He took another mouthful of gin and let it strip his throat like acid. “Mm-hm.”

“Like she wouldn’t jump at the chance to marry a famous actor and move to Hollywood,” Kara said, clearly growing desperate.

Will chuckled. “Nope.”

When Abbie had rejected him today, the whole Hollywood thing had been more of a negative than a positive—which he’d always known it would be.

But the biggest negative was, apparently, him. I can’t do this, she’d said, and really, was there a clearer, if gentle, no-fucking-way in all of history? Definitely not. Another imaginary blade slid between his ribs to join the rest.

“How are you gonna keep this girl,” Kara demanded, “if you have no money?”

“I have plenty of money,” Will said absently, already losing interest in the conversation. He squinted at the bottle of gin on the counter. Was it a trick of the light, or had he drunk more than the sneaky glass he’d intended? Ms Tricia would skin him alive for stealing her stash.

“Do you have enough money for—for children?” Kara demanded triumphantly. He had a feeling she was searching her mind for the trappings of romance boring heterosexuals like him preferred.

But he knew for a fact that Abbie didn’t want children, which didn’t really matter, since she wouldn’t be having them or abstaining from having them with him. So he gave a straightforward answer. “I have enough money for a herd of fucking elephants, Kara. You and me—we grew up in very different ways, you know.”

“I know, I know. I’m just worried about you, kid. Do you even know what you’re gonna do with your life?”

Will sighed. “Yeah. I do.” He had it all planned out, sort of. He knew it would be a nice, normal, family-oriented existence, anyway. But it suddenly looked a lot bleaker now he knew for a fact he wouldn’t be doing it with Abbie.

As if the thought had called her, Will caught sight of a moving shadow from the corner of his eye and turned. There she stood in the doorway, her hair tied up for bed and her body wrapped up in what seemed to be puppy-print pyjamas. If only said puppies were enough to distract him from the contours of her body beneath said pyjamas—but they weren’t, so after a second he dragged his gaze above her neck and kept it there. He couldn’t see her eyes, not in the low light, but a slash of moonlight spilled over the lower half of her face, and he could tell by the set of her mouth—firm, full, tightening at the corners—that something was bothering her.

“Gotta go,” he said, and put the phone down, cutting off Kara’s squawked “What?”

“Who was that?” Abbie asked. Her voice was quiet and inflectionless. He really, really wished he could see her eyes.

“No one.”