I emerged refreshed and relaxed, and, still wrapped in my towel, headed to the kitchen for that sauvignon blanc. I’d just finished pouring a glass when my buzzer sounded.

I jumped, sloshing wine onto the tile. I glanced uneasily toward the door. Ryan?

The buzzer sounded again, this time holding its earsplitting note for an extended period.

Goddamn Ryan, I thought angrily. How would he like it if I went up there and harassed him?

I was looking for Leanne’s contact number on my phone when it vibrated in my hand with a text from Nick: I can hear you in there. Let me in!

I cautiously opened the door to find Nick, tanned and grinning. Ocean-colored eyes twinkled as they surveyed my towel-clad body, still beaded with water, and he let loose a slow wolf whistle.

I swatted at him. “Stop it.”

“Nice of you to get dressed up for me.”

“Yeah, well, if I’d known you were coming, I would have baked a cake,” I said sarcastically. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you think?” he said, tossing me a wink as he sauntered in. “Jesus, babe, you have the worst taste in music. If it’s not that seventies post-punk garbage, it’s this pretentious indie rock crap.”

“We can’t all stan for Maroon 5,” I teased, snapping shut my laptop before he could start messing with my carefully curated playlists. The last time Nick had gotten his hands on my Spotify account, he’d snuck a bunch of Maroon 5 and Coldplay songs into my playlists and it had taken me weeks to root them all out. “Hands off.”

“That’s not what you usually say,” he said with a smirk, and then gestured to my wine. “What’s a guy got to do to get a drink around here?”

“Be an invited guest?”

He put a hand over his heart in a mock-wounded gesture, and I laughed. I gave him a hard time, but I was secretly glad he was there. It had been a busy day, and I missed being able to come home after days like that and discuss them with Izzy.

“How about this?” I offered. “I’ll pour you a glass of wine, but you have to listen to me talk about my day.”

“Sounds fair.”

While Nick worked his way through two glasses of wine, I told him about the opening of the Rosalind exhibit and how the possibility of promotion was tied up in it.

“That promotion is as good as yours,” he assured me, leaning over to kiss me. “You always get everything you want.”

My response to Nick was, as ever, Pavlovian. All he had to do was brush my skin and I melted into a mindless puddle of lust. I tilted my face to his, our lips meeting. With his hands tangled in my still-wet hair, Nick pressed his body against mine and walked me backward to my bedroom, his mouth trailing down my neck as he did so. The backs of my legs hit the edge of my mattress, and Nick moved one of his legs between mine, the fabric of his jeans rubbing against my bare skin. My body automatically sloped toward him, closing the already postage stamp–sized distance between us. Leaving one hand in my hair, he moved the other to loosen the towel still knotted around my chest.