I pour the last remaining drops of the wine into my glass, saving the bottle for an experiment I have planned for this week. “It’s all good. I’ve got a date with the Real Housewives, and I’d never subject you to that.”

He grabs a beer from the fridge and shrugs. “I don’t mind. Can’t say I’ve ever watched an episode before.”

“Oh, Jack of All Trades. You have no idea what you’re in for.” I head for the basement, testing the limits since I assume he’s not actually going to join me, given how he usually cuts our interactions short as quickly as possible. I can’t imagine him voluntarily sitting next to me on the sofa for three hours, especially for a Bravo marathon. But when I reach the bottom stair, I hear the thud of his steps behind me. I hide my smile.

Other than a quick peek during my initial tour, I haven’t set foot in the brownstone’s lower level. Probably because it looks like a frat house threw up down here. A clean frat house, but a frat house nonetheless. In addition to the pool table, there’s a huge sectional sofa covered in some kind of velour fabric that belongs in a seventies porno. The TV is bigger than some movie theater screens, and it has at least a thousand wires coming out of it like alien tentacles, each one attached to some sort of video game apparatus.

“Should I be scared about what kinds of fluids have graced this couch?” I check for suspicious stains, but it looks relatively clean.

“Other than Nick and me, no one has sat on it, so I think you’re good.” Jack plops down at one end of the sofa.

I curl up in the opposite corner. “Should we talk about why you haven’t had anyone other than my friends over to join you in this den of all things teenage boys cream their jeans over?”

Jack looks at me, blinking slowly. “That’s disgusting.”

“My descriptive and spot-on language or the question?”

“Both.” He picks up a remote—one of at least five—from the coffee table and turns on the TV.

I decide to leave it alone. For now. This couch is actually supremely comfy, and this sure as hell beats watching Housewives on my iPad. I take a sip of my wine. “One of these days, I will crack you, Jack Thomas.”

And if I’m not mistaken, that’s a smile I catch out of the corner of my eye.