October looked at me and made a sad face. Then she swallowed the rest of her cappuccino and headed down the hallway. A second later she said, “Joe, come here for a sec.”

I walked around the corner, out of Rae’s sight. October stepped in close and whispered, “I’m sorry we can’t spend the day together. Rain check for tomorrow?”

“Deal,” I said. “Rae seems pissed.”

“She can be overprotective. Don’t worry, I’ll talk to her.”

We kissed, and October slipped her hand down into the front of my jeans. I pulled her hand away and backed up, because the last thing Rae needed to see when I returned to the kitchen was a hard-on in my pants.

When I rounded the corner, Rae was still at the kitchen table on her computer. She waited until she heard October’s bedroom door close, then looked at me and said, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Sorry?”

“She has a boyfriend. You know that, yeah?”

“I think you know it’s more complicated than that.”

“And what exactly do you foresee happening here? You think she’s going to leave him for you?”

“I don’t feel comfortable talking to you about this.”

“I knew you had an agenda the minute you showed up.”

I laughed at that. “I don’t have an agenda.”

“What happened to all that drivel about not knowing who she was and keeping to yourself? It doesn’t look like you’ve been keeping to yourself.”

I didn’t want to argue with her, and under the circumstances I didn’t really know how to defend myself. Though I did get a small kick out of the fact that Rae thought I was capable of premeditated seduction, because nothing was more outside the realm of my skill set than that.

I walked toward the door and Rae said, “Normally, a person would get fired for sleeping with their boss.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No. It’s a statement about how unprofessional your behavior is.”

“Well, October is my boss. And if she wants to fire me, I suppose she will. What’s it to you?”

“Part of my job is to look out for her. Shield her from the wrong kinds of people. You suddenly look like the wrong kind of person.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“She’s just lonely. This will end when Christopher gets home, yeah? She’ll forget all about you.”

“Have a nice day, Rae.”

I went back to the studio, straightened up a bit, and then spent the rest of the afternoon—wait for it—playing my guitar until one of my fingers started to bleed. I hadn’t taken the guitar out of its case in a long time; it took me a while to clean it up and get it in tune, but once I did it sounded as warm and as beautiful as ever. And besides lacking the necessary calluses on my fingertips, I wasn’t nearly as rusty as I thought I’d be. It’s astounding how the body remembers what to do if it’s spent thousands of hours doing it, even if it hasn’t done it in years.