The next week, when Allan texts me, I don’t respond. He sends questions, observations, pictures, and then calls me three times. I turn off my phone. Days slip past. Angel and I meet with statisticians and graphic designers, acting as if our business partner wasn’t off the handle, as if I wasn’t ignoring him at this very moment. At night, I dream of Allan Dane, although during the day I’m free of him at least. That is, until Monday. Angel’s taking a nap in her room with Popper, so it’s just me and the TV. Playing on the TV is some program I’m not watching, just on and loud enough to blare away the silence. And yet, it’s not quite loud enough to drown out the knock on the door. I wait, don’t move. I’m not in the mood for talking to whatever neighbor or canvasser’s at the door. When the knock repeats, then again, I get up. Clearly, the TV has given me away, and I’m not going to get out of talking to whomever’s at the door that easily.

I open the door to Allan. He looks upset, tired.

“Why haven’t you been responding to my texts?”

“Are you doing drugs?”

My question surprises him just as much as it surprises me. We gape at each other for a minute, before anger flashes over Allan’s face and he shakes his head.

“Why are you asking me this?”

“Well, have you? My friend ran into a girl you used to date, and she said you have a severe drug problem and a bunch of dark secrets, maybe even killed someone.”

My words don’t have the expected effect. Allan’s anger just changes into more fatigue. Stepping back, he shakes his head.

“I’ll be in touch when I’ve handled the situation.”

When I watch him go, his fury becomes mine—at what he’s said, what he’s left me with, all that’s unsaid. Allan Dane is toxic. It seems the more I pull away, the more he drags me into this whirlpool of madness that is his life.

—

ANOTHER WEEK PASSES. On my last day at work, during my break, Angel and I have brunch at Picklebucket. We split a big breakfast, so that we both get a generous helping of warm eggs, succulent bacon, delicious ham, and perfectly done sausages. We’re just starting on the toast when someone sits beside me.

“That’s some brunch you’ve got there.”

At the familiar voice, my whole body stiffens. It’s Allan, smiling innocuously, as if the last conversation we’d had wasn’t about the possibility of him being a murderer and drug addict.

“Mind if I join you?”

He sticks out his hand to Angel.

“I’m Allan Dane, as I’m sure you already know.”

Angel tentatively accepts his hand, and then Allan returns his insistent gaze to me.

“I’m sorry about these past few weeks. A lot has happened, and I can’t tell you more for the time being, but I can tell you this: I don’t have a drug problem. I used to, but I’m two years sober now.”

As a waitress passes, Allan hails her.

“Two side orders of bacon, please.”

The waitress, Helena, the nicest and most rule-abiding waitress of the bunch, shoots me a questioning look. It is 2:15 p.m., fifteen minutes after the brunch cutoff, after all. However, when I nod, she whisks away obediently. Allan turns his thoughtful gaze to me.

“About the dark secret and the murder claim—to be honest, I can’t figure out why she’d say that myself. I mean, something very bad happened to someone close to me, but it wasn’t my fault.”

Now Allan directs his pensive look to Angel.

“And this girl says she dated me way back? What does she look like?”

Angel takes a bite of toast, chews then swallows, shrugs.

“Tall, big bulging eyes, brown hair.”

Allan laughs.

“Okay, that eliminates about 20 percent of the women I’ve dated. If I’ve even dated her at all, that is.”

Angel, however, maintains her ground.

“I went to school to be a psychologist, and I have worked in therapy. The woman was telling the truth—it was written all over her face.”

Allan takes a piece of my toast. “May I?”

I nod and he takes a bite.

“That may be so. If I’m going to be honest, the period when I was heavily into drugs is kind of a blur. In any case, I know that lately I’ve been a bit all over the place, but I hope that hasn’t given either of you the wrong idea.”

Although Allan’s address is to both of us, his gaze is on me.

“Because I’m as serious as ever about developing your app. I’ve already gotten started on the coding, and I’m 100 percent sure that this thing is going to be big. Really big.”

In the silence after, both of them look at me. I nod.

“Okay. You certainly have been very generous. I don’t see why we can’t continue with developing the app as planned.”

