Over the next several weeks, Ethan and I wade through miles of sewage pipe. The truth is, most of the time, investigative journalism is nothing like the sexy, death-defying heroism you see in the movies. It’s gathering and sifting through mountains of paper, scouring hundreds, thousands, of innocuous pages for that one relevant item. It’s spending days with a phone glued to your ear, and getting hung up on. Reading transcripts and data charts until your eyes bleed. Getting jerked around by people who must take pleasure in being difficult. Hitting dead ends at every turn until you can’t remember anymore where you are or how you got here. And it’s coffee—obscene amounts of coffee to stimulate just enough of your brain to form words and sometimes cogent thought.

Six weeks, and we do it all with Vivian watching over our shoulders.

Mostly, I’ve learned to tolerate her. Now that the initial irritation with her existence has worn off, she isn’t such a distraction in the office. I’ve even come to see why she had a job here to begin with. She does know what she’s doing, and it’s incredible the amount of information she was able to collect and piece together while under the constant threat of being discovered as a spy.

If there is one positive to Vivian’s sudden reappearance, it’s that working on this story seems to have kept Ethan’s mind off his mother’s illness. They talk on the phone a few times a week, which always leaves him in a dark temper, but once his mind refocuses on work, the tension leaves his shoulders and the darkness recedes. Until today.

His mother has invited us over for dinner at their house, meaning Ethan’s been in a shit mood since he woke up this morning. I understand the contradiction clashing inside him; Ethan loves his mother, but he’s angry that once again he’s faced with losing her after he thought they’d escaped. Seeing her only reminds him that he has one less day than he did yesterday, and seeing his father means staring into the face of the man Ethan blames for killing her. Because he knows, no matter how much he grasps for optimism, that his mother isn’t getting any better.

We pull up to a townhouse on East Sixty-Second Street just before seven. Actually, his parents’ house is two adjoining townhomes between Fifth and Madison Avenues, five stories high with a terrace on the roof. Bigger than my entire apartment building. Staring out the window of Ethan’s truck, raking my eyes up the elegant stone façade and two-dozen shiny windows, it’s a bit intimidating. I’m almost afraid to ask how many properties his family owns.

“Is this where you grew up?”

“Somewhat.” Ethan’s voice is rueful. A distant, detached melancholy has settled over him. “Evan and I went to private school in the city until I reached ninth grade. They sent me to boarding school at Exeter after that. To separate us.”

He doesn’t talk about his brother often, but when he does, I understand better why he carries so much resentment. Though Evan was the troublemaker, the instigator, it was Ethan who was banished from his home and family most of the year. The seclusion he must have felt, that’s something I can identify with. And I suppose it explains the wide berth Ethan enforces around himself. In the months we’ve known each other, Carter is the only real friend of his I’ve met outside the office. I don’t think Ethan has many at all. Yet another reason we seem to understand each other.

“Thank you for doing this,” Ethan says, wrapping his hand over mine as I turn to face him. “I promise, we’ll make it quick. Dinner, skip coffee, and we’re out.”

He’s dressed for the occasion: charcoal sports coat over a crisp bone button-down, black pants, and shoes to match. Despite his apparent reluctance to be here, Ethan puts forth an effort. He takes dinner with the parents seriously. I, however, feel rather inadequate in the silk blouse and pencil skirt I bought when I was interviewing for internships during my senior year of college. Like I’m a kid wearing her mom’s clothes. Dressing up just doesn’t suit me.

“Try not to fight with your dad, okay?”

Ethan’s jaw tightens in response.

“I know,” I say, “but for your mother’s sake, behave.”

Relaxing his expression, Ethan skims his fingertips across my temple to tuck my hair behind my ear. He cups the side of my face to run the pad of his thumb under the ridge of my bottom lip. Every time he does that, those modest little gestures, I feel his affection. The deep, pure endearment of the gentle act. And I love him even more.

“No wandering off this time,” he says with a teasing grin.

We get out of the truck and go to the door to ring the bell. A moment later his father answers. Paul’s gray-blue eyes cut straight to us as a tight frown creases the corners of his mouth. Stepping back, he invites us inside. We make it only a few steps into the foyer.

“Avery, it is a pleasure to see you again. I wasn’t aware you would be joining us.”

Paul tucks his hands into the pockets of his navy pants. The impassive, solitary posture is one I recognize. A hereditary trait passed on to his son.

“I invited her.” Holding my hand, Ethan squeezes. Almost painfully tight.

