But even he admits he’s not nearly as good an actor as I am.

For about a year after American Idol, I had an agent. With my look, which is unique, I guess she thought my fifteen minutes of Idol fame would score me a big role in no time. When it didn’t happen, she stopped calling me for auditions, then dropped me. I’ve got a couple of leads for new agents, but until I get one, I need someone on the inside to get me auditions. Brett’s my ticket onto Broadway, and if any of those cutthroat bitches lays a hand on him, I swear to God, I’ll take it off at the wrist.

I spin and glare at him. As he hauls himself out of the seat, he gives me that goddamn sexy half-smile that he knows makes me want to jump his bones. That’s pretty much how we end all our fights—in a sweaty, grunting, tangled mass of arms and legs.

But not this time.

He promised he’d say something to Casting Chick.

But then he catches up to me and I feel a tingle zing up my spine when he lays a hand on my hip. “I really am sorry,” he says low in my ear in that voice—just a little rough around the edges—and the tingle in my spine turns into a throb in my groin.

Damn him.

I spin and glare at him, so wanting to be pissed, but he glides his fingertips along the curve of my breast and melts me from the inside out.

He leans closer and his lips brush my ear as he says, “You’ll get the next one.”

When his lips press into mine, I forget to breathe. That’s what he does to me. That’s what just looking at him does to most women. Since the first time he touched me at an off-Broadway audition a year ago, there’s been no denying the attraction.

But I have no illusion this is love. He doesn’t love me and I don’t love him. We never do anything together outside the bedroom, and we don’t really even have any friends in common. We’re all about the physical, which works for me. I don’t do love.

He finally lets me go, and when I look up, a group of my fellow rejectees, including Blondie, are standing near the door, staring at us with gaping jaws.

I tug my jacket on and smile sweetly at them while glaring daggers, but despite my “back off” vibe, Blondie takes a step closer.

“Hey, Brett,” she says, brushing her fingers over his arm and thrusting her silicone in his face. “Long time no see. Congrats on your part.”

He gives her that same sexy smile he just gave me. “Thanks. You looked great up there,” he adds with a nod at the stage.

I grab his hand, towing him toward the door.

“See ya around,” he calls back to her as we hit the sidewalk.

I pull my jacket tight around me. A cold October drizzle is falling, but at least it’s not snowing yet, so that’s something. “You know her?”

He shrugs. “We hooked up a few times.”

I glare at him.

He smiles and loops an elbow around my neck, pulling me closer. “Way before you, babe. Don’t worry,” he says into my hair as we weave our way through the pedestrian horde jockeying for sidewalk space.

“I’m not worried. I’m disgusted. She’s skanky.” Truth is, I’m used to girls falling all over Brett, but he’s been good in the year we’ve been together and kept his hands off, so I can’t really give him too much crap.

New Yorkers have seen it all, so not much warrants the turn of a native’s head, but Brett and I always get a few head turns, and the occasional tourist will openly gawk. Brett is gorgeous and I’m . . . interesting.

Where my sister Mallory got all Mom’s Irish—the wavy red hair, fair skin, and freckles, I’ve got funny hazelly-green eyes and a shoulder-length black lion’s mane in loose kinks, with red highlights that really come out in the summer. My skin is coffee-with-too-much-cream, and if I spend any time in the sun, it turns almost as black as my dad’s, totally obliterating the faint smattering of freckles across my nose and cheeks.

Mom was only ever married to Mallory’s dad, and I guess that only lasted a few years, until Mallory was, like, three. After that was just a string of live-in boyfriends, one of whom was my dad. He was out of the picture before I was old enough to remember him, though. When I was little and I asked Mom why Mallory’s dad came and took her places and mine didn’t, she said that my dad went back to Jamaica when I was a baby. I used to wonder if it was because of me, but I’ve figured out since that he wasn’t what you’d call an upstanding citizen. I think he got deported after he got arrested for dealing drugs. I’ve only seen photos of him—enough to know I’m a funny combination of him and Mom.

By the time we get off the subway and walk to our apartment, I’m late for Mallory’s. Our apartment is on the fourth floor in a decent Upper West Side neighborhood. It’s small, one bedroom, a bathroom, and a great room—just a white box, basically.

