Me? I’ll be heading home alone to listen for little green men on the radio.

Before I leave, she lifts her chin and taps the bar. “By the way, I like your glasses.”

13

Sabrina

If something is too good to be true, it usually is. That’s what I’ve always taught my brother.

That’s why I’m not in the least bit surprised.

Luck doesn’t twirl around in spectacular fashion, transforming the beast into the prince before the last enchanted petal falls. Nope. That’s the stuff of fairy tales. In real life, you don’t get the gig, the guy, and the great sex.

You get one night with someone like Flynn Parker. The fairy tale ends when he returns your slipper. My panties are back, the story is over, and happily-ever-after is for fictional gals.

This is what happens next. The after-the-glass-slipper moment, when real life, real bills, and real responsibilities trump fairy-sparkle magic.

As I lock the door to my pipsqueak apartment, I sink against the wall, sliding to the floor on my butt.

I groan in frustration. I wish he was anyone else. I wish he was the trash collector, the guy who runs the flower shop at the corner of my street, a product manager for an enterprise software company.

Anyone but the man I have to cover.

The cardinal rule of journalism is to be fair and get it right.

You can’t be fair if you’re sleeping with the subject.

You simply cannot.

And the story matters more to me than the guy, than the sex, than the stupendous spark, and the sizzle I felt with him last night and again tonight. Like when he leaned in close and told me all he remembered, and when he asked me about the first outfit I ever stitched together. When I shuddered from his nearness, from the way he seemed to want to own me. And, truth be told, the way I want to be owned. I want to hand over the keys to my body to someone who knows what to do with me.

To Flynn.

“Stupid fate,” I grumble.

I dig my hand into my purse and take out my panties. They’re clean. Freshly washed. I narrow my eyes. How the hell did the dude have time to launder my underwear? This is New York City. No one has a washer and dryer. We go to laundromats, or we send out our laundry.

Unless we’re rich.

Super rich.

Lucky bastard probably has three washer-dryer combos.

Now I’m jealous, but it’s also a reminder. Flynn and I live in different worlds. We’re from opposite sides of the tracks. He’s millions and I’m pennies, and it’s for the best I learned this now. Opposites don’t attract. They repel.

After I make myself a cheese sandwich—I do know how to rock it when it comes to cheap eats—I FaceTime my brother.

“Want to hear a funny story?” I ask him on the screen.

“Of course I do.”

“The guy I like?” I ask, since I told him this morning I met someone.