She wasn’t ready for that to happen.

“Would you mind sitting so we can talk?” she asked.

With a serious nod, he rounded the oversized center island and sat in the chair she’d pulled out. His proximity drew her like a magnet, and she seated herself before she could do something distracting like touch him. She needed to stay focused. Maybe if she spoke very eloquently, he’d agree to her new plan.

She rested jittery hands on the tabletop, and within seconds, her fingers started tapping.

A warm hand slid over hers and squeezed. “You never need to be nervous with me. You know that, right?”

When he didn’t remove his hand, she analyzed the way he made her feel. This was a casual, uninvited touch, the kind that normally made her want to crawl into herself. But all she registered right now was Michael’s warmth and the roughness of his skin, his weight. She didn’t understand it, but her body accepted him. Only him.

The realization made her mind sharpen with determination, and she gathered her courage and plowed ahead. “I’m issuing you a new proposal.”

He tilted his head in a measured way. “You mean you want to extend our lessons beyond next Friday?”

“I mean I don’t want lessons anymore. Our time together tonight—both the good parts and the . . . not-so-good parts—made me realize a few things. While I’m bad at sex, I’m even worse at relationships. I think I’m better off spending my time working on that. Before today, I never shared ice cream with someone or held hands while I walked down a sidewalk. I never had a dinner conversation that wasn’t filled with long stretches of painful silence or those embarrassing moments when I accidentally offend people and drive them away.”

He ran his thumb over her knuckles before he considered her with an unwavering gaze. “I didn’t see any relationship problems—except for when you tried to abandon me, but if I’d actually been kissing her, I would have deserved it. You did fine tonight.”

“That’s because I was with you.”

He thought that over for a pensive moment. “Maybe it’s because you feel like you’re in control when you’re with me. Because you’re paying me, there’s less pressure, and you can relax.”

“That’s not it at all. I relax with you because of the way you treat me, because you’re you,” she said with certainty.

His eyebrows drew together, and he went still for several breaths. “Stella, you shouldn’t tell me things like that.”

“Why? It’s true.”

Emotions crossed his face faster than she could read them. He shook his head, swallowed. A smile hinted at the edge of his lips before he withdrew his hand from hers to rub his jaw. He cleared his throat, but his voice still came out rough when he said, “Tell me about this new proposal.”

She stared down at the back of her hand, missing the warmth of his touch. “I want you to teach me how to be in a relationship. Not the sex part, but the together part. Like tonight. The talking and the sharing and the holding hands. New things are scary for me, but with you, I can handle them and even enjoy them. I want to hire you to be my full-time practice boyfriend.”

His lips parted, but he didn’t speak for the longest time. “What do you mean, ‘not the sex part’?”

“I want to take the sex out. I don’t want to be like that woman at the club and force you to be intimate with me. My hope is that if I get good enough at the together part of a relationship, a man won’t mind working on the sex part with me.”

“Who said anything about forcing?” he asked with narrowed eyes. “Everything I’ve done with you up to now has been voluntary.”

She suppressed a grimace and laced her fingers together so she couldn’t tap them. “The next time a man kisses me, I need him to do it because he wants to.” Without a monetary incentive. After seeing Michael with his ex-client, everything they’d done thus far left an unsavory taste in her mouth. Her reasoning when hiring an escort to teach her sex had been oversimplified. “I know you weren’t initially interested in doing repeat sessions, and my new proposal would require even more face time. Because of that, I’m willing to pay you fifty thousand dollars up front for the first month. Maybe we could try this for three to six months—at the same rate? Is that a good time frame for a practice relationship? Everything is negotiable, of course. I don’t know what the industry standard is for this type of arrangement.”

“Fifty thousand . . .” He shook his head like he was questioning his hearing. “Stella, I can’t—”

“Before you say no, think about it,” she said as her heart rate jumped. “Please.”

He pushed away from the table and got to his feet. “I need some time.”

“Of course.” She stood up and held her breath, nervous, unsure what to do. “As much as you need.”

Wrapping a hand around her upper arm, he took a half step toward her. He leaned down a few inches before he caught himself. Eyes intent on her mouth, he outlined the edges of her lips with his fingertips, sending shivers of awareness outward. “I’ll tell you by next Friday. Is that okay?”

“That’s fine.”

