There he was.

I leaned over the railing, and Kian came out the side door. As he did, he stopped in the sidewalk. His hands searched inside his jeans pockets, and then his head straightened. He twisted around. He was gazing up. I ducked down, but I could still see a little bit.

He was staring right at my apartment.

I was eight floors up, and it was dark out, but he continued to look up. My forehead pressed against the railing, and I gripped my phone so close to my head that Erica could probably hear the street sounds through it.

“Jo?” she said.

“Yeah?” I murmured, clearing my throat.

Going back to my knees, I peeked again, but he wasn’t there anymore. I couldn’t see him up or down the street. I shouldn’t have been surprised. He was a ghost now.

“Will you?”

I cursed. I’d missed so much in this conversation. “Yeah. Sure. No problem.” What had I agreed to?

“Great! I’ll save you a seat, but I have to warn you that some of the others from the newspaper are here, too.”

I’d agreed to head down to the Wine Cellar. “Oh. Yeah, give me ten minutes to get there.” I glanced down at my uniform. “Make that twenty.”

“I’ll have a drink ready for you. Thank you, Jo!”

“Yeah. Okay.” I hung up, and I couldn’t help myself. I looked one last time before heading back inside.

There was no Kian below.

It was the next morning.

Erica was hungover, and I was late for work. I rushed from my bedroom, but stopped at the sight of Wanker stretched out on our couch. Somehow, Wanker had slept over. His shoes had been kicked off. His shirt was pushed up as he was idly scratching at his chest, and he had his other arm flung over his face, his nose stuck into his elbow. He was snoring, too.

Erica came out of her room at that same time. She made a beeline for the coffee pot.

I held up two fingers. “One, I need a cup of coffee, too. And, two, how did he get there? He wasn’t at the Wine Cellar with us last night.”

She grinned, filling a cup. Before pouring the second cup for me, she lifted her mug and took a good whiff of it. “Heaven. My God,” she groaned, tipping her head back with a dreamy smile, “I need this to keep me awake today.”

“Hey.” I held up my hand. “Don’t make me jealous. Pour me a cup, too.”

She poured me one as well, and when I grabbed it, Wanker moaned from the couch. He sat up with his hair sticking in the air and a nice bulge in the front of his pants. He looked down at it, up to us, back to it, and then sighed.

He muttered, falling back to lean against the couch, “He says good morning, too.”

Lovely.

I ignored his member’s good morning. “How is it that you got here? You weren’t at the Wine Cellar last night.” I leaned back against the counter. I had picked the morning shift, so I was late, but a good cup of coffee couldn’t be rushed.

Erica rolled her eyes. “He called a few hours ago, convinced that he needed to go to the hospital.”

Last night, Erica had been falling over wasted.

I asked her, “You were steady enough to take him?”

She snorted. “Hell no. I talked him into taking a cab here, and when he got here, he suddenly felt better.”

He grumbled, yawning and stretching at the same time, “I thought I was dying. Thanks for the sympathy, too. Good friends you are.”

There was enough coffee in the pot for one more person.

“We’re the best kind of friends there are, if you want the last cup.”

“The best. The very best.” He stood up and began scratching at his chest again as he continued, “The one-of-a-kind best—unique and rare and”—he moved closer to the pot, leaned down, and took a big whiff before a dreamy smile came over his face—“the kind that I just want to hug.”

He had morning breath.

Before I could retreat, Erica held up a hand. “Back away from my roommate. You’re sick. You were throwing up.” She paused and amended, “We were both throwing up at the same time. He got the toilet. I took the garbage bin.” She shuddered. “Not good times.”

The image flashed in my head. “Gross. I didn’t need to know that.”

Erica grinned over her cup. “It’s one of the perks of being my roommate. We’re close, Jo. You get to know everything about me.”

Wanker grunted, moving back to the couch with the whole coffee pot. “I do, too, and I’m not your roommate.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I don’t?” He looked at her in surprise.

“Nope.” Erica grabbed her bag and then her purse. Putting her arms through the straps, she secured her bag onto her back and then reached for her cup. Pausing at the door with her keys in hand, she frowned at him. “I have to go. It’s our last day for prep before the interview.” Her eyebrows shot up, and she said to me, “You have to be there today.”

“Me?”

“Yes. Oh my gosh, that was the other thing I needed to vent to you about. Susan rescheduled the interview. She’s going to meet with him tomorrow. I found that out last night. I was supposed to do my questions on the original date, two days from now. Oh, man.” Her palm hit her forehead. “That was the whole reason I had you come out last night.”

She had been hanging all over one of the other reporters when I got there, so I hadn’t been filled in on whatever was wrong. Remembering that, I met her gaze, and she looked toward Wanker before giving me a slight head shake.