"Because she's this sweet little thing—"
"There is nothing sweet about her," I said.
"—and you hulk around like fuckin' Dracula—"
"Okay now that's just ridiculous. I have a great tan." I shoved up my sleeves and presented my arms as evidence. "See? I blink at the sun and I look like this for the year. Nothing pale. Nothing shimmery. Not a vampire."
Acevedo gave me a flat stare.
"You do have a tendency to hulk around, though it reads more as Edgar Allan Poe and his raven to me than vampire," Erin said. "I think we're focusing more on vibe than skin tone, you know?"
"If you say so," I replied.
Erin had a way of staring at people and seeing into the stitching of their souls. She could flip through a mind like it was a book written in a language only she spoke and she did it in a manner that left you thanking her profusely for the intrusion.
"I know it's not the therapy aspect that bothers you," she mused, giving me a narrowed study through her tortoise-rimmed glasses.
She was right about that. I'd been through plenty of therapy. One of the many things Erin and I had in common. Another thing—we were both fucked-up kids living in adult bodies and pretending we had any clue what we were doing.
"Although it's therapy with a person you don't know very well but have had difficult interactions with so I guess that could be tough," she went on. "What's happening in your sessions?"
"We had to put a jigsaw puzzle together using only the cardboard side of the pieces." I ran a hand through my hair. "Last week, we had to juggle."
"Juggle? Like"—she bounced her hands in front of her—"juggling juggle?"
I blew out a miserable sigh. "We had to talk while we tossed things back and forth. It got a little out of hand."
Erin nodded slowly. "That seems to be happening a lot these days. How's Sara doing?"
"How the hell should I know?" I asked with way, way too much firepower.
"Remember who you're talking to," Nick warned. "If you're a dickhead to my wife, I'm sending you home without dinner."
Erin shot an amused grin in her husband's direction. "You know I can handle this, right?"
I didn't even care that I was an object in need of handling. Didn't have a single fuck to give, because my whole life was fucked. Sara was everywhere. At work, in my building, with my friends, inside my head, everywhere. And now I knew what she felt like. How she tasted. How she fell apart for me.
The only answer was avoidance yet I was expected to see her this weekend and—what? Not kill her the second she opened her mouth? Not kiss her simply to shut her up? Not touch her just to prove to myself she wasn't as good as the memories?
"Speaking of Sara," Erin said, "I need you to do something for me."
I rubbed my eyes because that could not be right. I was hallucinating—and I was cool with that. Far better than my present helping of reality.
"Anything," I murmured from behind my hands.
"We are having a little get-together in a few weeks," she started with a glance toward Nick.
"I have some new residents," he explained.
"This is what I'm saying. You're too welcoming. You two need to knock this shit off before you're overrun with strays and charity cases."
"Such as yourself?" he asked.
"No! I'm a friend of the family," I replied.
"That's such a funny way of saying you've hit on half of my sisters-in-law and selected my wife as your emotional support geologist."
I was an asshole. We knew this.
"I haven't hit on anyone recently," I argued.
"Facts are facts, Stremmel," he called.
"Back to the dinner party," Erin said with a laugh. "We have the new residents and a friend of mine from Oxford is coming into town as well. He's taking a visiting professor post at Harvard."
"Sounds great," I said. "Are we having barbecue or tacos?"
"We," Nick repeated. "This fuckin' guy. When did we adopt you?"
"Tacos," Erin said.
"Excellent," I replied. Acevedo was a boss when it came to Tex-Mex. "So, what do you need from me?"
Erin grinned. "Get Sara to come."
The restraint that it took me to keep from saying I already have—twice—almost gave me a hernia. I pressed my fist to my mouth because I didn't trust myself at all right now.
Erin continued on, seemingly oblivious to the alarms blasting in my head. "She's only been here a few times and it's always been with a big group, like when we said goodbye to the intern class and Alex's birthday, and she's never been available for any of our smaller dinners. Nick says she's shy and—"
"That is inaccurate," I said from behind my fist. I stood, stalked to the fridge in search of something to occupy my mouth. "The last thing Shapiro could ever be is shy. You're reading that one all wrong, Acevedo."
"Please," he said, holding his arms out. "Simply because she's not afraid of you doesn't mean she's not also shy."
I peered at him as I popped the top off a beer bottle. "Everything you just said is wrong."
Nick rubbed a hand down his face. "For someone who spends so much time thinking about himself, your self-awareness could use work." He pointed at a dish on the stove. "Make yourself useful, would you? Stir this."
"Promise me you'll ask her," Erin said. "Alex is working on it too. I hope that doesn't overwhelm her too much."
I took a long pull from my beer to keep from commenting on that. The Sara I knew was physically immune to any form of overwhelm. If anything, she lived in a continually underwhelmed state. There was a good chance I could rail her straight through a wall and she'd find a way to be unimpressed.
"Please?" Erin prompted.
I blinked at her. "What?"
"Ask Sara to come and do it nicely," Erin said.
"If anyone's doing the asking, it's her," I murmured. "And I'm not going to be nice about getting her there."
Nick glanced at me with alarm as he poured Erin a glass of wine. "What the hell did you just say?"
"Nothing. Nothing." I went back to stirring in earnest. "You should know she doesn't respond to nice."
"Listen," Nick said with a sigh. "You're the one spending all this time with her, albeit employer-mandated time. We'd like to see more of her outside work—"
I chugged my beer to keep my thoughts away from how much I'd seen of her.
"—and for reasons only my wife understands, we're asking you to convince our likely shy, definitely introverted colleague to attend our next gathering."
I swung a glance between them. "This feels like a punishment. Should I have brought some beer with me? Wine? I'll bring both next time."
"It's not a punishment," Erin said. "I really want her to meet Malakai."
"You—what?"
"Malakai Ford," she said. "He's the friend from Oxford. He's taking a visiting professorship and I think they could really hit it off."