When Zack walked into Murmur Inc.—his hands shoved into his pockets and a scowl on his face—everyone, including Colette and Alexa, avoided him. Good, he thought. He didn’t want to talk to anyone anyway. His mood wasn’t helped by the fact that part of him was praying there would be a Murmur on his desk. There wasn’t.

Zack slumped into his seat and stabbed at his keyboard, logging himself in to the computer system. He checked his email and the call queue. No one had requested him. Perfect. He sighed and rubbed his temples. His hangover, while mild, seemed to be growing exponentially as the day progressed.

Just then, Zack’s computer beeped. He had a desktop notification from his email: a call was being directed to him. His heart leaped into his throat. He scanned the email at lightning speed.

It was a random caller.

Not John.

The ball of excitement that had flamed up in his chest sputtered out like a candle. God, he was an idiot. Why did he keep doing this to himself?

Zack clicked Accept on the notification and waited for the call center to connect him to his new client. He didn’t bother trying to psych himself up. No mental pep talk was going to shake the gloomy feeling in the pit of his stomach. This was going to be miserable.

His phone rang a second later, and he snatched it up.

“Hello,” he said with exactly zero enthusiasm. “My name is Wesley. I’m going to make all your dreams come true.” He might as well have been talking about drywall.

There was a beat of silence. Then an all-too-familiar voice said, “Hello, Darkling.”

Zack thought he’d need to see a doctor soon if his heart kept starting and stopping like this. “John?”

“Of course. Were you expecting someone else?” John’s tone had all its usual confidence, but today it sounded hollow, like he was just going through the motions.

“No one in particular,” Zack answered. “Though truthfully I wasn’t expecting you either. Why didn’t you leave a Murmur?”

There was a pause. “I wasn’t certain you’d accept my call if you knew it was me.”

“Oh. Because of last night?”

“Well, you didn’t exactly seem thrilled to see me.”

Zack moved the receiver over to his other ear. “You surprised me.”

“I gathered that much. I’ve never seen someone so desperate to get away in my life, and I went through a phase where I watched nothing but bank robbery movies.”

“Oh God, really?”

“What can I say? I had a thing for Al Pacino.”

“Ew.” Zack laughed. “And here I was thinking someone as handsome as you must have good taste in men.”

As soon as the words left Zack’s mouth, he wanted to grab them out of the air and stuff them back in. An awkward silence descended between them.