“You taste like pineapple,” I say against her mouth. “You hate pineapple.”

It’s a silly thing to notice, and I’m not even sure why I said it or why she looks guilty, lowering her lashes with cheeks flushed.

“I . . . yeah. I do hate pineapple.”

“You made an exception?” I trace her thick brows with one finger.

“Um . . . not really.” She blows out a quick sigh before meeting my eyes. “Zo likes pineapple in this smoothie I make for him.”

I lift my brows, silently encouraging her to go on, to explain how this all fits together.

“He, well, he kissed me earlier.”

My teeth clamp down and my hand curls into a fist on the pantry floor.

“Jared, it’s not what you think. It’s a long story.”

“One that ends with his tongue in your mouth?”

“Nothing’s been going on,” she assures me, pushing my hair back from my face, sinking her fingers in at the roots the way she knows I like. “It was a moment of weakness.”

“His or yours?”

“Maybe both.” She shrugs, her eyes weary. “Not me wanting him that way, but feeling . . . I don’t know, bad that I don’t?”

“It doesn’t help when you tell me shit like this.” I rub my tired eyes.

“This is an impossible situation,” she says softly. “But, Jared, what do you want me to do?”

“You don’t want to know what I want and I won’t tell you because you’ll think I’m mean and selfish.”

She dusts her fingers over my cheeks, my chin, over my mouth like she’s soothing me. I hate that if we sit here long enough, it’ll start working. I trap her fingers against my mouth.

“Maybe not,” she finally replies with a sad smile. “Sometimes when the day is filled with things I don’t want to do, wouldn’t choose but have to, I just look in the mirror and say out loud all the things I would do if it were up to me.”

“And this helps?” Because I doubt it.

“It does. I just say it, even if it’s awful, and I don’t judge it. Then I go and do the right thing. I know it sounds silly.”

“It does sound silly.”

She leans forward, almost teasing me with a look—but not quite because this is so hard, and she probably senses how close I am to doing something stupid.

“But you haven’t tried it,” she says. “What could it hurt? Try it. Just tell me what you want. No matter how bad it sounds. I promise I won’t judge it.”

“You don’t get to judge?”

“No, I don’t get to judge, but when you’re done, when it’s out of your system, we do the have-to thing. The right thing.”

“Okay. You want to hear what I want. Here goes. I want you to leave him and come to me. I’m not assigning right or wrong to it. I’m just telling you that every night when I’m in my bed alone, I keep hoping you’ll show up at my door. And you’ll tell me that I’m it for you. That nothing else is as important to you as I am. Because I’m saying that to you. I’m telling you that nothing else is as important to me as you are.”

It’s as close as I’ve come to confessing what’s getting harder to deny every day, to keep calling it something else, but I’m still not ready to say it, not with Zo holding all these cards. All of the advantages.

“Oh, Jared, I—”

“No, listen. I want you to leave him and come to me, but the irony is I want you so badly because you never would. Your heart, integrity, strength of character . . . they draw me to you.”

I pause to cup her face in my hands.

“And I . . .” I cough, clear my throat, and search for a word to settle on “. . . I care too much about you to corrupt that.”

She scoots in closer and wraps her arms around me, tucking her head under my chin. She’s so warm and soft and good and sweet, and she smells like her Pretty Pastel dryer sheets.

“I care about you, too, Jared,” she says softly. “If I could do what I feel is right and still be with you right now, I would. I hope you believe that.”

A distant ring robs me of my chance to answer. She scrambles to her feet, adjusting her yoga pants as she goes.

“That’ll be Maali,” she says, regret in her voice. “I have to catch this call. A couple of my guys have contracts on the bubble.”

She opens the pantry door, letting the world back in.

“Okay.” I haul myself to stand and follow her from the pantry and out of the kitchen.

“Give me a few minutes.” She looks at me from the foot of the stairs, her expression uncertain. “Wait here?”

I nod my agreement and sit to stew in frustration. I tip my head back on the couch and try to evict images of him kissing her from my brain. I’m too tired, though, to exert that much mental energy, and I paint a full scene in my head with him touching her, taking her. A weary sigh is all I can manage. I wrapped up a shit ton of stuff so I could afford the day off up here. I just got on a plane. Didn’t call or ask in case she told me not to come. I’ve been going out of my mind missing her and being horny.

