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  I wasn’t in love with her, but… I was very fond of her, to the point that it confused me. I could see myself falling pretty hard if we gave it time. And in the days since that conversation on the couch, the one where we’d kind-of-sort-of agreed we were more than fuck buddies… I found it hard to picture myself leaving her.

  “Love is a complicated topic,” I said, neatly side-stepping the subject. “You’re actually lucky this teacher of yours assigned you a different one. It should be much easier to write about Mercutio than to write about love.”

  “But I don’t care about Mercutio,” Kathy groaned. “Love is way more interesting. I want to write about love.”

  Funny that she found love so fascinating when it terrified me so much. Being with Leanne, sometimes I did find my feet getting itchy. Especially since that conversation, I’d had wild urges to flirt with others, even proposition strangers the way I used to do.

  I had to remind myself that doing any of that would ruin this great thing I was discovering. And that there was incredible sex waiting for me at home.

  What I had with Leanne was different from anything I’d experienced in the past with anyone. I might not have actively chosen it, but now that I was in it, I wanted to see where it would go.

  I drummed my fingers on the desk. “If you want to write about love so bad, you could do it. Not for your class, but you could post something about Romeo and Juliet online, like on a blog.”

  “I could do that instead of writing about Mercutio?”

  “No, in addition to Mercutio.”

  “Extra work? Gross!” She pulled her chair in, setting both hands on the keyboard. “I guess I might as well get this over with.”

  *

  “I’m home!” I called as I came in the door an hour later. Instead of Leanne, Teensy greeted me, skittering across the floor to give my hand a lick.

  I picked her up. Soon it’d be harder to lift her. Not that I’d be here that much longer, anyway. I wouldn’t be around to watch her grow up. The thought made me a little sad. What was wrong with me? I’d be off having new adventures while she and Leanne stayed here in boring old Newbank.

  Putting the thoughts aside, I walked into the living room.

  “Hey,” Leanne said, looking up from her papers.

  “I thought you weren’t here.”

  “Sorry. I guess I was caught up in my work. Still working on that Tripton case. I could’ve stayed at the office, but I felt like coming home.”

  “That desperate to see me, huh?” I placed a kiss on her lips.

  It was supposed to be a quick peck but she drew it out for a long few moments. “So obnoxious,” she murmured after she pulled away.

  “You love that about me.” I swaggered over to where the dog was sitting. Dropping onto the floor beside her, I petted her head.

  Leanne’s tone got serious. “I love a lot of things about you.”

  “Stop, you’ll make me blush.” What would she do if I said I loved her? A day or even a month is way too fast.

  Kathy was right. And I wasn’t part of Leanne’s long-term plans.

  “Hey, what exactly is in these plans of yours?” I asked, hugging my arms around my knees as I looked up at her. “Are they actually written out, or in your head?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I happen to be curious. And that’s not an answer.”

  Her cheeks were a little pink. “They’re written out. They’re not plans so much as, you know, goals. Timelines.”

  “Tell me more.”

  She pursed her lips, then relaxed them — as if she was going to ask why but thought better of it. “There’s a five-year plan, a ten-year plan, and a twenty-year one. Every year in January, I look at them again and evaluate how well I’m progressing toward those goals.”

  “You’re telling me you only look at them once a year?”

  “I only update them once a year.”

  “Let me see.” I knew she wouldn’t do it right away, so I pulled Teensy onto my lap for entertainment while she dithered.

  “I don’t know. They’re a bit personal…”

  “You know I’m going to talk you into it, and if by some miracle I don’t manage to, I can always go through your stuff and look for them while you’re at work.”

  “Ugh!” She stood up wearily. “Should’ve been a lawyer,” she muttered as she made her way toward the bedroom.

  That was easier than expected. I toyed with Teensy’s ears while I waited, flopping one and then the other, over my fingers. She looked at me like I was crazy, but put up with it. That look couldn’t do anything to me — I’d been getting it from a lot of places for a long time.

