“Nico. Mr. Manganiello. He’s nice.”

I glanced at the red lacey bra and panty set Janie was wearing. It was a nice one. It looked brand new.

“Yeah. He’s nice.” Nico was nice. He was really nice. And it was a seriously bad idea to think about how comprehensively nice he now was. I sighed again thinking about the way he looked at me when he first came in. I could get used to that look coming from him. I could probably grow addicted to it.

I felt an intense need to change the subject. “When did you get back from Boston?”

“Just today, this morning actually. Nico called Quinn last night and made arrangements to meet us today, to arrange private security, and that’s when I suggested his family move into the second Penthouse.” She walked to the stereo, picked up my discarded phone, and presumably scrolled through my playlists. “Have you abandoned your plans with the Dr. Ken Miles?”

“No, not really. Not yet. Maybe. I don’t know.” I didn’t want to think about Dr. Ken Miles at that moment. I was semi-enjoying the after effects of Nico’s shameless stare.

Janie was silent for a moment then said, “Nico seems like a really nice person.”

I stared at Janie, cleared my throat. “You already said that.”

“Yes. I just wanted to reiterate the fact that he is a really nice person.”

“And why do you want to reiterate that fact?”

Janie turned, still holding my phone, and met my gaze directly. “Because I’m ninety-seven percent certain he is in love with you.”

I considered her for a moment, studied the almost disapproving coolness in her gaze. “Why ninety-seven percent?”

“A three percent confidence interval is standard.”

“Why would you think he’s in love with me?” I tried to sound confused, but failed. As soon as the words left my mouth I knew I sounded defensive.

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“No I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. He’s the guy. He’s the guy from Iowa, Garrett’s best friend. He’s the one that you were friends with as kids, then hated, then didn’t hate, then lost your virginity to. I just met him this afternoon and I, the queen of missing the obvious, couldn’t help but notice. He talked about you basically nonstop, Quinn found it irritating, but I thought it was charming. Also, he looks at you like he wants . . . well, like he wants.”

My heart rate increased, and I couldn’t help the breathless question, “What did he say?”

“He talks about you like you invented penicillin. Like you—like you’re an angel. It’s rather disconcerting, to be honest.”

I frowned. “Because I’m so awful?”

“No. You’re not awful, what a ridiculous thing to say.” She gave me a severe, annoyed scowl before she continued. “It’s disconcerting because he’s so smitten and you don’t—well, you know. You don’t have relationships, after what happened with Garrett.”

I covered my face with my hands and sighed deeply. “Oh, Janie. I don’t know what to do.”

Janie crossed soundlessly to where I sat and claimed the spot next to me. She placed her hand on my back. “What’s wrong? Did I say something wrong?”

“No, but I’ve really missed you.” I sniffled and suddenly felt like crying again.

I was officially ridiculous.

“I’m here now. Do you want to talk about it?” Her voice was soft, concerned, supportive.

So I cried.

“What happened?” Janie pulled me to her shoulder and held me as I leaked all over her. We sat on our couch in our shared apartment, in our fancy bras and lace panties, and I quietly cried on her shoulder. I’m sure weird didn’t even begin to describe what we looked like.

I didn’t cry for long. The tears were actually more of a quiet sob than a cry, and I reigned in my wobbly chin admirably. Janie left briefly to fetch tissues and tequila. When she returned I unloaded the entire story and left absolutely nothing out.

Janie listened thoughtfully. When I told her about his confession then kiss she took a shot of tequila and offered me a shot. I refused it since I would need to be back at the hospital at 10:00 p.m. to administer an infusion for Angelica.

When I finished my tale of both woe and whoa, we sat together in silence. She appeared to be deep in thought, and I was completely spent. After rehashing the entire story I thought I might feel better about things or at least less muddled. If possible the opposite was true.

Finally she spoke, “You know I’m bad at this.”

“At what?”

“I’m not good with relationship advice.”

“I’m not in a relationship.”

“Right. I should have been more precise. I’m not good with giving advice about men.”

“I don’t need any advice. I don’t—I can’t lead him on. I can’t get involved with him.”

I felt her curious and concerned gaze before she spoke, “Before you make up your mind, I will ask you a question. You don’t have to answer out loud, but you should answer honestly, to yourself.”

I drew a steadying breath and closed my eyes. They were scratchy. I rubbed them with my fists. “Okay. Go ahead.”

“When was the last time you were happy?”

My chin wobbled, and my nose stung again. I swallowed and bit my tongue to stem new tears.

She added, “I’ve known you for over ten years.”

“Are you saying people need to be in a relationship to be happy?”

“I think relationships, whether they be friendship or something else, are a contributing factor to happiness.” Janie placed her hand on mine and pulled my fist from my eye. “You and I have been happy together, our relationship has helped both of us. I hypothesize that love plays a key role in happiness.”

I scoffed at this notion. “I don’t need someone to love me in order to be happy.”

“I agree. I don’t think you need someone to love you. But I do think maybe you need someone to love.”

I blinked, opened my eyes, brought her kind face into focus. My eyes blurred with tears. “I love you, Janie.”

She nodded. Her smile was watery. “I love you too, Elizabeth. But I’ve learned something this past year.”

I sighed, sniffled, tried to lighten the mood by sounding weary. “You’re going to tell me what it is, aren’t you?”

She nodded again, gave a tearful laugh, then squeezed my hand. “I’ve learned that the more people I love—and I mean really, really, completely, unconditionally love—the happier I am.”

~*~

Quinn Sullivan, Janie’s fiancé, was the most efficient man in the universe. If I didn’t know better I would have thought he was a wizard; an irritable, stubborn, taciturn wizard. In the span of a few hours—after learning from Nico that I’d been harassed by paparazzi, that my phone was basically not useable, and that my email was clogged, and after learning from me about the weirdo lady—Quinn waved his magic wand and solved the majority of my problems.

Quinn arranged for a car to take me to the hospital every day along with a very discreet, effective guard to assist with untoward photographers and keep an eye out for the crazy fancy stalker.

Quinn had his people clear out my email and apply a new spam filter that miraculously caught the bad, but released the good.

Quinn provided me with a new unlisted number and a new cell phone, with all my old contacts already programmed in—including a few new ones, like Nico.

Not that I called him.

Janie’s non-advice advice increased my decisional paralysis. She made sense. But I remembered what it was to love someone—really, really, completely, unconditionally love—and how it felt to lose that person, watch that person turn to dust then disappear.

I’d also watched my father struggle with my mother’s death for years.

For some people the cut is too deep, and the broken bones never heal. They don’t get stronger; they remain in an immunocompromised limbo of being too vulnerable for and, therefore, incapable of real love.

For others, they are immunoresistent; unable to sustain a new (love) infection because their body, heart, and mind are vaccinated against it.

I believed my father and I fell into the second category. We’d been vaccinated.

After my mother’s death, my father told me as I grew up—over and over—that she was it for him. That he loved her and could never love another. I didn’t appreciate his perspective until Garrett died, and I knew, I knew to my bones, that my father and I were just alike. We were built the same way.

Regardless, I’d actually hoped to see Nico, but he was not at the 10:00 p.m. infusion with Rose and Angelica Thursday night. His mother explained that he’d flown back to New York earlier in the evening. She didn’t know when he would return.

Feeling bereft from this news, I ended up giving Rose the list of equipment needed in order to complete the study visits at the new penthouse—where Rose, Angelica, and Nico would be staying for the rest of the month. I also spoke to Dr. Botstein about the study drug; he, in turn, promised to solicit approval from the study sponsor to allow us to take the drug out of the investigational pharmacy and store it at my apartment.