e found a body to play the part of your dead ex-girlfriend,” Jules reported to Ric via cell phone. Jules shut his hotel-room door behind him, taking off his jacket and tie. Lordy, he was tired. The maid hadn’t been in yet to do up his room, but that was fine—he was going back to bed. “It’s in transit. ETA two o’clock. I don’t want to call Gordie Junior until we actually deliver it to you.” God forbid Junior offer to come by and clean things up right away. “We’re going to need a couple hours to implant the tracking devices—we’re using a high-tech system that won’t be discernible to any bug sweepers that are currently on the market. We’ve also got to get her dressed in the same clothes Lillian was wearing.”

“It’s going to take that long, huh?” On the other end of the phone, Ric didn’t sound very happy.

“Yeah, you know, getting this done involved just a little more work than a phone call to Bodies ‘R’ Us.” Jules couldn’t keep the testiness out of his own voice as he kicked off his shoes and stepped out of his pants.

“Sorry,” they both said at the same time.

“No,” Jules said, flopping back on his bed. “I apologize. I’m just…really tired. I’m going to use this time to get some sleep.”

“Before you go,” Ric said. “Have you been in touch with Robin? Because Annie’s going to go over to his hotel, do the black-eye thing. I thought we could tie it into last night’s brawl. You know, have Annie leave because she’s mad about my ex showing up?”

“I haven’t spoken to him this morning,” Jules said, closing his eyes. “No.”

“Um,” Ric said after a few moments of silence. “Will you call him? Or…I wasn’t sure if you wanted to give out his phone number…”

Crap. Jules really needed to give Ric a heads-up about the whole Robin situation.

“I’ll give it to you,” he said, staring now at the ceiling, “but before you talk to him, and definitely before you send Annie over there, you need to go online. YouTube dot-com. Do a search for Robin Chadwick. Our friend was pretty busy last night. You may not want Annie anywhere near the media circus that’s going to be following him around over the next few days.” He laughed. “On the other hand, maybe that’s the safest place in the world she could be, with an army of paparazzi protecting her. It’s your call, of course.”

He gave Robin’s cell phone number to Ric and shut his phone and his eyes.

Please God, don’t let his phone ring again. Please God, don’t let him think about Robin or Ben. Please God, just let him fall into a state of total unconsciousness. Please God, help him get this stupid song out of his head…

I can’t stop this feeling deep inside of me…

Jules turned over, pulling the covers up practically over his head. Think about the time he went to that spa in Provincetown and had a hot-stone massage. Think about the beautiful hills and scenery of Italy, where he’d actually taken a vacation last year. Think about how, back when he was a kid, his mother would sit beside him at bedtime to talk about his day. She’d pretend that his stuffed hippo was trying to sneak up on him, to jump on his head. The attack hippo, they’d called it. The hippo would always get him when he least expected it, and they’d laugh and laugh…

I…I’m hooked on a feeling, I’m high on believing that you’re in love with me…

Yeah, right.

He finally got up and took a shower, hoping the warm water would relax him—or at least wash away the scent of Robin that still clung to his skin. It was only then, with the water pounding down on him, that he finally let himself cry. For Ben, for Robin, for himself.

Even for Peggy Ryan.

Finally, both emotionally and physically exhausted, with his hair still damp, he crawled back into bed, and sleep finally approached, washing over him in waves of…

Tap, tap, tap.

Jules opened his eyes.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

Had he put the “Do Not Disturb” sign on his door? He couldn’t remember.

Knock, knock, knock.

Crap. He rolled out of bed and staggered over to the door, not even bothering to pull on more than his boxer shorts. “Just give me some fresh towels and—”

“Hey,” Robin said. He was wearing sunglasses, no doubt to hide his bloodshot eyes, but he took them off now. “Mind if I come in?”

“Yes,” Jules said, and shut the door in his face. He crawled back into bed.

Knock, knock, knock.

Please God, please make him just go away.

Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock…

“Jesus!” Jules flung open the door. “If you really want to get your ass kicked, then by all means, come on in.”

He searched for his pants and savagely yanked them on, then crossed to the windows and opened the drapes. The room was flooded with brilliant sunlight, and Jules got a perverse sense of satisfaction as Robin winced and put his sunglasses back on.

Of course, the bright light meant that his own red eyes were right there for Robin to see, too. He also obviously noticed Jules’s unmade bed, as well as the fact that he was only half dressed.

“You were sleeping,” Robin deduced.

“Not yet,” Jules snapped. “Not since—” He cut himself off. Not since he’d fallen asleep in Robin’s limousine, in Robin’s arms—not exactly something he wanted to discuss. “I had a busy night—I spent most of it cleaning your bathroom.”

“That was you?” Robin asked.

“Who’d you think it was?” Jules retorted. “Elves?”

Robin shook his head. “I wasn’t sure if it was you or, um…”

“Ashley,” Jules said. “At least that was the way she signed her note to you. And yeah, I guess if you’re drunk enough, you can’t tell us apart. Although here’s a hint. I’m the one you claim to love.”

Okay, it was time to shut up and just let Robin say what he’d come here to say, so that he could leave as quickly as possible and Jules could get to sleep.

“I’m so sorry.” Robin looked and sounded as if he meant it.

It was actually pretty impressive that he was up and about. And the fact that he’d dared to come here at all was at least noteworthy.

And yes. That was definitely his dick talking, not his brain. Jules was so freaking attracted to this son of a bitch, he could watch that YouTube footage three times—not the PG-rated but still astonishingly sexy stripping-in-the-kitchen video, although he’d watched that more than once, too—and still try to find excuses for why Robin should be forgiven.

“There’s a lot I need to say,” Robin continued. “To apologize for. Including interrupting your nap. But I’m going to take Annie back to California—as soon as I can get us a flight—and I really wanted to see you before I left. May I sit down?”

Jules gestured to the pair of chairs over by the window.

Robin lowered himself gingerly into one of them.

“Were you hurt when you fell?” Jules asked, despite his resolve to keep his mouth shut.

Robin looked at him over the top of his sunglasses. “Did I fall?” he asked. “I don’t…remember very much of it. I remember coming back to my hotel after you got the news about Ben—that was when I really started drinking.”

“That was when you started drinking?” Jules repeated. As if the copious amounts of alcohol that Robin had consumed in the limo and at Burns’s party were insignificant.

“I guess I went a little overboard,” Robin said.

He guessed. “Haven’t you watched the clip on YouTube?” Jules asked.

Robin carefully shook his head. “No.”

“You should,” Jules said. “And yeah, you fell. Fortunately not off the twelfth-story balcony.” He was going to turn away, even close his eyes so that Robin wouldn’t see the hurt, the fear, the agony he’d felt while watching that nightmare unfold on digital video. Instead he looked straight at him. “You motherfucker.”

“I’m so sorry,” Robin said.

“You already said that,” Jules pointed out. “It wasn’t good enough the first time, either.”

“I know.” Robin looked down at the floor, contrite, ashamed. Or at least that was how he was playing it. The man was, after all, on the verge of receiving an Academy Award nomination.

His silence stretched on a little too long. “Tick tock,” Jules said, and Robin looked up, tears in his eyes.

Which was not a big surprise—not as big as what he said when he finally spoke. “I’m really sorry about Ben. I can’t imagine what you’re going through. I wanted to, um, see if you wanted to go up there,” Robin said. “To Arlington—the National Cemetery. That’s where he was buried, right? I mean, maybe you don’t want me with you, but…I just didn’t want you to…You shouldn’t have to go alone and…I’ll go with you, if you want.”

It was a generous offer—one that Jules was not sure he himself would have been able to make had their roles been reversed.