  Leanne came back with a stack of binders in her hands.

  “These aren’t plans, this is psychosis!” Pushing Teensy off my lap, I jumped up to take them from her. The puppy settled at my feet.

  “It’s not, like, obsessive,” Leanne said. “These are all of them going back to when I was eighteen. A life without a plan is like a journey without a road map. How would I ever get where I want to go without planning out how to do it?”

  Of the two of us, she was the crazy person in this room. Still, I took them from her. I wanted a little glimpse into that mind of hers.

  The year was written at the top. The page was broken down into headings: Family, Relationships, Skills, Values, and Career — the biggest section.

  “What’s this part?” I asked, trailing my finger down a column of words like “compassion, honesty, patience, respect.”

  “Those are the values I want to uphold.” Leanne pointed to a blank column beside the words. “At the end of the year, I’ll fill in what percent I was successful at each one.”

  “You grade yourself?”

  “In a sense.”

  I couldn’t even tease her about how she was giving herself a report card. I was too busy flipping the pages, eager to see what else the binder would reveal. “I’m going to check the Relationships section.”

  “You don’t have to do that. I’ve told you what’s in there.”

  I found the page, skimming quickly. As she’d said, the plan was to make partner and then start dating. There was a lengthy list of qualities the woman of her dreams should possess. I read silently, skimming through trait after trait I didn’t have. “Intelligent, respectable, loyal, trustworthy, emotionally stable, financially solvent.”

  “You forgot to add ‘fun, sexy, and dominant,’” I pointed out.

  Leanne muttered something like, “You can stop now.”

  I kept reading. The plan was still going on about how the imaginary relationship would proceed. “Move in together” ended the page.

  “You’re ahead of schedule.”

  Still reeling from the list I’d read, I tried to sound like I was joking. Of course Leanne would want someone more like her than me. But my heart hurt a little from seeing it laid out in black and white.

  “Ha,” she said. “Right. Don’t look at the next one.”

  Too late. I was already flipping through the ten-year binder, and it opened to the same section. “Become more serious with girlfriend,” I read out loud. “If not compatible, break up immediately and start over. Being single in forties will be harder than in thirties. Get married. Think about surrogacy, if work schedule allows it.” I looked at her in disbelief. “You want kids, but you’d give that up for the sake of work?”

  “I’m on the fence,” she mumbled. “It wouldn’t be a big sacrifice.”

  “Sure.” I reached for the final binder. Twenty years — I wondered why she didn’t do a thirty- and forty-year one, since she was so obsessive about it. “Let’s see what you’ve got in here. Stay married. Support children up to age eighteen, and remain as a safety net beyond. Prepare for grandchildren. Enjoy life and retirement.”

  “See?” she said. “I do plan to enjoy life one day.”

  “Sure, when you’re retired.” I did the math in my mind, checking the timeline. “You’re going to retire by fifty-on
e?”

  “Fifty, in theory.” Her eyes sparked with excitement. “I think about it every day. It’ll be a challenge, but I can pull it off if I continue on this path. And if I manage to make partner.”

  “Every day.” I shook my head, not at her, just because I couldn’t help it. “You never thought of maybe working at a job where you’re not counting down the days for twenty years?”

  She snatched the binders away from me. “At least I’m working at a job.” Turning on her heel, she went into her room.

  I let out a breath. All right, I deserved that. Leanne put up with a lot of teasing from me. So what if her goals were different from mine? She’d clearly thought them through. From what she said, she’d been planning this for thirteen years already. And I had the arrogance to look at them against her will and tell her she was wrong?

  Teensy walked away from me — probably sensing Leanne’s feelings were hurt and going to comfort her. She was smart like that.

  I lay down on the couch, covering my face with my arm. Leanne had a lot going for her — a hell of a lot more than I did. I really should take a page out of her book. I was already twenty-nine years old. Was I going to keep living like this indefinitely? Constant travel, meaningless hook-ups. It made me happy enough… or it used to.