He bit his teeth into his bottom lip like he was thinking about kissing her, and her own lips tingled in response. “Good night, then, Stella.”

“Good night, Michael.”

In a state of breathless numbness, she watched as he let himself out.

12

Jab, jab, cross. Jab, jab, cross. Cross. Cross. Cross.

Sweat trickled into Michael’s eyes, burning him, and he swiped a forearm over his face before slamming a fist into the punching bag again. Whenever thoughts crept back into his head, he hit harder. Too many fucking thoughts, too many fucking feelings.

Jab, dodge, hook. Jab, cross.

His arms burned, and he welcomed the pain, welcomed the way it seared everything out of his brain. There was nothing but the hard resistance of the sand in the bag and the jolting impact that shocked up his arm and down his leg.

Jab, jab, jab, cross, cross, cross. Harder. Could he punch the bag straight off its chains? Maybe. Cross, cross, cross, cross—

Loud knocks distracted him midpunch, and he glared at the front door. His annoyance quickly morphed into worry. Shit, was it the landlord?

Throwing a towel around his neck, he went to open the door.

“’Sup, cuz.” Quan brushed past him, set a six-pack of beer bottles on the coffee table, and tossed his motorcycle jacket on the couch. Without pausing to look at Michael, he strode into the kitchen and began digging through the fridge. “Got anything to eat?”

“You’re the one who works at a restaurant,” Michael said on his way back to his punching bag.

It still swung side to side from the pummeling he’d given it, and he steadied it before he drove a fist into the faded leather. As he got back into beating the shit out of the bag, he heard a series of beeps followed by the whirring of the microwave.

“I’m eating your leftovers,” Quan called out.

Michael ignored him and continued punching.

The microwave beeped, and shortly afterward, Quan carried a steaming bowl to the couch, sat, and proceeded to eat Michael’s dinner. Very noisily.

When Michael couldn’t take the slurping sounds any longer, he paused in his punching and said, “Most people eat at the kitchen table.”

Quan shrugged. “I like the couch better.” He shoved a forkful of noodles into his mouth and slurp-chewed, arching his eyebrows at Michael in a what gives? way.

Michael gritted his teeth and tried to find his rhythm again.

“You been hitting the weights hard lately? Your arms are bigger. They’re like grapefruits, man.”

Steadying the bag, Michael asked, “Why are you here?”

“You gonna apologize to me or what? Because you’re the shittiest cousin ever, Michael. You really are.”

He shut his eyes, exhaling. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna have to ask you to try that again.”

He pushed away from the bag and threw himself onto the couch next to his cousin. “I’m really sorry. It’s just complicated right now, and I—” He rested his elbows on his knees and covered his face with his wrapped hands. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t get why you lied about not having a girlfriend. ‘No one special’ my ass. You scared she won’t like the family or what?” Quan asked with a sneer.

Michael resisted the urge to tear his hair out. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“The fuck, Michael.” Quan set his bowl on the coffee table next to the beer and grabbed his jacket. “I’ll leave, then.” He stalked to the door and grabbed the knob.

“Today was crappy, okay?” He began yanking the boxing wraps from his fists. “All my days are crap days, but today was worse. I thought my mom was dead. When I got there, she was stooped over in her chair, and it didn’t look like she was breathing. I lost my shit.”

Quan turned around, worry lining his face. “Is she okay? Why didn’t I hear about this earlier? Was it like the other two times when you found her in the bathroom? Is she in the hospital right now?”

One of the wraps came off, and Michael switched to his other hand, reliving the fear and the relief and the embarrassment. “She’s fine. She just fell asleep. When I went crazy, she woke up and yelled at me.”

Quan’s expression went from relieved to amused. “You’re such a momma’s boy, you know that?”

“Like you aren’t.”

“You should tell my mom that. Maybe she’ll stop being so mean.”

Michael rolled his eyes as he coiled his boxing wraps back up. “After that, someone came looking for my dad. They were trying to serve him. Not sure if it was the same person from before, or the IRS, or someone new. It’s always fun seeing people’s faces when I tell them yeah, I’m his son. I can see them sizing me up and making assumptions. And then when I tell them I have no idea where my dad is or if he’s even alive, I get the doubt or the pity. My mom spent the rest of the day repeating old stories about how fucked up he is.”