“And of course you’re always welcome,” Paul says to me with a sort of polite enmity. His focus then rises to Ethan. “Though tonight isn’t the best time. Your mother asked you here because there are family matters to discuss.”

Ethan tucks my arm under his, possessive and protective. “She is my family.”

“Avery, sweetheart.” Linda appears at the opposite end of the foyer. She’s a petite woman dressed simply in a cotton blouse and loose ankle pants that were probably tighter on her a few months ago. The scarf is absent today, revealing her pale, bald scalp. Still, she’s a beautiful woman. “What a lovely surprise. I’m so happy you’re here.”

She comes to offer me a hug, her embrace genuine and welcoming. Despite her bright energy, I sense the weakness in her muscles as she pulls away. Her eyes have dimmed since we first met.

“Don’t you look nice,” she says, holding my hands out to appraise me. “Ethan, you two didn’t have to get dressed up. It’s just a casual dinner at home.”

“Hi, Mom.” He smiles indulgently and kisses her cheek. “How are you feeling?”

“Oh, fine, fine.” Linda cuts a subtle glare at her husband. I suspect it refers to a similar warning that Paul not allow this evening to descend into another argument. “Come in, get settled. Dinner’s almost ready.”

As she escorts us, I’m overwhelmed at the size and rich elegance of their home. Everything decorated in warm cream and other neutrals. Marble floors and high ceilings. This must have required a massive renovation to convert the original structures, knocking out walls to create an open floorplan.

“Mom,” Ethan says as we pass the kitchen toward the living room, “you’re not cooking, are you? That’s too much work by yourself.”

“Nonsense.” She drifts away, gesturing for us to make ourselves comfortable. “I’m plenty capable of operating an oven.”

Paul wanders off somewhere, and Ethan and I stand awkwardly in the center of the room. Edgy and radiating tension, he behaves almost as if he’d never been here before. The way you feel trapped in place when entering a stranger’s home, afraid to touch anything or drift too far from the spot where they left you. Already he’s thinking of making a quick exit.

“Maybe I should go,” I say, concerned that I’ve overstepped a boundary of privacy. Being the party crasher is becoming a tired recurrence. “I don’t want to intrude.”

“No.” He trails his fingers down my arms, eliciting a slight shiver that travels to my toes. “I want you here. I meant what I said, Avery. You’re my family; he needs to get used to the idea.”

Something desperate in the quiet force of his voice pleads with me, the emphatic honesty behind his eyes. He didn’t bring me here to soften the edges or rub his rebellion in his father’s face—I’m a crutch. Ethan perhaps wouldn’t have made it past the door if I hadn’t been there to prop him up. For as strong a performance as he’s put on over the past weeks, inside he’s coming apart.

By the time we’re all seated in the formal dining room, Ethan’s retreated behind two glasses of scotch and half a glass of red wine. Beside me, he exudes a quiet hostility growing more pervasive as the meal wears on. That Paul does most of the talking doesn’t help matters.

“Seems you’ve created quite a stir,” he says, cutting into his chicken breast. “My office has been fielding calls for the last month. People anxious to move assets.”

“Get ready for the subpoenas.” Ethan swallows another urgent mouthful of wine.

“I think you’re overestimating the fallout.” Paul composes himself in that mannered way moneyed people do. A delicate grip on his utensils, back straight and chin high. He’s a man who comes from wealth and has never known anything else. “There’s considerable gray territory between strategic self-interest and fraud.”

“You would know,” is Ethan’s curt response.

I keep my head down, attempting to blend into my chair as I diligently cut sautéed vegetables into manageable bites. There’s no part of this conversation that requires my input. Not when Ethan and his father are pissing at each other from either side of a fence. This must be a pastime of theirs. An example of everything that separates them. Ethan on a mission to topple the pillars of power constructed by men like his father; Paul concerned with building them taller.

“Let’s not talk business at the table,” Linda gently chides them.

I can’t imagine what life was like when she had three of them to wrangle.

“Avery.” Topping off my glass of water, Paul fixes his attention on me. Much like his son, he has a way of pinning a person with his eyes. “I understand you had something of a scare recently. Must be quite troubling for a young woman who—”

Ethan drops his silverware on his plate, a stinging noise piercing the room. “Don’t do that. Don’t condescend to her.”

“Ethan.” I slide my hand to his leg. “It’s fine. He didn’t mean—”

“No, he did mean.” Glaring at his father, his shoulders tense. “This is what he does.”

