“My buddy. Take a look.”

“He’s cute. He’s not like you, though.”

Cute, North thought. Cute. That was like saying the Titanic was a boat. It was like saying the Empire State Building was tall.

North passed him one of their business cards. “Take him out. Tomorrow afternoon. One beer. Literally. After that, put him on Shirley Temples.”

“He’s not married?”

North’s next smile was genuine. “No. And if you guys hit it off, he’ll be the best thing that ever happens to you. If you don’t, well, he’ll be a great lay.”

“Fifty bucks doesn’t go really far on a date.”

“Fuck off,” North said, and Jack grinned.

“I should really call him?”

“Just come by. Tomorrow. I’ll have him ready to go.”

“Why? I mean, why me?”

The question was a little chilling, and it prickled the skin on North’s chest. North’s first answer was going to be, Why not? It’s going to be someone else, so why not you when you’re pretty and you’re sweet and you’re twenty-two and still haven’t walked into a dead end? But those thoughts, anything along that line of thought, North had bricked up at the bottom of his mind a long time ago. So what he said was, “Shaw thinks you’re cute too.”

Jack turned the card between his fingers, and he was grinning ear to ear, and if he’d had dimples it would have been so fucking over the top that it might have broken the universe. He looked very twenty-two right then, and it looked good on him.

“And if this isn’t the right footage,” North said, slipping the drive into his pocket, “I’m coming back to kick your ass.”

Then he hoisted Shaw over his shoulder like a bag of cement—all those years working the job sites, all those years putting things over his shoulder a lot heavier than a guy who spent his day unrolling yoga mats—and made his way back to the van.

Shaw puked before they were halfway home.

Chapter 5

Something had taken a dump in Shaw’s mouth. He rolled, felt the familiar crease of his buckwheat pillow, and instantly regretted it. The mouse that had taken a dump in his mouth was currently burrowing up into his head. It was trying to gnaw through his skull. Cold sweat flashed out along his entire body, and Shaw knew he was going to be sick.

“I put your popcorn bucket by the bed.”

The words landed like a hammer, practically shattering Shaw’s head, but they were still a godsend. He flopped onto his stomach, found the bucket blindly, and fitted it around his mouth. Then he puked. And puked. And puked.

When he’d finished, he gently set the bucket down. And then he tried to die.

“It was one whiskey sour.” North’s voice moved closer, and the bucket’s plastic chirped against the floor as North picked it up, and then North’s voice moved away again. “It’s not like you were trying to outdrink some asshole in Dogtown.”