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Looking over my shoulder as I put on my pants, I raise an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Any chance you’d want to break your rule? I’d like to see you again.”

I shake my head, trying to look regretful, and grab my shirt. “One night only. Remember?”

He sighs and scrubs his face, then flops back on the bed. “Yeah, that’s what you said. But it was so good. Didn’t you feel it?”

Airbus A380: Engineering a Double-Deck Sky Palace

Pioneering Spirit: The World’s Largest Twin-Hull Vessel That Lifts Entire Oil Platforms

Antonov An-225 Mriya: Legacy of the World’s Largest Cargo Plane

Inside the GPO Amethyst: How a Heavy-Lift Giant Moves the Unmovable

“Yeah, dude.” Everett? Eric? “But I’m not in the headspace for repeats these days.” Or for any kind of strings. Ever.

All strings do is choke you. And not in a kinky way.

I shove my feet into my shoes, check that I have my phone and wallet and keys, and give him a little salute. He’s naked on the bed, watching me go.

I wish I felt something, but I don’t.

And that not-feeling? That’s what really gets me down. I should be on a high after coming, and instead, I’m just kind of tired—physically and mentally. I need a new challenge.

Once I’m home, I pour myself a glass of water as my cat wraps herself around my feet. She’s a scrawny, homely thing, but she adopted me, so I had to keep her. Even though she’s not much to look at, she’s got the best personality.

She could be mistaken for a common black cat, but if you look at her fur in the sunlight, she’s actually a tabby with dark brown stripes alternating with the black.

“Hey there, Mamacita,” I coo, picking her up. She acts more like a dog than a cat. She’s sociable, comes when I call, likes to hang out. She’s fucking awesome.

Carrying her draped across my forearm, I putter around the house, setting out her food and letting her down to eat. She bounds over to her bowl and takes a few delicate bites.

My phone buzzes, even though it’s after midnight.

Charlie: You get home okay?

I grin. He’s my best friend and snarky as hell, but he worries, which is sweet.

Danny: Yeah. You?

Charlie: Struck out at One so I came home and couldn’t sleep. I’m working on a new shelf for the garage.

Charlie and I are both partners at Weston& Ramirez, a small firm that’s full of go-getters. They brought us on after Charlie and I won a huge award in a discrimination case we started working on during law school clinic. The contingency fees from that case paid off my student loans, with some left over for the down payment on my house. While we could’ve hung out our own shingle, I like the camaraderie and lack of pretension at W&R and have been happy there for the past year or so.

In the off hours, Charlie and his brother Camden do a lot of woodworking—Camden’s a licensed contractor. Charlie builds stuff as a way of letting off steam, but his real talent is making these time-lapse videos of their projects, which he posts on social media. He has like nine million followers.