“Son, your father wasn’t implying anything,” Linda says with soft reassurance. “We were both simply concerned to hear Avery had experienced some unwanted attention.”

No arrest was ever made in regard to the note on my door, but after a couple of weeks the outrage wore off and the messages stopped flooding my work email and the magazine’s comment sections. I suppose it’s a badge of honor now. A rite of passage.

“Death threats,” Ethan bites out through clenched teeth. “People threatening to kill her.”

“Really”—plastering on something like a smile, I squeeze Ethan’s leg to insist he shut the hell up—“it wasn’t anything serious. People with too much time on their hands.”

“There, see?” Paul picks up his glass of wine and gestures toward me. “Avery can manage some perspective. Comes with the territory, right?”

A snide remark or perhaps a full-scale tirade is on the tip of Ethan’s tongue, but his mother speaks before he can make the decision to utter it. She steers the conversation to more polite territory, asking how I’m enjoying living in the city and what sights I’ve yet to explore. We talk about museums and architecture while Ethan and his father engage in wordless combat beside us. But as the evening winds down and we finish our meals, I watch a resigned shadow cast itself over Linda’s face. She’s less engaged, only half-listening, and her attention seems to drift elsewhere.

“What’s the latest from the doctors?” Ethan asks when his father mentions that he and Linda are considering a vacation next month. “How’s the chemo going?”

Silence, as Paul stares at his wife.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Perhaps this conversation is best left to another time,” Paul says, clearing his throat. He wipes a cloth napkin over his mouth.

That is a not-so-subtle reference to my unexpected presence.

Ethan stiffens beside me. “Someone fucking tell me what’s going on.”

“Well…” Linda pushes her plate away. It’s evident in the downward curve of her mouth, the slope of her eyes, that exhaustion is setting in. “I’m no longer receiving chemo treatments.”

“Meaning what?”

Oh, no. I hear the tires screeching in the distance. Swerving headlights cutting quickly and erratically through the darkness. The moment you tense right before the horror of impact. My hand goes to Ethan’s resting on the table. He doesn’t look at me, but tightens his fingers around mine more out of reflex.

“Just that,” Linda says from behind a sturdy wall of armor. “I’ve decided to stop seeking treatment. The cancer has spread to a point where remission is no longer a probable outcome. At this stage, the responsible course of action is pain management rather than aggressive treatment.”

“You can’t be serious.” He’s trembling in my hand. Ethan’s entire body is nearly vibrating beside me. “You’re giving up?”

“I’m afraid it isn’t much of a choice. The prognosis—”

“Fuck the prognosis!” he shouts. “Fight it. There are alternatives. You can’t—”

“Ethan, stop it.” Paul raises his voice. Contained fury lashes out across the table. “This isn’t a matter open for debate. Your mother has made a decision in consultation with her doctors, and we will support her choice. That’s it.”

“Jesus Christ, Dad. Did you even try? Or are you in such a hurry to absolve yourself of the guilt.”

“Ethan—”

“That’s enough—”

“No, forget it.” Ethan pushes back from the table and stands, grabbing my hand to pull me to my feet. “I clearly didn’t need to be here for this. We’re leaving.”

“Hey, hey.” I implore Ethan to stop as he drags me toward the foyer. At the door, I finally get him to pause long enough to focus his attention on me. “You can’t storm out of here like this. She’s your mother and she needs you to understand.”

“What’s to understand? She’s giving up, and he apparently can’t wait to get rid of her.”

“You don’t mean that. He’s just trying to respect his wife’s wishes and support her decision. That’s what you do when you love someone.”

“Goddammit, Avery.” He recoils from me, pure rage sparking behind his eyes. “Would it kill you to take my side? Why are you always fighting me?”

“I’m not,” I say, reaching for his hand. He yanks it away. Like he’s disgusted. “I’m trying to keep you from running out on your family. They need you. Just go back in there and—”

“I can’t deal with this shit. Any of you.”

“Ethan—”

But he’s gone. Out the door. Slamming it in my face. Leaving me behind as he drives away. I stand there, stunned for a moment, until Paul walks up beside me.

“Shall I call you a car?” he asks, completely unaffected by the explosive encounter.

Staring out the narrow window beside the door, I take a deep breath. My hand slides to where my pocket should be and where the shell casing isn’t.

“No, I can find my own way home.”

“I did try to warn you,” he says. “Ethan has always had volatile tendencies.”

I didn’t doubt Paul’s assertion the first time, but I was certain whatever might come, Ethan would let me bear it with him. That he’d trust me that much. Seems I made a gross miscalculation.

