“Stop,” I said suddenly, surprising us both.

Nick froze in place, his body still tight against mine, the heat of him still burning through the cloth between us. His mouth just inches from the tender skin at the base of my throat, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

The sensation of his breath on my flushed skin made me shiver and I almost gave in. After all, what was wrong? I hadn’t intended to say “stop,” hadn’t even realized the word was forming. As I wildly searched my brain for an explanation, Max’s face appeared in my mind’s eye. I almost laughed. Max? We had been on exactly one date, and I was choosing him over Nick? Nick, who had been in my life for a decade? It couldn’t be—and yet that’s who I was picturing as Nick’s fingertips nestled themselves into my flesh.

“Audrey?” Nick asked, pulling away slightly to look me in the eyes.

“I’m really tired,” I said, a half-truth that would buy me more time to sort out my feelings.

Nick laughed and looked at me expectantly, waiting for the punch line. When none was forthcoming, he blinked. “You’re kidding.”

I took a step away, his fingers falling from my side, and forced a yawn. “I’m just so, so exhausted. I really need to sleep.”

He cocked his head at me and licked his lips. “Aud, babe, give me, like, fifteen minutes, and then you can have all the sleep you want.”

I shook my head. “Sorry, Nicky. Not tonight. Rain check?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, brow wrinkled in confusion. He shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Hey, Audrey, you … you would tell me if something was going on, right?”

I hesitated. Was something going on? But I couldn’t tell Nick about Max, not before I had even committed to a second date, and so I looked him in the eye and said, “Of course.”

He nodded and lingered in my bedroom doorway, as though I might change my mind and ask him to stay.

“Okay,” he finally said. “I’ll see you another time then, I guess.”

What’s with me? I wondered, slumping down in my bed as Nick’s departing footsteps echoed through my apartment and he let himself out. In the last seven years, I hadn’t ever refused Nick, not even the time I was nearly delirious with a fever.

But I also hadn’t ever been intrigued by anyone quite like I was intrigued by Max.

UNABLE TO FOCUS ON WORK after Nick left, I curled up in bed with a fresh glass of wine and my laptop. I was working my way through a binge session of Gossip Girl when I heard a now-familiar scraping noise in the alley. I paused the show and listened intently, partially believing it was just that damn cat and partially worried about that shadowy figure who may or may not have followed Cat and me home from the bar.

I caught my breath as I heard not just a scraping but a shuffling.