“That’s what I should have said to you last night,” Robin told him. “I should’ve grabbed you, and held you and…helped you. Instead…” He shook his head, roughly wiping his eyes with the heel of his hand so that Jules wouldn’t see him cry. “Who am I to judge you? Who am I to judge anyone?”

“It would have been nice,” Jules said carefully, in danger now of tearing up himself, “if you’d given me a chance to explain.”

But Robin shook his head. “You shouldn’t’ve had to explain anything. I let you walk out of my life years ago. I did everything but put a fucking bow on you and hand you to Ben—God, I wish I’d met him, Jules. He must’ve been…really special.”

“He was,” Jules said. “But Sam and Max got it wrong. Ben and I were just friends. I tried to love him, but…I didn’t. I couldn’t.”

Robin froze, silent. It was possible he’d even stopped breathing.

“I hoped it would happen,” Jules continued, “that one day I’d wake up and, I don’t know, maybe just…magically be in love with him. He was…He wasn’t perfect—he was in the closet, even to his parents, and that sucked. But he was funny and smart and sweet and faithful. He deserved better than me, because if I’d been man enough to let myself admit it, I would have realized that I was just using him—as a friend who I knew thought of me as more than a friend. Maybe someday I’d love him—I dangled that possibility out there in front of us both, but in truth I was just using him to mark time while I waited for the impossible.”

He looked at Robin, who was sitting in that chair on the other side of his hotel room as if every cell in his body hurt. His skin was pale, his hands were shaking, his chin was unshaved, his eyes were rimmed in red. It was crazy, but Jules still found him almost unbearably attractive.

“I was waiting for you,” Jules told him softly. “I’m still waiting. For something that’s…now even more impossible than it ever was.”

Robin sat forward. “No,” he said, coming even closer then, actually on his knees on the floor in front of Jules. “It’s not. Babe, listen, okay? Just please listen, because I’ve figured it out. I know you hate that I hide who I am, and I know how hard it’ll be for you to be in a relationship with me while I’m still not out, but if you give me three pictures—just three, that’s the deal my agent’s putting together right now—then I promise I will give you the entire rest of my life.”

“Except for the parts that you can’t remember.” That kind of grand, sweeping promise would’ve gone over a little better if Jules hadn’t been able to smell the whiskey on Robin’s breath. And it wasn’t last night’s whiskey, either.

“I’ve stopped drinking,” Robin told him, his blue eyes filled with steadfast resolve. Kneeling there like that, he was a picture of sincerity.

Jules laughed in his face. “As of when?” he asked. “Ten minutes ago? What’d you do, stop in the bar downstairs before you came up here?”

“Hair of the dog?” Robin tried to make it a joke—both the fact that he’d had a drink and lied to Jules about it.

Jules stood up. “Get out of my room.”

But Robin didn’t move. “I’m sorry,” he said. “And you’re right—it was only a few minutes ago that I made that decision. But I swear that I mean it. If I have to quit drinking to keep you, then—”

“Jesus Christ, Robin,” Jules practically shouted. “You have to quit drinking to keep from dying. ”

But Robin didn’t believe him. Jules could see it in his eyes.

“What do you want?” Jules asked him. “You want to sleep with me again? Is that what this is? You want it so bad you’ll say and do anything? Yeah, babe, I’ll quit drinking…Just a three-picture deal…I’m yours…” His voice broke. Yeah, Robin was his—as long as Jules didn’t mind that he sometimes got blind drunk and had sex with total strangers.

“I am,” Robin whispered, reaching for him, and Jules knew that he was doomed.

“Yeah, well, I’m not yours,” he said, but he closed his eyes when Robin kissed him. And he knew he was as much of a liar as Robin, as he gave in to the soft pleasure that was Robin’s mouth, as he sank back with him into the warm sunlight that played across his bed.

Annie came downstairs with a suitcase packed and a hooded sweatshirt on.

“How does this look?” she asked Ric, pulling the hood over her hair and putting on sunglasses.