Ethan isn’t home when I get back to the loft. I call and text him but get no response. It’s after midnight when I shower and get in bed. I turn up the volume on my phone’s ringer and leave it on Ethan’s pillow beside me. Sometime later, a noise jerks me awake.

“Ethan?”

Rubbing my eyes, a bit disoriented, I see him standing in front of the open refrigerator. Bright white light casts him in a black silhouette.

“What time is it?”

He doesn’t answer. The fridge door shuts and the space is black again. Cabinet doors clap shut. Glass clinks. I throw back the blankets and climb out of bed to tentatively make my way to the kitchen. The clock on the microwave reads 3:47 a.m.

“Ethan,” I say, when my eyes adjust and I see him standing at the island. “Where have you been?”

“Out.”

I hear a plastic cap unscrew then the solid thunk of a heavy glass bottle hitting the granite counter. When I find the stove, I flick on the range light. Ethan stands with a glass of dark liquor at his lips. His eyes are bloodshot, hair a dizzy mess. A thin sheen of sweat covers his face. He’s discarded the jacket he was wearing earlier this evening, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows.

“Out where?”

“Christ, could you wait like five seconds before you pounce on me?”

He tosses back a heavy mouthful then pours himself another.

Standing on the opposite side of the island, I cross my arms over my stomach, relieved that he’s home but disturbed by the state in which he’s returned. I can’t even begin to wonder how the hell he managed to drive home tonight, assuming he didn’t ditch his truck somewhere. That’s a fight for another time.

“I was worried about you. I tried calling.”

“Shut off my phone.”

He doesn’t look at me, preoccupied with the glass in his hand. Again he takes a swig and pours.

“You left me there.”

“Funny,” he says, nose curled and brow furrowed. “The way I remember it, you left me.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Nope, I didn’t think so, either.”

I hate this person. Whoever he is, I don’t recognize him. Curt and sarcastic, callous to the point of cruelty. It leaves a cold, empty space inside me that Ethan once filled.

“So that’s it, then. I’m the enemy now.”

“I’m not the one siding against you.”

“Fine.”

I shut off the light, unable to look at him any longer. There’s a fire building in my gut, a sharp, shooting impulse threatening in the back of my head. If I stand here much longer, I’ll say something I can’t take back. As I come around the island, I brush past him and pause.

“You smell like the floor of a bar and cheap perfume,” I tell him, catching a whiff of sweat, liquor, and something noxious. “Take a shower.”

His hand captures mine as I turn away. In the darkness, I feel his stare boring into me. Tension travels through his arm and into mine. He’s silent, still. I try to yank my hand away but he holds tight.

“Ethan…” I warn.

“Do I?” The bite is gone. No trace of his simmering temper. “Honestly.”

“Yes.” This time he lets go when I tug against his hold.

“I didn’t do anything,” he says, hushed and timid. “Avery, I swear.”

“Fine. Whatever.”

I go back to bed and do my best to ignore the big black hole on the other side of the room, but it’s impossible not to notice him. I listen as he puts the bottle back in the cabinet and rinses the glass in the sink. I turn away from the light that briefly pierces the darkness as he goes into the bathroom and turns on the shower faucet. And I’m awake when he eventually slips into bed beside me, refreshed and smelling rich and clean. Like himself again. A scent that teases every nerve as I feel the warmth of his body inches from mine.

“Avery…” Searching and cautious, he wraps his arm across my stomach and presses himself flush to my back. “Hey, I wouldn’t do that to you, okay? I’d never cheat on you.”

I hate that I can’t pull away from him. That his skin against mine is like a blade of sunlight slicing through the chill on a cloudy winter day. My body so attuned to his that it awakens with desire and anticipation when he holds me in his arms. That it doesn’t matter if I’m mad at him, I still want him.

“You believe me, don’t you?”

He’s an asshole, but he’s not a liar. Angry as I am, I can’t find any part of me that believes the first thing he’d do after a night like this is go out and screw some random woman in a bar. Despite the rumors around the office, I’ve seen no evidence of that man.

“Yes,” I tell him.

“I’d never betray you. Whatever else happens, I love you.”

Fucking asshole.

“You can’t just say you love me and make the rest of it go away.” Clutching my pillow under my head, it’s all I can do to keep from rolling over and smacking him in the head. “I was mortified back there. You turned on me so fast—”

“So you do know how I felt.”

