Metacarpal, proximal, middle, distal bones. Her deft hand clasping a champagne glass, assembling crisp crackers and snow-white cheese. One solitary finger sliding through her mouth, sucking off ripe Brie with an erotic pop.

“All right,” I mutter to no one in particular. Definitely not to my cats, still watching me with disapproval in those eyes that remind me of another feline gaze, glowing with disdain.

I throw back the sheets and stand. “Time for a cold shower and refreshing my Latin.”

· FIVE ·

Bea

“Beatrice Adelaide.” On a delay, I process the sparkling jingle that heralds the shop’s door opening and the voice that just said my full name.

Glancing up, I frown at Jules. “What are you doing awake this early?”

“There’s this thing called coffee,” she says. “And an alarm clock.”

Her smile is innocent as she saunters through the Edgy Envelope, Sula’s custom stationery shop, which I manage and design for. But I know my sister better than anyone, and I sniff mischief on her as much as the pastry shop she visited on her way here. She’s up to something. I don’t know what it is, but after a week of poor sleep since that god-awful party, I’m too tired to force it out of her. So I slump back over the antique glass display case littered with my sketchbook and colored microtip pens.

Monday mornings are slow, and I usually spend them doodling, brainstorming new ideas. When a customer comes in, I simply slide my artwork off to the side, and no one’s the wiser that Bea, who works at the register, is also the store’s most purchased artist.

“He looks familiar,” Jules says.

“What?”

She nods to the paper beneath my pen. “I said, he looks familiar.”

I peer down at my drawing, then slap my palm over it. It’s the profile of a person who’s not at all responsible for my fitful sleep, whom I definitely haven’t dreamed about every night since we were stuck in a tiny closet together. Whose hands wrapped around my waist, dragging me against his body, which I absolutely have not re-created in my sleepy brain or woken up to the thought of, on the edge of shattering relief.

Because I would never dream about a person who made me feel like dog dirt from the moment of our clashing introduction to his hasty exit, which made me look like a fool.

My sister’s hand creeps toward my sketchbook, and I yank it farther away. “No snooping on my art,” I tell her.

Grinning, Jules spins and wends her way toward my corner of the shop—the Prurient Paper Collection. She picks up a card featuring an intricate floral design and squints. “What’s this one?” she asks.

“Hey, butterfingers, put the card down.”

She flips it over. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”