Okay. And jealous. Of a dying man. I know it’s insanity, but hearing that he actually kissed her brings my concerns to life.

“Jared.”

I open my eyes when my name is called. Zo is standing at the doorway leading down the hall. I fix my face, disguising my shock at how wasted away he has become. I’ve seen him on television and in a few photos since his diagnosis, but it’s been awhile. He’s still tall, of course, a few inches taller than I am, but he’s painfully thin. He holds a mask over the gauntness of his face and studies me with brows drawn together.

“Zo, hey.” I sit up, but assume with the mask, I shouldn’t get too close.

“Why are you here?” he asks with, unless I’m mistaken, some underlying hostility. I’m not usually mistaken about someone wanting to kick my ass. I pick up on that kind of thing.

“Uh . . . I just dropped off some papers.”

“From LA?” Skepticism and irritation clearly mark the visible half of his face.

“I was in town.” I shrug and lean forward, elbows on knees. “Hope it isn’t a problem.”

His face relaxes. Maybe he realized he’s scowling at me.

“No, of course not.” He walks farther into the room, takes a seat a few feet away, and pulls the mask off. “After all, I understand you and Banner go way back.”

I’m not sure what she’s told him, so I just nod, keeping my face neutral.

“So how are you feeling?” I ask.

“Like each of my organs is systematically being attacked.”

“Sorry.” I twist my lips, self-deprecating. “I guess that was a dumb question. I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”

“It would be a thousand times worse without Banner.” A tiny smile crooks the sober line of his mouth. “She takes good care of me.”

He watches me through a veil of thick lashes camouflaging his thoughts.

“I’d probably already be dead were it not for her. Loyalty like hers . . .” he shakes his head and looks down at his hands “. . . a woman like Banner comes once in a lifetime.”

I don’t acknowledge his statement with anything other than a steady stare, giving nothing away. Our eyes lock, and I drop mine first. Even I’m not interested in a staring contest with a dying man.

“So you were at Kerrington with Banner, yes?”

“Yeah. We were there together.”

“I wish I could have seen her in college.” His smile is easy and affectionate. “I met her as she was about to graduate, during her internship.”

“With Bagley, right? When she signed you.”

“It was more like I signed her,” he says wryly. “I recognized her potential right away. Was she the smartest girl then, too? Back in college?”

My shoulders drop, the muscles relaxing at the prospect of an easy topic. Banner being awesome.

“Absolutely.” I smile involuntarily, recalling Banner in college. So single-minded and earnest. “She was brilliant.”

“She claims she was . . . what is the word?” He seems to search his mind. “I have chemo brain and sometimes can’t find the right phrase when I need it. Frumpy? Is that it?”

“Frumpy?” I chuckle. “I guess you could say that. She dressed very differently, that’s for sure.”

“But that didn’t make a difference to you, did it?” He sits back and links spindly fingers over his frail torso. “You didn’t think she was frumpy, did you, Foster?”

The smile lingering from my amusement dries up, too, and we’re left considering each other, both of us tight lipped.

“No, I didn’t think Banner was frumpy,” I finally agree. “I thought she was . . .” I hesitate to go on, not sure what I’ll reveal, give away.

“Beautiful?” he finishes softly.

I glance up to find him watching me closely.

“Yeah.” I free my voice of emotion. “She was beautiful.”

“So you wanted her then, too?”

I don’t allow myself to respond for a moment but glance up the stairs, wondering how close Banner is and if she’ll hear what’s about to go down.

“Excuse me?” I ask.

“I said so you’ve always wanted Banner?” His face may be neutral, but his eyes proclaim anger.

I prefer gloves off anyway, so I won’t bother lying to him. He wants this conversation, we can have it. It’s overdue.

“Since the first time I saw her I wanted her, yeah.”

“And you’re one of those men who just takes what he wants, huh? Even if she belongs to someone else?”

“Banner’s never belonged to anyone else.” I try to soften the declaration into an apology, but I want to be clear where I stand and what I believe. “Not really.”