“Stop it.” I throw his arm off me. “I wasn’t the one being unreasonable. You can’t call me a traitor every time I don’t agree with you. Ethan, you were a spectacular jackass tonight. More so to your parents.”

“It’d be nice,” he says, speaking low and calm behind me, “if just once you didn’t jump at the chance to agree with my father.”

“Then I guess we’re at an impasse, Ethan.” Painful as it is—agonizing, in fact—I throw the blankets off me and sit up to get out of bed. “I’m done arguing with you.”

“Wait.” He shoots up beside me. “Where are you going?”

“Somewhere else.”

“No.” He grabs my face between both strong, firm hands. “Don’t leave. Please.”

“You’ve made up your mind that you can’t trust me.” I tear his hands from my face, steeling myself for what I’m about to suffer. “What’s the point?”

I stand and go to the dresser for my clothes.

“You’re not leaving,” he says. More a demand than a question.

“I can’t stay here.” Not if he’s unwilling to apologize or even acknowledge that ditching me at his parents’ house, embarrassing all of us, was a shit thing to do.

“Don’t.” He crushes into me. Sudden and fierce. Arms wrapped around my chest and stomach, he cages me against his hard, powerful body. It’s only then I realize he’s naked, his skin feverish and heart slamming in his chest. “Don’t go.”

“I’m not going to do this, Ethan. I’m not going to be the girl who nags and argues.”

“So don’t be.”

“But I can’t let you take shots at me because you’re pissed off at your dad or scared about your mom. I’m not going to play the easy target and just shut up and take it.”

“I’m sorry,” he breathes against my ear. A gust of air escapes his lungs. “Fuck, baby, I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me.”

“That’s the problem. I don’t think I can.” Even if it kills me.

The longer he keeps me here, encased in his arms, engulfed in the heat of his embrace, the harder it is to maintain the anger. His touch is the antidote to everything that wounds me.

“Stay.” He turns me to face him. “I need you. Don’t let me ruin us. I’m sorry I fucked up. Just…”

His lips crash to mine, kissing me in an anguished appeal where words fail him. I have only a brief thought of pushing him away before my lips part and my hands go to his hair, tugging and holding him to me.

“Fuck, Avery.” The sound is hoarse and full of want.

He grabs the backs of my thighs and hoists me up, legs wrapped around his hips and arms gripping his shoulders. His hips flex, pressing his thick erection against my core and defeating the last of the notion I had about walking away from him.

“I have to be inside you,” he groans.

Ethan lays me down on the edge of the bed, standing between my legs and covering me with his body. Ripping away my underwear, he pushes inside me with barely a warning. The sudden sting of intrusion flares through my body, replaced just as quickly with the warm, wonderful ache of being reconnected.

“I love you,” he says, voice ragged and strained. He entwines our fingers to stretch both of my arms above my head.

Lying like this, completely open and vulnerable to him, I’ve never felt so safe or protected with another man. Despite the arguments and unresolved strain between us, I recognize he only lashed out at me out of pain. He’s terrified of being abandoned. Spent his entire life feeling betrayed by his family. He wants just one person in the world who chooses him first. And in return, he offers unconditional love. For that, I can forgive him. That, I understand.

“Please,” he breaths against my lips as he pulls out just a fraction and pushes inside again, nearly all his weight focused on the place where we connect. “Tell me.”

“I love you, too.”

The next morning, I can’t get Ethan out of bed. He’s barely lucid, and no matter what I say, he won’t budge. After last night, I just don’t have the energy to fight him. Given how much he likely had to drink, maybe it’s just as well. It’s probably better that he not show up at work with a hangover.

At the office, I settle into the war room. I’ve got some calls scheduled for today, and I have to get through typing up a couple of audio transcripts before a check-in meeting with Ed to catch him up on our progress. Around eleven, Vivian wanders in. She’s dressed like it’s laundry day, downscaled from her usual cry-for-attention wardrobe to a faded T-shirt and worn jeans; wearing dark sunglasses and carrying a cardboard tray with three enormous cups of coffee.

“You like dark roast, right?” she says, and sets a cup in front of me.

“Uh, yeah. Thank you.” A brief notion that it might be poisoned crosses my mind, but I figure if Vivian were to attempt homicide, she’d do it with fewer witnesses nearby.

Setting the tray down on the table, she pulls up a chair across from me and opens her laptop.

“I take it Ethan’s sleeping it off?”

My head snaps up. “What?”

“Last night. He was on some bender.”

Face flushing red, pulse racing, I damn near lunge across the table.

“You were with him?”