  I’d gotten a glimpse of true happiness here with Leanne. This kind of domestic life was so mundane, I normally would’ve laughed at people who bought into it. But it was nice. Steady. Peaceful.

  Even the sex… I wasn’t sure if I’d go back to casual sex, even if Leanne was out of the picture. It was great before, but with her it was different. Sometimes when I was in bed with her, looking her in the eye, it felt like I was touching something greater than the physical. Now that I’d seen that, could I ever go back?

  I shook off the thoughts as I stood up. I’d go to Leanne’s room and apologize.

  This wasn’t going to last forever. She wanted a nice girl to settle down with.

  And I would lose myself if I stayed.

  THIRTEEN — LEANNE

  I poured a shot of whiskey into a glass and tossed in an ice cube from the freezer. I swished it around for a moment, reconsidered, and added a second shot before I drank.

  “Another Tripton day, huh?”

  I nearly dropped the glass as I spun around to see BJ. With Teensy in her arms, she looked even sexier than usual.

  “You know me too well,” I said.

  “It’s not like you to drink alone.” She set Teensy down on a chair and she put her paws on the table, sniffing for food. “What’s our favorite Ponzi schemer up to now? Still saying no to the plea bargain?”

  “I’ve given up on trying to convince him. And it’s only getting worse.” I sat down with my whiskey, giving Teensy an absent-minded pat. “We’re going to court in a matter of weeks, and he’s stonewalling me. Won’t give me any of the evidence I ask for — nothing that could potentially help him out.”

  “What a dumbass. How’s he expect you to defend him if he’s not giving you anything?”

  “Exactly,” I sighed. “You get it.”

  “He won’t give you access to his financial records or anything?”

  “Nope. Every time I call, he’s mysteriously busy. Yet every time he calls, I better answer on the first ring and have every last detail of his case in front of me. Otherwise he starts whining and complaining, saying how much better his old lawyer used to be.”

  “So why doesn’t he go back to that lawyer?”

  “I wish he would!” I drained the glass, tempted to pour another. “Apparently he wasn’t paying enough attention to Tripton’s case, so he had to be ‘dealt with.’ I wouldn’t mind if he just fired me, too. It’d be a hell of a lot easier than him expecting the impossible. And I’m sick to death of hearing about his bedroom adventures with his secretary.”

  BJ reached out to me. “No more sulking. Let’s go for a walk, get your mind off things. Teensy could use the fresh air.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  The pup had taken easily to the trips outside. At first I’d kept her on a short leash, only letting her go a foot or two away from me out of fear that she’d run into the street. She seemed to have some understanding of cars and traffic, though, and I found giving her a gentle yank usually guided her where I wanted her to go.

  Walking her a few times a day was a nice break for me. On days when I was busy at work, BJ’s presence definitely came in handy. I wasn’t sure what I would’ve done without her, in all honesty. I’d have to figure that out if she left. When she left.

  We leashed her up and took her out. The air was decidedly chilly now that it was mid-November, and after a few minutes of rubbing my fingers together, BJ offered me her gloves.

  Before she entered my life, I used to go on walks alone. I listened to podcasts on all kinds of things — law, politics, personal finance. These days, I listened to a lot less. I was less-informed on all of those topics. But then, I never had anyone to talk to about them anyway.

  Teensy ran forward and I cast my gaze at the buildings around me. They were mostly older houses in this area, with the exception of a few condos. They were pleasant enough to look at, but when I tried to look at them through BJ’s eyes, they were boring.

  “You must be pretty tired of Newbank,” I said. “You’ve seen everything there is to see about a hundred times.”

  “No,” BJ said. “I told you, travel for me is about the people I meet. The connections I make.”

  “Shallow connections,” I said, remembering.

  “Usually.” Before I could ask which ones were different, she continued. “Newbank’s all right. Hardly the worst place I’ve been to. I just wish it was a little more diverse.”

