Ruth, John’s cat, jumped up onto the table and roughly pushed her forehead into the palm of his hand. He knew that plenty of cats had reps for being flirty and aloof, but Ruth was not one of them. She was a straight-up floozy, giving it up for free every day of the week. And she was the only cat John had ever met who had bad balance. She regularly miscalculated and tumbled off the back of the couch in a yowling, furry heap. He scratched under her chin and listened to his phone ring.

“Hello?” Mary answered, a thread of surprise in her voice. She probably had never expected to see his name on her caller ID.

“Mary, it’s John.”

“Hi.”

He liked the way she said that one simple word. Her voice so bright it reminded him of the first delicious spoonful of lemon gelato on a hot day.

“Hi,” he said back to her and grimaced, feeling like a doofus. He hadn’t managed to inject the same magic into the greeting. He stood when he felt a bead of sweat travel down his spine and pinched the phone between his chin and shoulder, muscling open his kitchen window and hoping for a breeze. It was hot enough in his apartment that he was wearing only his boxers and an undershirt. He sat back against the windowsill and stretched his legs out in front of him. Ruth stared him down from the tabletop, her tail flicking back and forth.

“There is a relation,” he said without preamble, but he’d accidentally talked over something Mary had said. “Sorry, what?”

“Nothing. I was just asking if everything was all right. What did you say?”

She wasn’t actually asking if everything was all right, he knew. She was just trying to find a polite way to ask him why the hell he was calling her.

“I said that there is a relation between me and Maddox. He’s my little brother.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that Estrella had two sons. She’d never mentioned him before.”

“He’s not related to Estrella. We’re half brothers. Through our father.” John plummeted on because he knew how awkward some people could get when confronted with information like that. “Listen, Mary, is there any chance that you told my mother that I offered to screen her candidates for you?”

“Hmm? Oh. Yes. At the block party she apologized for your behavior on our date again, and I told her it was bygones. I explained that you were even trying to make it up to me by making sure that I was getting the cream of the crop in terms of blind dates.”

“And what was her reaction?”

“Oh, you’re worried that she was offended? No, the opposite, actually. She seemed thrilled that you’d do something so nice for me.”