She narrowed her eyes, thinking for a bit before speaking. “So he said you won’t have to worry about sexual tension anymore. Does that mean you and this guy work together? You’ll be seeing him around more, I assume?”

“It’s complicated.”

“It always is. So what are you going to do about it?”

“What options do I have? I’m going to pretend it didn’t mean anything to me, either.”

“But it did, right?”

I leaned forward, lowering my voice. “It was the best sex of my freaking life. I’m still getting warm chills.”

“That’s a shame. If a guy can dick you down that good, it’d be worth keeping him around. You don’t think you should maybe feel it out? Ask a few careful questions? See if maybe you misunderstood somehow?”

I shook my head. “No. Because at the end of the day, I swore off men for a reason. If I’m this screwed up over an innocent comment, I’m clearly not ready for a real relationship yet.” I felt myself gaining confidence as I spoke. “And so what if the sex was amazing? Maybe he has some weird, annoying habit that would drive me crazy. Like biting his toe nails.”

“Biting his toe nails?”

I shrugged. “The point is, sex is sex. It’s not everything. So, I’m fine. Thank you. This really helped.”

She flashed a bemused smile. “I’m glad I could help?”

20

DEAN

It had been a long while since I called in backup from family over a relationship. I considered calling Pierce and Damon, but I knew they’d give me shit. Pierce was in the middle of a big trial. His firm was representing a celebrity being accused of manslaughter because his questionably legal panther escaped from his convertible, disappeared into the forest, and allegedly killed a camper years after the escape. Pierce was trying to make the case that the panther was actually the offspring of the original panther, which would absolve his client of guilt. The prosecution was claiming the fact that the panther had offspring made it even worse, because they weren’t native to the area and wouldn’t be there if the client hadn’t illegally released a panther.

He’d rambled about it to me for a few hours last month and I mostly thought his client was a dumbass for having a pet panther in the first place. He fucked around, and he found out, if you asked me. But I knew Pierce had a weird moral wall he put up with his job. He saw it more as a challenge to win the argument and less about the question of true guilt. It’s exactly how he was as a kid, so it was no surprise.

And then there was Damon, who had just taken on a hugely stressful project to develop an area previously under environmental protections. He was trying to thread needles between prime real estate opportunities and not kicking a hornet nest of conservationists and legal issues if his work impacted endangered species and plant life. In the process, he was also catching a metric fuck-ton of shit from our little sister, Laney. Both brothers were, in fact. She had a supremely soft spot for animals and wildlife spaces, and wasn’t on the best terms with Pierce and Damon because of where their work was taking them.