VICTORIA DIDN’T KNOW what to do with herself. Desperation clawed at her mind, begging for a distraction, but she couldn’t find one that worked.

The first couple of days of her suspension, she cleaned the apartment. Twice. Not that it was a mess to begin with.

That kept her hands busy, but not her brain. The loud music helped, until the neighbors complained.

She turned her attention to online window shopping. Picking out baby items she couldn’t afford. Her fingers inched toward her phone a couple of times, to send Tristan a link to something. Ask if he liked it better in yellow or pale green.

Which was an odd impulse, since they’d never shopped for baby items before.

But he had names picked out. Alexandria if it was a girl. She liked the sound of it. What would it have been if it were a boy? She’d know soon.

Would she tell Tristan? She wanted to. Wanted him there when she found out. But no. That might look bad. She could tell Ash, right?

A surge of anger welled inside. No one had questioned that relationship. No one ever brought up that she and Ash were friends. Rationally it made sense. Nothing was in Ash’s name. On the surface, Ash didn’t get anything out of this.

Because peace of mind didn’t matter in a case like this, and no one would want to believe she’d done it to spite a wealthy businessman.

It wasn’t Ash’s fault though. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. That was what Victoria hated the most, after how much it hurt to miss Tristan. No one had done anything wrong. It just looked bad on paper.

She reached for her phone again, and stopped herself before dialing Tristan’s number. She called Ash instead.

“Hey, stranger.” Ash’s greeting was cheerful but guarded.

“Are you busy? Or rather, do you have any free time in the next day or so?” Victoria didn’t want to sound desperate, but she was. Did it matter if that showed? Not here. At least that was a relief.

“Yes.” Ash sounded relieved. “As in, yes, I’m free. No, I’m not busy. Do you want me to come over now?”

“That would be awesome. Bring lots of ice cream?”

“You got it.”

Ash arrived about half an hour later, and held up a plastic grocery bag. It was stuffed with pints of ice cream. “I forgot to ask what flavor you liked.”

“I’m sure it won’t go to waste.” Victoria grabbed one handle from her and peeked inside. “Which one is yours?”

“This one.” Ash pointed to the Phish Food. “Or maybe this one.” It was something with cherry chunks in it. “Or... okay, I’ll eat any of them. You should probably pick first.”

This was good. It didn’t chase away the clawing in Victoria’s head, but it made it easier to turn to background noise. She tugged Ash inside and toward the kitchen.

Victoria grabbed two spoons from the drawer and handed her one. “Close your eyes and pick. I’ll do the same, and the rest will go in the freezer.”

“I like the way you think.”

Ash ended up with mint cookie, and Victoria grabbed something with too many flavors for her to remember if she wasn’t reading the label.

They collapsed on the couch at opposite ends, facing each other.

“You sounded kind of desperate to come over,” Victoria said as she dug into her ice cream. She’d called Ash to talk, but now that she had a grasp on clearer thought, she wasn’t eager to dive back into what was bothering her.

Ash scowled. “Kelly is at her friend’s for the weekend and Mischa is grumpy. He’s not taking it out on me, but he won’t deal with it either, and it’s oppressive.”

That didn’t sound like Mischa. Nothing fazed him. “Grumpy why?”

“He broke up with his boyfriend.” Ash stuck her tongue out.

Victoria laughed, but it ached in her chest. “Hey, me too. Something else he and I have in common.”

Ash’s smile was twisted. “That explains what the tipping point was. I didn’t know you two were serious.”

“We weren’t.” Victoria tried to wash down the bitter lie with a spoonful of ice cream. “At least, if anyone asks, that’s the official answer. The details are... complicated.” Were they really? This entire affair was complicated, but what she felt for Tristan seemed simple.

“What happened?”

Victoria shook her head. “I can’t. I want to, but I don’t know how to explain. You first.”

“I didn’t catch it all. Some sort of pissing match about which one of them had a tougher life.”

“Sounds serious.” She wasn’t sure if she meant that, but from either of their perspectives, she could see where the contention would be.

“I’m assuming they’ll kiss and make up eventually. They’ve been together for what... twenty years?”

It almost felt ludicrous to put an anniversary date on Tristan and Mischa’s friendship, but Victoria liked the distraction. “High school, so they were about fourteen? Twenty-three years.”

“Almost as long as we’ve been alive.” Ash twisted her mouth. “How fucked up is that?”

“You’re kidding, right? That’s about the most normal thing happening here.”

“What happened between you two? Only what your comfortable sharing.”

Victoria stared at her ice cream, then prodded at a fudge chunk, digging around it and extracting it while she gathered her thoughts. “Off the record?”

“Always.”

“We hooked up a few times. That was all it was supposed to be. And then suddenly it was more.” Victoria’s heart stalled on the word more. How much more? She’d hesitated to delve too deep.

It was easy enough to say she was falling, because that was generic. The attraction to Tristan had always been there. But now she knew the person, not just the gorgeous man with the cold eyes.

She’d gone past falling and landed flat on her face. This was something she’d never felt before. Not with Mischa, or anyone. A desire that ran so deep it scared her to think of exploring it, and terrified her that she might have lost it.

“And now it’s over?” Ash said.

Yes. No. Probably. Victoria hoped not. “Everyone is asking questions, because of this investigation. Who’s the father of my baby? What did the firm get out of donating the building? What did I get out of it?”

“A headache, as far as I can tell.”

“Pretty much,” Victoria said dryly.

Ash put the lid on her ice cream, and set it on the coffee table. Victoria wanted to wince at the pool of condensation that formed on the glass, but right now rings on the table didn’t seem significant.

“A lot of people look for the easy solution, or a single person to point the blame at, whenever something big happens.” Ash leaned in, elbows on her knees. “I don’t usually agree with this, but right now, I’m pointing a big, accusing finger—one of those novelty foam ones—at my dad.”

“Too bad that’s not a solution.”

Ash shrugged. “That’s what everyone keeps saying, but there’s a freedom in knowing. He fucked with me, too. I wish I could help you the way you did for me and Kelly. But here’s the thing... Before that, I almost left Mischa over it.”

“But you two are so perfect together.” Victoria expected the words to hurt. A few months ago, she never thought she’d say that about Ash. “He watches you like you’re his universe.”

Pink spread across Ash’s cheeks. “I didn’t think I deserved that. I didn’t believe he saw me for me. I thought it might make things go more smoothly for him with my dad. I pushed him away, because I got so jumbled up in other people’s opinions, that I lost track of my own.”

“This isn’t the same.”

“I know,” Ash said. “Jobs and jailtime on the line. I’ve heard. Mischa told me he and Tristan were fighting over you. At least, that’s where it started.”

Victoria stalled on the news. “Why?”

“Like I mentioned, I don’t have all the details. He said Tristan was defending you, though.”

Victoria didn’t have a response. She grabbed both their half-finished pints of ice cream and shoved them back in the freezer, then returned to the couch, searching for words that wouldn’t come.

“Are you excited?” Ash asked.

“About?”

Ash nodded at her stomach. “The baby.”

“Yes.” The answer had never come so quickly before. This was a change in subject Victoria could do. Her hand rested on her stomach. “So very much.”

“We have to go shopping. Pick out clothes and bedding and everything.”

Victoria appreciated the enthusiasm, but she couldn’t push some boundaries of this friendship. “I don’t have the same bank account you do.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Ash grinned. “I can show you all the best second-hand shops in town, that will make it look like you decorated straight out of a Pottery Barn catalog.”

“All right. I’m in.” Victoria felt hope climbing past the grief that had set up show inside. There was still that empty, gnawing pit where Tristan should be and wasn’t.