Vivian takes a long, leisurely sip from her coffee. “Met him for a drink. Kinda turned into several. You two didn’t have a fight, did you?”

Like I’d tell her. “Family thing.”

“Ah.” She nods, knowing and smug. “His mother, I’m guessing. Unless his father finally dropped dead.”

“What do you know about his mother?”

“I was there when she first got sick. He spent more than a few nights sleeping it off at my place.”

Hot, scorching ire flames through my skull, tightening my shoulders. If I could get away with it, I’d toss my coffee in her face. Because I know what she’s doing. Every woman can recognize it. Teasing me, baiting. Vivian’s chumming the waters. I believe Ethan when he says he never had any interest in her, but that doesn’t mean she felt the same. There’s no doubt in my mind that if given the chance, she’d pounce on him. Which makes her my mortal enemy.

“But don’t worry,” she says, cloying smile on her thin lips. “I took good care of him. He was very well behaved.”

Uh-huh.

Whatever professional respect I had accumulated for Vivian is obliterated right there, and fully paved over by the growing contempt she elicits when she finds a way to spend all night drinking on Ethan’s couch with increasing frequency over the following two weeks. These at-home sessions began as a means of working through the night in a more comfortable environment, Ethan cooking dinner while Vivian and I kept at it. But as the days have worn on, less work gets done once we’ve cleared our plates, and more of the evening becomes dedicated to swapping old war stories and getting to the bottom of a bottle. At first I told myself this was preferable to having him roam the city with her, but now I regret not speaking up weeks ago.

Coming out of the shower one night, in my pajamas and making it quite evident that I’m one yawn away from passing out, I find them still sitting in the kitchen with a bottle of whiskey between them.

“Ethan?” I say, standing across the room beside the bed. “Can I have a minute?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He pushes himself up from the stool and saunters over, a little wobbly and listing to the left. “Hey, you going to bed? What time is it?”

“Almost three,” I say pointedly. “I can’t stay up. I’m exhausted.”

“Yeah, baby, get some sleep.” He wraps his arms around me, leaning down to kiss my forehead with harsh whiskey breath. “We’re just talking. I’ll get rid of her and be there in a minute.”

I stare into his red, glassy eyes, wishing I didn’t know that in an hour when I’m still awake, staring at the ceiling, they’ll still be sitting at the island in the kitchen, still drinking.

“Okay,” I tell him, running my hands down his stomach. His muscles don’t move, too numb to feel me. “I love you.”

His fingers push my hair behind my ear, trailing down my neck. At least I know, somewhere in there, he hasn’t forgotten me.

“Love you.”

And it goes on like that, days and nights. Everywhere I turn, Vivian’s face. We’re so close to the end—wrap up this story, make deadline, and be rid of her. Just a few more weeks, and things will get back to normal. It’s what I tell myself. But every day it gets harder to believe it. Every day, I’m watching him unravel. He won’t talk about his mother. Not sure he’s talking to her, either. The only thing he wants to do is drink and sleep and I don’t know how to break him out of the cycle. Half the time he’s too sloshed when he does come to bed to even notice I’m there. It doesn’t help that Vivian is feeding all of his worst instincts. I’d hide the liquor, but he’d go elsewhere. I’d kick her out, but it isn’t my house.

Another day, and again I find myself standing over Ethan in the morning. Lying in bed, he’s half-unconscious and surly as fuck.

“You can’t call out again this week,” I insist, ripping the blanket from his body. He groans and turns away. “Every time you ditch work, I’ve got to smooth it over with Ed. He’s getting tired of the excuses.”

“He’ll deal. Tell him I’m working from home.”

“That’s what you always say, but I keep getting stuck picking up your slack.”

“Christ, Avery, get off my case. Let me get a few hours, and I’ll be in later.”

“Forget it.” I never win this argument, so why do I keep trying? “I’m going to be late.”

When I step off the elevator at the office, I hurry straight for the war room to avoid being spotted, but Ed catches me at the door like a parent sitting in the dark waiting for their kid to sneak in after curfew.

“Ethan?” he asks without preamble. We both already know the answer.

“He’s tying up some work, and he’ll be in later,” I say.

Neither of us is impressed with my lackluster performance.

“Uh-huh.” Ed crosses his arms and I can’t escape the gnawing feeling that I’m burning through any capital I’d earned with him. “I sent you the edits on Ethan’s other pending articles. His work has turned to shit lately. Maybe you can fix it before he writes himself out of a job.”

That’s no idle threat.