“You’ve had a lot of bad ideas in your life, Sunny, but this one’s the worst.”

“I disagree,” Summer says. “It’s the perfect solution. She needs a roommate. You need a room.”

Two of those things are true. I do need a room. Commuting from Newark is soul-crushingly obnoxious, and I have no reason to live there anymore. It was a pipe dream I followed after leaving Fort Drum, and like all pipe dreams, it didn’t pan out. And Whitney probably does need a roommate.

But it’s not the perfect solution.

I’m only going along with it because what the hell else am I going to do? I’ve visited three other places this week, and all of them set me the fuck off. Is everyone in the city a drug-addicted slob? So much for finding something decent within my price range.

This is the last option. That doesn’t mean it’s a good one.

“She’s really a great person,” Summer says. “You met her at the wedding, so you already know that.”

I know more than Summer thinks. “Yes. I met her before the wedding. You sent her after me like a fucking attack dog.”

Sunny laughs. “She’s not an attack dog. She can be a little...intense, but she’s almost always happy. You’ll like her if you get to know her.”

Getting to know her isn’t the issue. She’s not the kind of person I need in my life. She’s too flighty, too in-your-face, too unpredictable. No fucking way.

But being that close?

Jesus.

It’s been two weeks since the wedding, and I can still taste her on my lips. I can still feel the electric jolt in my palms when I took her waist in my hands, feel the curve of her hips under the fabric of that dress. My cock jumps at the memory. God. Think about anything else. Think about wet newspapers. Think about the desert sand in my mouth. Think about...don’t think about that.

“I can tell you’re stewing about this,” Summer says into the silence over the phone. “You really shouldn’t, Wes. It’s a great apartment. It’s a great location. So close to your job. And she works a lot. She won’t be a bother.”

“She’s being a real pain in the ass right now,” I shoot back. “This meeting is ridiculous.” A curl of irritation winds its way up through my chest and squeezes at my heart, threatening to harden into rage. I shouldn’t have to be at her beck and call to get a fucking sublease.

“She has a good heart,” Summer says gently. “Indulge her. I promise, it’ll be worth it.”

Goose bumps rise on the back of my neck, and I put my hand up to cover them. It sounds like she’s talking about being with Whitney, not just sharing an apartment. She’s not, but her words hum with a double meaning that makes me suspicious.

“What do you mean, it’ll be worth it?”

There’s a muffled noise on the other end of the line—Summer covering her phone with her hand. Then—”Wes? Are you still there?”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry. January woke up from her nap and she needs me. The meeting will be fine. You’re going to love her. I gotta go! Bye!”

You’re going to love her.

I slip my phone back into my pocket and scan the block ahead for the place we’re supposed to meet.

There it is—the sign. A trendy neon thing on a black backboard, the light shaped like a wine glass.

My soul recoils.

If she thinks she’s going to get the upper hand, she’s dead wrong.

“We’re not meeting here.”

Whitney blinks up at me from a table tucked along the side wall of a wine bar that’s both trendy and hipster in a way that makes my skin crawl. The wait staff is uniformly willowy, even the guys, and I’m not going to sit here, sipping wine out of an oversized glass just to appease her.

“We’re already here.”

“No. Hard pass.”

She narrows her eyes. “You’re supposed to be wooing me, so you won’t be homeless when you start your new job.”

“You’re supposed to be impressing me, so you won’t be homeless when I start my new job.”

Whitney purses her lips into a red lipstick pouting grin. “I’m not nearly that destitute.”

“I know how rent is in the city.” If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be meeting her here, in this wine bar, for any length of time.

“I know how men are in the city. What’s the problem with meeting here?”

I glance around. Is she seeing what I’m seeing? Is she seeing me standing here, looking like a fucking asshole? “It’s not my kind of place.”

She sighs, lowering her glass to the table. “What is your kind of place?”

“I’ll show you.”

“But I—” Whitney huffs a breath out through her nose. “Fine.” She lifts the glass to her lips and tosses the rest of it back in one go. It’s not half a minute before she’s tossed a twenty on the table, gathered her purse, and followed me out.

“It’s not what you thought, is it?”

Whitney looks around Macmillan’s, suspicion shining in her eyes. “No.”

“Why is your face like that?”

“Because, Wes Sullivan, I can’t tell if you brought me here to fuck with me, or because this is actually your bar.”

“Wes, sit down. You’re making everybody nervous,” calls the bartender, Keith, while he slides two beers to a couple on high stools.

