He strides back to the door, grabs the bag he dropped what seems like hours ago but was only a few minutes, and turns to give me one more disparaging look.

“I’ll send for my things,” he spits. “And start looking for a new agent.”

“But your contract,” I protest. “I’m so close to getting you the supermax deal you deserve. If you’d let me—”

“You think I care about that when you’ve . . .” He shakes his head and adjusts the bag on his shoulder. “Once I put my career in the hands of an inexperienced girl who knew next to nothing, and I’ve made millions. I thought it was because you were special, but you’re not. So I’m sure someone else can do just as good.”

I nod, biting my lip to choke back another sob. Losing my best friend, the man who has been with me—and I have been with him—through ten years of triumph and pain and success and failure feels like I’m losing a part of me.

“Zo, you have to know I’m so very ashamed of myself,” I tell him, not bothering to dry the tears coursing down my cheeks.

He doesn’t look back when he jerks the door open but tosses his final words over his shoulder.

“Yo tambien.”

So am I.

24

Banner

I’ve been sitting here in the dark, pickling in my own tears and staring at Gino’s take out menu. Only fifteen minutes away lies the best pepperoni pizza I’ve ever tasted. Usually I pick off the pepperoni, blot most of the grease away with a paper towel, peel off the doughy crust and restrict myself to one slice. If I’m splurging, maybe two.

But tonight, with Zo’s disappointment heavy on my shoulders and his shouted recriminations trapped in my walls, echoing in my mind even after he’s gone, I want to eat the whole pizza. I imagine how good it would feel to tear my teeth into something soft and carby, not crunchy salads or strips of lean meat. Something puffy as a marshmallow. Something gooey that feels like a pillow in my mouth.

Comforting.

I’m reminding myself of all the things I learned in counseling, but it wouldn’t kill me to eat pizza. My body wouldn’t balloon overnight. I indulge every once in a while. It would be why I’m eating it: the fact that there’s a deep crater in my chest hollowed out by how I’ve let myself down and let Zo down, how I’ve hurt the kindest man I’ve ever met. I want to stuff food in that hole, and I want to believe, even if it’s only as long as it takes me to finish the meal, that pepperoni makes it better. Giving in to that feels like tossing a sobriety coin in a wishing well and hoping for the best. But right now I don’t care how I feel better. I just need to.

Fuck it.

I pick up my cell to select Gino’s contact when the phone rings in my hand. And, of course, it’s Quinn. For two rings, I consider not picking up, but I know she’ll just keep calling. I cancelled our workout this morning. I haven’t been answering my phone. If she tried the office, Maali will have told her I called in sick. If I don’t answer, she’ll be at my door.

That’s what I would do for her.

“Hey.” I lovingly caress the takeout menu and try to sound normal. “What’s up, chica?”

“What’s up?” Quinn asks, her voice tight. “What’s up is you blowing off this morning’s workout, calling in sick, and missing our appointment tonight.”

“Appointment?” I sit up straight on my couch, suddenly alert. “What appointment?”

“Remember we had the AesThetics pitch tonight?”

I’m sinking through my living room floor with embarrassment.

“Shit,” I mutter and cover my face with one hand. “I can’t believe I . . . Maali would have—”

“Called?” Quinn interjects. “Yeah, she did. A few times, but you weren’t answering.”

I close my eyes and push the hair, tangled from the abuse my fingers have given it all day, out of my face.

“I’m so sorry.” I swallow fresh tears. Not only have I ruined things with Zo, but I may have jeopardized an opportunity I’ve been cultivating for Quinn for months. “I’ll call them and re-schedule.”

“Oh, I still met with them.” A smile enters her voice. “You’d already sent the ideas you wanted to discuss, and you and I had gone over them. It was easy to listen to what they had to say and tell them what we were thinking.”

“And?” I ask hopefully.

“Well, I didn’t do anything.” Quinn offers a teasing laugh. “You have to earn your keep. I told them you’d follow up tomorrow since you were sick tonight.”

A pause redolent with questions.

“Are you sick?” Quinn asks. “None of this is like you. All us mere mortals take a day or so to play hooky, but you never have. So what’s going on?”

