Nora blinked and reached for her shot. Her hand pulled back and she met Zach’s eyes.

“Wesley… That kid blew my mind from day one. He was so damn sweet. I’m not around sweet people very often. When I had him in class I found myself doing something I hadn’t done in a long time.”

“What was that?”

“Smiling. I’d been working so much, living a pretty hard life. Wes was the opposite of me in so many ways—soft where I was hard. Probably hard where I’m soft, too.” She laughed again. “He made me feel human again…like the kind of person who could stay up too late watching stupid movies and talking. I’d forgotten how to be normal, or maybe I never knew how. My life got weird at a pretty young age and it’s been weird ever since. But Wes came along and suddenly I had another reason to get out of bed in the morning besides money.”

“Are you in love with him?” Zach asked.

“That’s two questions,” Nora said, wagging a finger at him. She downed her shot. “That wasn’t me admitting to being in love with the kid. That was me being driven to drink yet again by that twerp.”

“Frustrating roommate, I imagine.”

“Very. No one that sexy should be that off-limits. I could say the same about you.”

“I’m your editor, Nora. I don’t think we should be involved,” Zach said, squirming a little in his seat. “J.P. would kill us both.”

“You’re not scared of J.P. and we both know it. It’s me you’re scared of—why?”

Zach gave the question some thought. The three shots had gone quickly to his head on his empty stomach. He felt light-headed and warm. He knew Nora deserved an answer no matter how badly he didn’t want to tell her.

He picked up his shot glass.

“Again, I’ll answer. But not without some liquid fortification,” he said and took his drink. He bent over for a moment and breathed. He looked up and saw Nora looking down at him, waiting patiently. “You’re beautiful enough and wild enough that you make me think things I never thought I would think again and feel things I didn’t think I’d ever feel again. And you make me afraid I’ll start forgetting things I don’t ever want to forget. You’re dangerous.”

She nodded her head and didn’t look flattered.

“You’re not the first man who’s called me that. When I was sixteen, Søren told me that there were suicide bombers on the Gaza Strip who were less dangerous than I was. At that age, I took it as a compliment.”

“Were you engaged in domestic terrorism at the time?”

“No, I told him I knew he was in love with me. That was his response.”