Page 595 of Manhattan Bossholes

I let out a sigh. “So, this is about Roxanne?”

He shrugged, still avoiding eye contact.

I leaned across the table. “Tyler, I don’t know how many different ways I can say this to you: Roxanne was no good for you. She brought out the worst in you. The relationship wasn’t healthy.”

“But I loved her!” he fired back. “It was so good when we were together, like I was on the top of the world.”

Yeah, I wanted to say, because you were—which was the whole reason why she was there. As soon as you stopped being successful and being with you stopped being fun and exciting, she bailed.

But how could I say that? He’d lost so much—of course he missed it. I just wished he’d stop obsessing over that one particular she-devil part of his past. Missing her wasn’t going to fix anything, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to help him move on.

I exhaled slowly because we’d been through all of this before. “Well, I can’t give you the top of the world—but in about five minutes, you’ll have enough diner food to choke a horse. For today, that’ll have to do.”

He crumpled into the corner of the booth. “It does just fine,” he said softly. “You always come through for me. Sometimes I think you’re all I have. You’re my brother, do you know that?”

The pitiful way he said it was a knife to my heart.

“Yeah, I know.”

The waitress delivered an armload of plates. Eggs, bacon, hash browns, pancakes, sausage links, scrapple, there was so much that I wasn’t sure he’d be able to finish all of it.

I felt like I needed to shift the conversation to something positive, since beating him up wasn’t going to work. “You still talking to Nina? She seems really nice.”

Tyler shoveled bacon in his mouth. “Yeah,” he grunted. “That’s just it; she’s nice. I don’t exactly deserve that kind of person. I’d corrupt her. Ruin her with my shittiness.”

“Stop,” I chastised. “She could be good for you—give you a reason to move past the shittiness.”

I didn’t want to push him into a relationship, but I sure liked the idea of the kindly librarian being a positive influence for him, because being the sole bright spot in his life was a big load for me to carry, especially when I had my own demons to wrestle.

“She’s pretty special,” he finally admitted. “And how about her friend Felicity and you? I definitely saw sparks at my last gig.”

I wanted to point out he’d gotten high as a kite that night and had probably seen unicorns and centaurs, too, but I kept my mouth shut on the subject. “Oh, her? Everything you saw that night was manufactured, like I told you before. Part of a marketing thing we’re doing for work, remember?”

He stopped chewing to frown at me, holding a sausage link like a cigarette. “You sure about that? Because I know you, and that flirting didn’t look fake at all.”

I grabbed my phone, which buzzed with a new wave of alerts. More photos of me with Felicity, this time leaving the restaurant. We were holding hands, and she was gazing up at me like she was mesmerized. Tyler was right, it looked real as hell.

“I’m not in the market for a relationship,” I countered. “You of all people should know that. I’m not about to go through that sort of damage again.” I didn’t even have to mention Carolina’s name.

Tyler got to work on the eggs. “If you say so. But I ain’t blind, brother.”

We sat in silence as I considered it. The very person we were talking about was currently in my penthouse, in cuddly and soft loungewear, taking care of my dog. Yeah, that felt sort of real.

“Finish up,” I said abruptly. “I’m tired.”

The drive home turned into a negotiation, as I wasn’t in the mood to trek to Tyler’s place. He felt bad about “putting me out” by staying over at my place, but we both knew that between my multiple spare rooms and housekeeper, it was no inconvenience. By the time we got home it was after three, so I held my finger to my mouth as we walked into my apartment.

“Why do we have to be quiet?” he whispered as we crept down the hall. “Who’s here?”

Boris hadn’t greeted us at the door, which clued me in to the fact that Felicity was probably asleep with my dog nearby, protecting her. We crept into the great room that overlooked the city to find it dim save a small light on the bookshelf.

And there was Felicity, curled up in a tiny ball on my sectional, with Boris asleep at her hip. They looked so peaceful that I didn’t want to wake them.

“Yup,” Tyler whispered to me as his eyes bounced from Felicity to me. “Totally manufactured.” He made an exaggerated “okay” gesture at me and winked.

Felicity startled and sat up. “Wha…” she inhaled deeply and looked around the room in confusion. Boris jumped off the couch and ran over to dance in front of us. “You’re back. Hey there.”

She smiled sleepily, and all I could think of was waking up next to her. I cursed my overactive imagination.