When I moved in here almost a year ago, it was a total bachelor pad. I’m no neatnik, so it’s only slightly less messy now than it was before, but unlike Brett, I have a breaking point. When I can’t stand it anymore I’ll do the dishes or scrub the bathroom. I’ve added a few touches of my own, too. I’m not into frilly knickknacks or anything, but I put up some prints and tossed some red throw pillows on Brett’s brown leather couch. And I bought some stuff for the kitchen even though I don’t get much of a chance to cook. It’s not much, but it anchors me to this place. I own something. I exist in this space. I belong here.

I head to the bathroom and crank on the shower. I strip off my yoga pants and thong and pull the clip out of my hair, running a hand through it so it falls around my shoulders.

My eyes trace over the first orange and black butterfly tattooed at the front of my right hip. I turn and follow in the mirror up the twisting, brightly-colored line of tiny fluttering wings that arches over my right butt cheek, across my low back, and underneath my left shoulder blade, then skims the back of my shoulder on its way to looping over the top and ending at my left collarbone. No single butterfly has a wingspan larger than half an inch, and most are smaller, but there are two hundred and nine of them, one for each day I spent in the group home. They took two years to finish, and the money I spent on them really should have gone to dance lessons, but they remind me of my freedom . . . and never to let myself get trapped again.

I step into the warm water, feeling its fingers tickling over my skin. I’m just rinsing my conditioner a few minutes later when the shower curtain slides open and Brett steps in. He cups my backside in his hands. “Hilary McIntyre, this is one fine ass.”

I turn and glance at his growing erection. “Sorry, baby, but I’m late for my sister’s.”

He lays a hand on himself and strokes, a wicked grin curving his mouth. “I’ve got a few ideas on how to make you even later.”

“I’ve gotta go. It’s Jeff’s birthday dinner.”

He shrugs and lets himself go, but that smile is still there. “Later then.”

I know better than to invite Brett to Mallory’s. He would probably go, but he wouldn’t want to be there. He hates kids. And the truth is, I don’t want him there anyway. I like to keep the three Fs compartmentalized. Family=Mallory, Friend=Jessica, Fuck=Brett. No cross-pollination. It’s just easier that way.

I finish up in the shower and abandon him to the cold water. Wrapping a towel around my hips without bothering to dry off, I pad up the hall to our room, where I pillage the closet and come out with a short, layered skirt and a snug black sweater. This outfit is kick-ass with my new boots. I drop my towel on the bed and go to the mirror over the dresser. I squirt some Frizz-Ease into my palm and tame my kinks into soft curls, then twist them around my fingers so they come out tight corkscrews. I’m leaning against the dresser brushing on my mascara a few minutes later when Brett comes in, a towel slung low on his hips.

His fingers trail up the inside of my thigh. “You sure you’re not up for a quickie?”

No, I’m not sure at all. But if I miss Jeff’s dinner, I’ll never hear the end of it. “I’m already late.” I reach for him and squeeze. “But hold that thought.”

Chapter Two

THERE IS NOTHING quite as effective at throwing all my inadequacies in my face as a trip to my sister’s. She’s the picture of middle-class America: a husband, two point four kids, a white picket fence, and a dog. (Okay, there’s no actual picket fence, or point four of a kid, but there may as well be.) She’s everything I’m not and never could be, even if I wanted to. Which I don’t.

Don’t get me wrong. I owe everything to Mallory and Jeff. They’re the only family I have. But it’s still hard to be around them sometimes, even though I really don’t want that life. I’m not cut out for marriage, or motherhood, or a mortgage, or any kind of commitment at all, for that matter.

And I’m not jealous.

I’m really not.

But, still . . .

I celebrated my fourteenth birthday by getting shipped off to a group home after our mother decided to pull her little stunt and got herself thrown in jail. The law doesn’t look kindly on driving with a 2.1 blood alcohol level and running down an innocent man in the process. But the truth is, everyone had already abandoned me years earlier. By the time Mallory left for college when I was ten, Mom was too wrapped up in the bottle and her boyfriends (even the ones that hit her) to give much of a shit about anything else, so I was just baggage. We never heard from Mallory. I was alone. I started doing things like ripping out hunks of hair or biting my nails until they bled, because physical pain was something I could grasp. It meant I existed. And it was easier to deal with than the loneliness.