walked out and Corbin followed, rubik’s cube in hand.

“Let’s do this shit, Alexa,” he said close behind me.

A surge of adrenaline ran through me. I liked it when Corbin called me that.