Page 74 of Sleeping with Her Enemy (49th Floor 2)

“Hey, gotta pay the bills.”

Jack was already signaling the bartender for the check. “All right, let’s hit the road.”

He was assuming Dax was coming, obviously. Didn’t notice Dax hesitating. It was better to know, so he spoke up. “Do you think Amy’s with them?”

Jack’s head shot up from where he was signing for the drinks. “Why?”

Because he hadn’t spent nearly a month going out of his way to avoid seeing her at work only to run into her at ladies’ night. He shuddered to think what she might be wearing. To imagine the karaoke mike pressed up against her red lips.

“No reason.”

“Well, let’s go then.”

He was stuck. There was no credible way to beg off. And in truth, with a few beers in him, his defenses were down sufficiently that he didn’t want to.

“Where the hell is this place?” Dax asked once they’d been in the cab for a good fifteen minutes.

“Some dive in the burbs,” Jack said. “I know. They couldn’t just do karaoke at the Gladstone like normal people. Apparently this place is less overrun by—and I’m quoting Cassie here—hipsters doing ironic versions of Heart songs while inexplicably looking down their noses at unironic renditions of Katy Perry.”

Dax grinned despite himself. Sounded like it was right up Amy’s alley.

“So you and Amy seemed like you were pretty tight for a while there.”

“Yeah. She was helping me manipulate my mother into buying a condo.”

“I know, but weren’t you canoeing and stuff on the island, too?”

What was this? The Inquisition? But then he remembered that time Jack had caught them making out in the elevator. “Yeah, she came out a couple times.”

“It just seems weird that you guys were friends—or whatever—all of a sudden, and now you’re not again.”

God, he sounded like Kat, who kept nagging him to bring Gloria’s midwife back to dinner. “We’re not not friends,” he started, but then stopped because were they in junior high? Next Jack was going to ask if Dax liked Amy or like-liked her.

Jack didn’t answer for a while. Just looked out the window. But then, suddenly, he turned and said, “This is the part where I go all older brother on you and tell you that if you hurt her—or if you already have—I will make your life very unpleasant.”

Dax held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “There’s no hurting. She isn’t in relationship mode now.”

“And if she were?”

So not only were they in junior high, apparently they were junior high girls who were going to hold hands, talk about their feelings, and then exchange friendship bracelets. “She’s not.”

That was as much as he was saying, and thankfully, they’d arrived at the dive in question, so Jack didn’t press the matter any further other than to say, as they hopped out of the taxi, “I just want you to know where my allegiances lie.”

Dax raised his eyebrows. “Sheesh. Totally unnecessary message received.” Not that he blamed Jack. Amy was his long-standing and trusted second-in-command. And Jack was the kind of guy whose loyalty, once earned, followed a person around forever.

And Amy was the kind of girl who deserved that loyalty.

He shook his head as he pushed open the door, trying also to shake off this heavy, unsettled feeling. He wasn’t sure if it was the weird conversation he’d just had with Jack or the prospect of seeing Amy that had him out of sorts. He needed a drink. Conveniently, a huge bar lay between them and the stage up front, which was currently unoccupied as the sound system pumped out a non-karaoke version of some pop thing he didn’t recognize.

“I’m going stop at the bar,” he said to Jack. “I’ll catch up with you.” As he stood trying to grab the bartender’s attention, the emcee’s voice broke into the canned music and introduced a singer. He didn’t really pay attention to the man. He also didn’t pay attention to the opening swells of some other pop thing he didn’t recognize.

Until he did recognize the voice singing it.

He didn’t know what to do. Would she want to see him? Would she want to see him seeing her sing?

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