“Jesus, are you my therapist now?” Guilt prickled beneath my skin, and I kept my eyes on my phone. I’d cancelled dinner this Saturday. Again. She’d been pissed off, so I’d given her some space. But it was Thursday. Shit. I should have called her back by now. If I confessed to Dexter, he’d tell me I was a dick. But it wasn’t like I planned it that way. I was just wrapped up in everything else I had going on, and somehow Danielle had fallen off the bottom of my call sheet. I switched screens and dialed my messages to check her tone of voice and see if I was still in the dog box.

I deleted the three “Call me back” voicemails. The fourth escalated into “Where are you?” The fifth another “Call me back.” She sounded calmer, more relaxed. Perfect. Just as I’d hoped. But the sixth voicemail was one I hadn’t been expecting. Or maybe it was. I listened as she dumped me—her tone resigned, her words cutting.

“You okay?” Dexter asked, studying my expression.

I ended the call. “Yeah. I’m a selfish, piece-of-shit workaholic. And Danielle Fisher’s ex-boyfriend.”

For the second time this morning, I got a well-deserved wince from Dexter.

I shrugged—as if it couldn’t be helped. As if it wasn’t entirely my fault. “I should have called her back sooner.”

Dexter nodded as he fixed a towel around his waist. “Yeah, you should have. But at the same time, if she was the right woman for you, you wouldn’t forget to ring her. Or avoid her calls. You’d want to speak to her.”

“And what the fuck do you know about dating the right woman?”

“I know,” he said.

“But it’s not Stacey,” I said, referring to the woman he was currently sharing a bed with.

“Stacey’s not . . . Just because I fucked up with the right woman doesn’t mean you have to. Learn from my mistakes.”

I rolled my eyes and went back to the email from Joshua. “I’ll be sure to mention to Stacey she’s in an interim role next time I see her.”

“Don’t be a dick.”