Across town, Dominique was also reconnecting with someone she hadn’t seen in a while. During his rigorous holiday partying, Reggie had gotten the flu. He’d been out for a couple weeks but now, back at his post, he’d just sat two large lattes down on Dominique’s desk and sat opposite her.

“Girl, I thought that bug was going to kill me!” Reggie said to Dominique in typically dramatic Reggie-like fashion.

“But you still made your New Year’s Eve party, I see,” Dominique responded sarcastically, though the smile on her face belied the seriousness of her words.

“Nothing but death could keep me from it!” Reggie responded with a hand to his chest, mimicking Nettie from The Color Purple. “But if I’d known my two men would get to fighting over me, I would have stayed my sick butt at home.”

“A fight?” Dominique asked, reaching for her coffee. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I wish I was lying but it went down! See, the Jockstrap Bar was packed with revelers, but me and Alex got waved past the line because we had a reserved table. I thought I saw Quinn in the line, but as soon as I sat down they started pouring the bubbly and I forgot all about it. That’s until we got ready to count down to the New Year.”

“Then what happened?”

“Miss Dom, it was pitiful,” Reggie responded, deadpan. But his eyes were twinkling. “Quinn came up to the table demanding to talk to me. Alex stood up and said, ‘Over my dead body,’ and then Quinn told him that that could be arranged. One thing led to another and the next thing I knew my baby coldcocked Quinn upside the head with a full bottle of Cristal.”

“No!”

“Yes, girlfriend. Quinn went down and then it was a countdown all right but we weren’t looking at the clock. We all stood over his passed-out ass hoping he’d wake up. He came to just in time to hear ‘Auld Lang Syne.’”

“Ha! Reggie, you are a mess.”

“What about you, Miss Dom,” Reggie continued, his voice turning serious. The last time he was in the office, Dominique had had very little contact with Jake, and his brother was hanging on by a wing and a prayer.

“I’m doing okay,” Dominique answered, her voice subdued.

“Have you talked to Jake?”

Dominique shook her head. “I’ve been in pretty constant contact with his twin brother, though, Johnny, and his wife, Cynthia. They’ve kept me posted on Harold’s progress. Thank God, Jake’s oldest brother is out of the woods and doing better.”

“Did they say how Jake is doing?”

Dominique took a few sips of coffee, thinking. “All right I guess, though they said he’d been pretty quiet ... about everything. He took Harold’s heart attack pretty hard; especially when he thought they’d lose him. It brought up a lot of bad memories.”