She released a grunt, as if she were afraid I’d say just that. “But thank God, this isn’t the same guy you told me about from high school. I’ve got to admit, other than chickening out on telling you who he is, he’s pretty cool.”

Taking that as her stamp of approval, I took a bite of my salmon.

“So. Did you do it?” she asked chewing on her steak.

“No. He wouldn’t.”

“Hmm…well I’ll give him that. If he’d just tell you the truth, he’d be perfect.”

“I don’t know if it’s because of loyalty to his brother, or if he thinks I’ll rat him out to the magazine, or if this is just August being August again, where he just doesn’t talk to me.”

“New York is a big city, Harp, and you pick the one who’s the exact replica of the guy who broke your heart and can barely speak to you?”

I barely heard her rhetorical question. For the last few minutes, I’d only had one thing on my mind and I needed to get it out. “I don’t even know if I’m seeing him again.”

“What do you mean? Why can’t you call him?”

“He texted me once, when he sent me tickets to the game earlier this week, but I’ve never actually used it to call him. What if it’s got his personal voicemail on it?”

“Right, because this hedge fund math genius didn’t think of covering his tracks.”

We were both quiet for a moment, eating our dinner and I shrugged. “I guess I’ll just wait and see what happens.”

“Harp, look, I’m all for playing the game and living on the edge, but this isn’t you. He sure as hell isn’t going to say anything, so you have to.”

“I feel like I need to know more. Like why? Why is he covering for Troy? Why did he lie to me?” I could tell there was something seriously wrong with Troy when I took him back to his place when he couldn’t tell left from right, but why was August suddenly living his life? I sighed. “How did I get myself into this?”

“Well, let’s see…girl walks into a bar, girl kisses a guy she thought—”

“Yeah, I know how. Thanks.”

“Saturday night, don’t you have plans with friends or something?” Dad asked me when I called to check in.

“No. I hung out with Nicole last night and I only moved here in the summer, I don’t really know a lot of people yet.”

He was quiet. “You know I didn’t send you back to the city to be serving coffee and calling your dad on a Saturday night.”