Allan looks overly happy and relieved.

“Great. Have you two come up with a name yet?”

“Delicieux.”

Allan repeats the word a few times, his gaze on the restaurant window: “Delicieux, delicieux... delicieux...”

He jumps up.

“I like it. Thanks, ladies. I will be in touch!”

Again, his gaze is on me before he turns away. He’s halfway to the door, when my cry to wait reaches him. He pauses, chuckles.

“Ah, yes, the bacon, I apologize.”

He hurries over, deposits a twenty-dollar bill on the table, and then leaves. For a few seconds, Angel and I stare at it, and then we exchange a look. Angel slides the twenty over to me, then nods.

“I think tonight we should do a bit of investigating ourselves.”

—

ALTHOUGH “A BIT OF investigating” was hardly what the night ended up constituting. No, the four-hour Cheeto-fueled Google marathon ends up being a whole lot more. Turns out that Allan Dane’s escapades were even more than we had wagered; it’s harder to find a month where Allan Dane wasn’t in the tabloids rather than was. As far as being connected to any death, however, even a funeral, there seems not the slightest sign, not in the fifty or so pages we’ve scanned online, at least.

Finally, we finish the Cheetos, and beyond exhausted, we stumble to our own beds and fall asleep.

I wake up to a text from Allan: Dinner at Harod’s? I regret my yes as soon as it’s sent. Although I rationalize it by telling myself that it’s for “investigation purposes only.” Yes, I’m going to spend half of the lunch eating, and the other half shooting Allan well-worded questions to find out about his trip away.

The rest of the morning I while away with Angel, making pancakes, not mentioning what I have planned tonight.

To say that dinner doesn’t go as planned would be an understatement. Allan arrives wearing a purple shirt and can hardly take his eyes off me the whole meal. We chat about nothing important, and he easily glides by all my casual yet sly questions, indicating he went “overseas” and leaving it at that. As soon as we’ve ordered and the waitress has left, he turns his intent gaze on me.

“I was surprised you accepted to come here with me.”

“Yes, well, we are in business together. I just wanted to keep you in the loop, see if you had any updates for me about the launch.”

No response. Only that intent, unwavering gaze.

“You were gone for quite some time.”

Now, a slight smile.

“I thought we discussed this. I was dealing with business that would help everything, help us.”

I avoid his gaze.

“And did it?”

Now he looks happier than I’ve ever seen him, relaxed.

“Yes, yes it did.”

Catching the expression on my face, he adds, “I’ll explain everything soon enough, in a few weeks when I have everything sorted out.”

He takes my hand, squeezes it.

“Eva, I am sorry. I know it seems like I’ve been all over the place, but I’ve never been unsure about just where I stand in regards to you and what you mean to me.”

At that look in his eye, I’m afraid to ask him to elaborate and yet, I can’t quite believe him. Allan, however, doesn’t share my worry. Raising his eyebrows, he grins.

“Soon, you’ll see.”

When the bill comes, he pays for it despite my protests. And then, as soon as we’ve stepped foot outside, he takes my hand.

“What would you say to dessert in a slightly unusual place?”

I can’t help his smile becoming my own.

“What exactly were you thinking?”

Already he’s taking me by the arm, conveying me in the opposite direction we’d come in.

“It’s better if I show you.”

And, a few minutes later, show me he does. A red Ferrari pulls up at the corner to take us to wherever it is we’re going. As it plunges through the dark night, Allan probes me with questions.

“Worst cooking disaster?”

“When I set my old stove at home on fire trying to make beef flambé.”

“Worst food ever eaten?”

“This salmon that gave me food poisoning at Pour Boy.”

When we arrive there, the questions stop for the time being. All is left for seeing, because this is no ordinary sort of destination. Our Ferrari has pulled up in front of Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s unmistakable sweeping stone entryway.

To my unbelieving eyes, Allan only pats my hand.

“You’ll see.”

And, less than a minute later, I do. Allan gives a half hug to the guard at the entryway, before gesturing me through.

Once we’re through, Allan drapes his arm around me.

“You see? I told you—Joe’s an old friend.”

