Phillip heard the door swing open. Vicki grabbed his elbow and yanked him inside. “What the hell are you doing?” she hissed as she slammed the door shut. “Trying to get yourself killed?” Her hair was tousled, and he could smell a hint of gin on her breath.

“I needed to see you. Life is meaningless without you. I think of you morning, noon, and night—”

She didn’t look swept away by the romance of his gesture. She looked royally pissed. “I live here. These are my neighbors. Just last month Rocco chased away a crackhead who was attempting to break into my home.” She jabbed a finger in his chest. “He looks out for me. Which is more than I can say for you.”

Phillip blinked, thrown by the ferocity of her response. He needed to recalibrate. There was a thump overhead. Probably Angel, her overweight Persian cat, had knocked something over. Pain-in-the-ass cat that required Phillip to keep a sticky clothes roller in the trunk of his car to remove copious amounts of long white cat hair before he headed home. “I brought you carnations. Your favorite.” He handed them to her, but instead of taking them and burying her face in their petals to inhale their scent, she crossed her arms and the bouquet tumbled to the floor. This was not how he had imagined things playing out. “Lovey-dove-dove,” he said soothingly. “Don’t be angry with your teddy bear. I can’t take it. I brought you a reference letter. I wrote it myself this afternoon. Just needs to be signed.” He reached into the interior breast pocket of his cashmere tweed sports jacket and pulled the letter out and opened it so she could see he wasn’t lying. Phillip saw her glance at the letter in his hand, her expression softening slightly.

“You did?” There was a cautious hope in her voice, in her eyes.

“That’s right,” he said. “You get me a pen, I’ll sign it right now, on the spot. However”—he held up a finger, then carefully replaced the letter in the envelope and slid it back into his breast pocket—“I am hoping that first you will grace me with five minutes of your time.” He could see her mouth tightening. He had to speak fast, before she got it in her mind to throw him out. “I’ve left Jane.”

She snorted in disbelief. “That old story? Seriously?”