  “You don’t feel like you fit in here?”

  She huffed out a laugh. “Not any less than I do anywhere else.”

  I glanced at her, sensing that we were venturing into new territory. “You don’t fit in anywhere?”

  “How could I?”

  “I don’t know.” I’d never thought about it. She got along so well with everybody, she’d never seemed to feel out of place. “People love you.”

  “Sure, because I learned to.” She gave me a harsh look. “You have to figure out some coping mechanisms pretty fast when you’re the only kid at your school who looks like you. Be the friendly girl, the funny girl. Then they forget about calling you Chinky Chocolate.”

  Now I felt terrible for never having asked her about this. Then again, I didn’t know if she would’ve shared any of it. Somehow I felt like this was a topic she didn’t touch on often, and I didn’t know why she was opening up on it today.

  She’d told me before that her parents had met while her mother was travelling. Her dad had tried to do right by her but had no interest in living in America, and her mom didn’t want to move overseas. She’d met her dad a few times, but she didn’t speak Thai, Mandarin, or Malay. Even getting that much out of her was a bit of an accomplishment.

  “There were no black people or Asians around growing up?”

  “There were, and I didn’t fit with them any better.” She looked down at Teensy, her face brightening for a moment as she watched her roll in the grass. “Neither group saw me as one of them, and I’m not. I’m different from everybody.”

  She’d told me story after story about her journeys through the East — the misunderstandings and the hardships and the amazing experiences. From what I understood, those trips had shaped her as a person.

  “You’ve been to your dad’s side of the world,” I said. “You must’ve learned some stuff about them.”

  “Yeah, I learned they see me as a foreigner.” The bitterness in her voice was unmasked. “How is it that when I go to one of my father’s countries, I get pointed at just for walking in the streets?”

  My heart dropped. “That’s why you don’t want to go back to Asia?”

  “There’s nothing for me there.” BJ sounded tired now. “Not that there’s much for me here,
either. Aside from you and Teensy.”

  I refused to let myself think about the implications of that last comment. BJ was exaggerating, being nice. There was plenty for her here. Work, friends… She’d already dragged me on a few social outings with people from my own town.

  Personally, my only travel outside the U.S. was a trip to Canada when I was seven. I barely remembered it, just the impression that it wasn’t much different from America. No wonder people gravitated toward BJ. She was so worldly, as well as confident and, of course, sexy.

  I dropped my gaze to Teensy. “We’ve been walking for a while. Maybe we should turn back.”

  “All right.”

  If I wasn’t too damn scared, I would’ve asked if she ever wanted to settle down. I could guess the answer, though. BJ was a free spirit — the complete opposite of me. If she ever did decide to enter a long-term relationship, it would be with someone more like her than myself. Someone she could travel with, who wasn’t tied to a job and a mortgage payment. The time I had with her was a gift, and no matter how short it lasted, it would’ve been wrong of me to ask for more.

  We walked back quietly, only occasionally commenting on Teensy’s antics. I glanced at BJ from time to time, squeezing my hands together in the gloves she’d lent me. On paper, I was supposed to be smarter than BJ, and indeed she made an effort to come across as a free spirit who never thought too hard. Must’ve been some of the coping mechanisms she’d mentioned. Sometimes, though, I got this glimpse of how complex she actually was inside.

  None of this mattered. I was at the wrong point in my five-year plan, and BJ didn’t want more than a short-term friend with benefits.

  It just hurt to think of a future without her.

  FOURTEEN — BJ

  I hefted a few oranges into my hand. Good thing mind-reading wasn’t possible, or everyone in the store would know I was trying to figure out which of these looked more like the girls.

  The one in my left hand was perfectly round. Were mine quite that big, though? I should’ve known, considering how many times in my life I’d handled them. I was coming at the fruits from a different angle, though. After a quick glance around, I brought two to my chest.