And then he says nothing more because we’re walking through the lamppost-lit grounds, passing dark huddles of sunflowers, then what look to be proud rosebushes. Everything’s so still in the dark, so calm, with an eerie beauty. The rest of the grounds we pass through in this rapt silence, Allan squeezing my hand every so often, as if to remind me that I’m not the only one taking in this quiet beauty.

We pass through the Japanese part in the same silence. Once we’ve gotten past the pagoda, Allan stops by the pond, sits down.

He looks at me as if the moonlight is casting my features into an unusual sort of clarity, it makes me think he can see something that wasn’t there before. For his part, the dark is making his face shadowy, striking, unsettling.

He advances, closer and closer, and I think I know what he’s going to do, when, an inch from my lips, he whispers, “Person you could talk to, if you could talk to anyone in the world?”

“My mom.”

Allan’s face falls, and he turns his face away.

“Me too, I guess.”

I search his face, unable to tell if the way my heart is beating is from relief or disappointment.

“I thought you said...”

He shakes his head.

“That was a few weeks ago. She and my dad have been through enough with me. This latest jail stint was the final straw. They’re tired of being hounded by the media, having family friends make vague comments at their expense. They want nothing to do with me now.”

Seeing my face, Allan shakes his head.

“I know it seems harsh, but it isn’t. They’ve been trying to get me to slow down for years. They’ve been the ones financing my therapists and spa retreats. We all know what the problem is, though—I don’t want to slow down.”

Now, I’m the one taking Allan’s hand, squeezing it sympathetically.

“Ever feel like if you slow down, if you stop for a second, you won’t be able to start up again?”

My sharp glance at Allan reveals nothing; he’s not looking at me, and he’s completely unaware he said basically what I’ve thought for the past few years now.

“Yes. It’s why I was so afraid to get away from Geno, from Picklebucket, even for a vacation. I was afraid if I stopped working the fifty-hour weeks, if I stopped slaving over the stove for ten hours a day, I wouldn’t be able to bear going back.”

At my answer, Allan nods vaguely, though I haven’t said all of it. Not yet.

“And it’s more than that—it’s the silence too. What I’d start thinking about with all that extra time, about my dad, how I wasn’t pursuing my dream, how I was settling.”

Now Allan turns to me, takes my hand, a sad light in his eyes.

“That’s it. That’s it exactly. If there’s too much space, if there’s too much silence, all the things you don’t want to think about find their way in.”

Absently, he lifts my hand to his lips, kisses it, his gaze still off into the night.

“My parents don’t understand that. That it isn’t the constant late nights, drinking, and parties that I can’t take, it’s that—what I can’t bear thinking about creeping in.”

And then we sit there, hand-in-hand, two sad souls. I wonder what Allan doesn’t want to think about, but his face is turned away, his back half-hunched. Already, this is too much.

Suddenly, Allan turns back to face me.

“What do you think of me, Eva?”

Now his face is insistent, his eyes already darting to mine.

“What do you mean?”

“How do you see me? Am I how you expected?”

His voice is too loud for the quiet night, making my answer seem even quieter than it is, meeker.

“No.”

In the silence, I find the words.

“No, Allan. You have been nothing how I expected. You’ve been kinder, gentler, more understanding. You’re nothing how I expected.”

Allan manages a laugh.

“Just wait until you get to know me better.”

I shake my head, pull my hand free.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Laugh away serious moments because they make you uncomfortable.”

When his face clouds over, I realize my mistake. Impulsively, I grab his shoulder and squeeze it.

“I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t so much as lift his head.

“Don’t apologize. You’re right. Your honesty is one of my favorite things about you, Eva. It’s refreshing; I can’t remember how long it’s been since I’ve experienced it. These days, it seems the more money you earn, the bigger a persona you create, the more lies you and everyone around you tell. Honesty is too risky; no one can be bothered with it.”

With his other hand, he turns my face toward his.

“Don’t apologize for anything. You are the best thing that’s happened to me, and I wouldn’t for a minute have you thinking anything different.”

And, once again his face nears mine, his lips too, while his eyes close. I can only wait for it, what I know is coming: his lips on mine.