And I can’t even say. Shame, hurt, and frustration roll into a gag shoved in my mouth. They stop the words for how royally I’ve messed up. My best friend hurt and gone. One of my firm’s biggest clients leaving. Not to mention the censure I will inevitably receive from my family. Mama would be hard-pressed to choose between her natural daughter and Alonzo Vidale. How many rosaries have there been for his big games or when he was injured? I can already see her glaring at the empty seat where he should be this Christmas.

“Banner?” Quinn prompts.

And the crying starts again. Not the racking sobs of the last few hours, but a trickle of hurt and disappointment that I’m too tired to wipe away. Just sniffling and my helpless silence.

“Oh, God,” Quinn says, her voice sinking to a horrified whisper. “Is it Zo? Did he cheat? Some ho on the road? Because I have just the thing for when a guy cheats.”

“What do you have for when a girl does?” I ask, hush-voiced.

Shock waves blast me from the other end.

“I’m on my way.”

Thirty minutes later, I haven’t moved from my spot on the couch, still reviewing how things got so messed-up. One glance at my phone confirms that Maali left several voice mails, as did Quinn. I don’t have the kind of life you can just drop out of for a day. My life is a train at full-speed. Try just “hopping” off for a minute without a scheduled stop, and things get run over.

One person I don’t have any missed calls from is Jared. Something burns in my chest. Hurt or disappointment. I feel like Buffy after Angel finally got into her pants and then became a cool aloof demon who never called and then tried to kill her. Of course, that’s extreme. For one, Jared has been a devil all along. I knew that. Two, I don’t think he’ll come after my heart with a stake. He’d be more subtle than that. I could be reading too much into it. Before we so fucktastically wrecked my desk . . . and my life . . . he was giving me space. Maybe this is more space while I sort through things with Zo. Or maybe he’s done? I should be grateful, but I think I feel bereft.

I know exactly how I feel about what I’ve done to Zo. I know how I feel about the violent betrayal of my own code of values and principles. But I don’t know how to feel about Jared giving up on me. And I should. I should know this. Moral clarity, based on what I embrace as true for my life, has always been my guide. Right now I feel murkier than ever, stuck in this morass. Unsure.

The door opening shakes me from my philosophical musings on the couch. Quinn has a key. She appears, still dressed from her AesThetics meeting, I assume, because she’s very smartly turned out. In contrast I look . . .

“You look like shit,” she confirms what was heretofore only a suspicion.

“I figured as much.” I touch my swollen eyelids and cheeks still hot from crying.

“I brought reinforcements.” She holds up a plastic bag. “Vodka popsicles. Only a hundred calories, and it’s like alcohol and ice cream!”

I smile for the first time in what feels like years.

“That’s better than the pepperoni pizza I was contemplating.” I hold up the Gino’s menu.

She looks from my blotchy, swollen face to the menu.

“Some days call for pizza, honey.” She snatches the menu from me. “Don’t overthink it and don’t overdo it. Tomorrow’s a new day.”

She dials the number on the menu.

“Yes, do you have personal size? How many slices?” She beams at me. “We’ll take one of those.”

One hour and four miniature slices of pepperoni pizza later, two for each of us, she’s drawn the whole gory tale out of me, fully loaded with additional tears and self-recriminations. I hope I’d be as compassionate as she is listening to me. There’s no judgment in her kind eyes.

“I can’t believe I did this,” I gasp, fighting back more tears. “And all this damn crying. I don’t cry like this. I’m sorry.”

I blink back tears and stare at my hands tremoring in my lap.

“I hurt him so badly, Quinn. If you could have seen, have heard how crushed he was. Zo, the sweetest man on the planet, and I do this to him. I’m such a—”

“Ah, ah, ah . . .” Quinn slices in with a wagging finger. “Watch what you say about the woman who literally saved my life.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” I shake my head and shake off the praise.

“I’m not.” Quinn puts her hands over mine. “I had one leg and a death wish when you came for me, lady. I’d already tried to kill myself twice, if you remember.”

Quinn’s normally cheery gaze goes solemn with the memories.

“You saw something in me no one else did, Banner,” she says softly. “And you wouldn’t stop, you stubborn bitch, until I saw it, too. And it made me want to live again.”

She blinks back tears of her own.

“Do you realize how many people you’ve done that for?” she asks. “How many guys are still in the NBA because of how you fight for them? Protect them? Smacked them on the head when they needed it? Everyone’s not like you. The way you care for people, how you fight for them, it’s extraordinary. Your loyalty is extraordinary.”