I can’t help it, I slow until I’m barely walking, putting my hands on my head so I can give my lungs room to spread out. “I. Can’t. Her. Turn.”

Sweat drips into my eye, and I shake my head like a dog, droplets flying everywhere. Trey recoils, wincing. “Fuck, dude! Stop. I don’t want your man salt all over me.”

I bend forward, putting my hands on my knees, and watch a few drops hit the concrete instead. “What am I gonna do?” I ask sincerely. “Can’t get her out of my fucking head.”

Trey, who’s stretching his calf, stops and puts his hands on his hips. “Not used to seeing you like this.”

Trey’s right.

Not to brag, though my sister would say I absolutely am and give me a solid dose of shit for it, but I don’t usually have to try that hard with women. I’m not the type that runs home with every bar bunny who looks my way by a long shot, but I realize that every serious girlfriend I’ve ever had approached me. Or we just ran in the same group and conveniently fell into each other, and damn if that didn’t make it easier. This sitting around waiting for the phone to ring is exhausting and making me itchy with anxiety.

“You really think I should call? It’s not too stalker-ish?”

“Stalker-ish would be calling her ten times a day or standing outside her office with a goddamn boombox over your head playing love songs,” Trey chides me while throwing in a decent movie reference joke. “Just don’t be creepy. Ask her out on an official date, not an ambush surrounded by dead people.” He laughs at his own stupidity, then flatly whispers, “I see dead people.”

Since I told him about hunting Zoey down at her place of work, he hasn’t quit teasing me. And admittedly, it does sound bad. But it hadn’t seemed odd at the time. I’d truly wanted the paperwork done . . . and yeah, to see Zoey again. So if that’s where she was, that’s where I was going.

“You did that joke already,” I remind him. “Got anything new?”

He pounds me in the shoulder, laughing. “It’s not fun if you ask to get roasted.”

“Sounds like you’re talking shit about Zoey, not me. And I don’t like it one bit.” My mean mug bounces off him, Trey not really giving a fuck.

“Stop selling wolf tickets, Blake,” Trey says. “This is all about you. Look . . .” Trey goes quiet for a moment, then looks at me. “Remember when I first met Serena?”