“Can two people with fucked-up pasts have a healthy relationship?” I ask Hannah through the phone. I close out my email. I decided to catch up on work, so I’ve been in my home office for an hour or two.

This question has been rattling in my brain since I asked Gia to do this experiment with me. I’ve been in a relationship before, but it wasn’t serious. When I was a senior in high school, I dated my American History teacher, Lucy; she was twenty-eight, and I was eighteen. She popped my cherry in the back of my truck. When I got accepted to NYU, I dumped her. I fed her some bullshit lie about wanting to focus on my future, but in reality, I wanted to fuck new pussy.

I hear a baby scream in the background, and it’s the ass-crack of dawn. If I hadn’t agreed to double the price I’m paying her, she wouldn’t allow me to call her this early in the morning.

“Yeah, of course. Why do you ask?”

“I’m casually dating a girl I’ve wanted since college.” I stressed the word casually, so she knows that this relationship isn’t going anywhere.

“Oh,” she says as if it caught her off guard.

I tell her everything about Gia, and how I moved her into my condo. How she works for me as my PA. I grab my thick glass of whiskey, and I sip it. I’ve gotten so used to the taste of it that the liquid doesn’t burn my throat.

“Gunner, what is love?” Hannah asks, and I set the glass down on the metal desk as I stare at my college degree hanging on my gray walls.

“If you’re saying what I think you’re saying, then you’re fired because I’m not in love with Gia.”

She must be high to even think that.

She ignores my idle threats. “That is your new assignment—find out what love is, and let me know the answer. I have to go, I’ll see you next week.”

The line goes dead, and I walk back to my bedroom, which is located down the hall from my office. The balcony’s sliding glass door is open, inviting the morning breeze. Slowly, I walk outside to find Gia leaning over the iron railing with her buds in her ears she aims her camera at the landscape of my backyard.

The sun plays peek-a-boo with the trees and the grass is freshly cut. A memorial tree wrapped in baby blue I planted in honor of my late nephew is just off to the right.

My cotton T-shirt hangs very loosely on her small frame. She crosses her foot over the other one and bobs her head as she sings off tune to a rock song. Her messy brown hair flops over her shoulders.