Whitney smiles and gives Keith a little wave. Even from all the way over here by the door, I can see the burly man’s cheeks go a ruddier shade. “So, it is your bar,” she says to me.

“What did you expect?”

“I expected a dive.” She looks skyward, as if picturing the scene. “Something manly. Something rough. I don’t know. Biker guys around a pool table.”

I look sidelong at her. “You think I hang around in places like Road House?” I mean the Road House before Swayze shows up. Jesus.

Whitney does that little closed-mouth grin again, and it’s cute. Not that I’m ever going to tell her that. “You have some...rough aspects to your personality. By which I mean that sometimes you act like a total asshole.”

I laugh. “You’ve got it all wrong. Assholes are too good for dive bars.”

“Not the ones I’ve met.”

“Maybe you haven’t met the right one.”

Whitney chuckles, and her gaze flicks to the floor. What was that? All I did was make a joke about meeting the right asshole, and the confident, take-no-prisoners persona fell away. My heart picks up. Maybe there’s more to her than that.

Not that it matters. I’m never going to be with a girl like her.

“Let’s grab a table.” I head for my favorite spot in the back corner and slide into the booth, my back against the wall, full view of the restaurant. The only thing I can’t see is the kitchen, but the door to the back is three feet away, and it’s as tiny as they come, so if anybody makes trouble, I’ll be the first to know, after the cooks.

“Nice table.” Whitney tucks her purse in next to her and grabs one of the laminated menus from a holder on the wall. “You can buy me an apology dinner.”

“An apology dinner?”

That smile. “I think we got off on the wrong foot.”

I lean back and cross my arms over my chest. “You came on a little strong.”

“Because you—” She drops the menu and raises both hands into the air. “Let’s not play the blame game, even if it is your fault that I had to go on a Mission: Impossible search for you.” She looks straight at me, eyes dark and deep. “We both need something out of this.”

There it is again—that pickup in the chest, a beat of my heart that serves as a warning. There’s more than one meaning layered in her words, and in the back of my mind I hear it: the question I refuse to ask. What does she need?

“I need an apartment.”

“I need rent money.” She looks down again and I see her face without any walls, completely vulnerable. It’s a squeeze around my heart, that moment. I don’t get it. She is all wrong for me. She is ridiculous and vibrant and self-centered and pushy. She’s all the things I don’t want in a woman. She’s too loud. She’s just too loud.

Beyond that, I know—she needs more than rent money. My heart might be overreacting, racing along inside my chest, but my gut is saying, Back the hell up. Get away from a girl who needs more from you than rent money. You’re in no position to give it.

In the kitchen, something metal crashes to the floor, the sound reverberating out into the restaurant and through the table, through my fingertips, a zap straight to the heart. It was already beating fast, but now all the beats blur into one painful, powerful thud. I press my fingertips harder into the wood surface of the table, the knuckles going white, and fight it.

The seat underneath me lifts off the ground, the wheels losing contact with the road, and I tighten my grip instinctively on the steering wheel, though I don’t know what I can do. We’ve been hit. We’ve been hit. The Humvee lurches to the right, the floor underneath me a yawning hole that I’ve barely missed. Dust chokes the air in here, and I’m saying something. The words don’t connect from my mouth to my brain. It’s all autopilot and the communication system squawks. I can’t hear a fucking thing, my ears ringing, and the heat is too intense, even for the desert.

“Wes,” he says, but he couldn’t have said that. The explosion underneath the Humvee incapacitated him. I dragged him out myself, saw the mess of his left leg with my own eyes, the blood, the wreckage.

A hand covers mine, soft and small, and I jerk away. “Wes?”

I blink and suck in a breath. Air in the lungs. Breathe. You’re not in a fucking Humvee. You’re in Macmillan’s, with Whitney, of all people. Her eyes are huge and dark, and she brings her hand to her chest slowly. No sudden movements.

“Yeah?”

“You okay?” Her voice comes from far off at first, then snaps back into my focus, along with the sounds from the rest of the bar. Glasses clinking against one another as Keith pulls them from underneath the counter. The soft murmur of that couple at the bar. She laughs at his joke. The front door opens, letting in a long curl of fresh spring air. Even in New York City, I can smell the trees in bloom.

“What are you talking about?” I grab a menu from the holder on the wall. “I’ll buy you an apology dinner, if that’s what you really want.”