The hood, with its slight point at the top, made her look like a little kid, bundled up for a cold day. And the sunglasses…They were slightly cat-eye-shaped and reminiscent of a 1950s-era schoolmarm, which, combined with Annie’s sun-kissed cheeks and full, soft mouth, he found…

Hot. He turned away. “Ridiculous.”

She took off both the hood and the sunglasses. “Excuse me. You’re not allowed to be mad at me because you decide never to have sex with me ever again.”

“I never said never,” Ric corrected her.

“Yeah,” she shot back. “You did. You implied it.”

Before he could argue, the doorbell rang.

Annie went to the window. “There’s a truck out front. Is this…?”

“Yeah.” Ric opened the door. It was the FBI. The agent nicknamed Yashi was standing there in a pair of coveralls, holding a computerized clipboard.

“Good morning, sir,” he said in his trademark deadpan. “We’re here to install your new weatherproof flooring.”

And sure enough, over Yashi’s shoulder, two other overall-clad agents were carrying a roll of cheap carpeting up the driveway. The body of his allegedly murderous ex-girlfriend had to be inside, in a body bag. Ric stepped back to let them in.

“Don’t worry.” Yashi patted his arm, no doubt because the look on his face warranted it. “Jason and Apolonia are forensics experts. They’ll set up the crime scene. Just tell us where you want the victim, and they’ll make it look real.”

“In my office.” Ric pointed the way as he closed the door behind the agents with the carpeting.

“Hey, Annie,” Yashi greeted her. She’d sat down at her desk, and was looking a little pale. “You squeamish, too?”

“Maybe a little,” she said. “I’m kind of freaked about…I mean, who was she?”

“We weren’t given her name,” Yashi said. “She’s former CIA counterterrorism, though, we do know that. She had an inoperable brain tumor that metastasized—making her useless as an organ donor. She died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, day after her doctor gave her four months to live.”

“Oh, God.” Annie went another shade more pale.

“Her family was adamant that she would’ve wanted to continue to help fight terror,” Yashi continued. “They signed off on all releases—they don’t expect to get her body back.”

Annie looked up as Ric touched her shoulder. “Let’s get out of their way,” he suggested, “and let them work.”

Amazingly, she didn’t argue. She let him take her hand and pull her out of her seat—and all the way up the stairs, back into his apartment.

She still looked as if she needed air, so he led her through the living room and out the doors to the screened-in porch.

“Maybe I should just go,” she said as she leaned on the railing overlooking his garden. “I can drive myself to Robin’s hotel.”

Ric looked at his watch. “Martell will be here soon.”

She nodded. “Once I’m in California, you’re not going to be able to micromanage my every move.”

“Are you sure you want to go to California?” Ric asked, and she looked up at him. “I mean, instead of Boston, or I don’t know. Savannah. You could visit your mother. Or Bruce.”

He’d watched that digital video of Robin on his computer, with Annie looking over his shoulder. Neither of them had said much at the time, but Annie had touched him, her hand warm on his back. “This kind of blows, huh?” was her sole comment.

It did—not just for Jules, who clearly had feelings for the movie star, but also for Ric. So much for his stupid plan. He wanted to provide security, not be a babysitter. It was obvious that Chadwick needed both—and that one would be the other.

“I thought I’d take advantage of the flight to California,” Annie said now, “and check out that company that Jules’s friend Sam works for—Troubleshooters Incorporated. I went to their website and found out that they’re not private investigators, although they do provide that service. Their big thing is personal security—which is exactly what you want to do. It seems like a really good organization, Ric. And if they’ll provide training…”

She loved him. She was standing there, planning for their future. But instead of calling her on it, Ric nodded. “Just…keep me in the loop, okay?”

“Okay.” She forced a smile. She looked tired and was still pale, her usual sparkle subdued.

He tucked a stray piece of her hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry Yashi was so insensitive.”

“He didn’t know. How could he?”

“Yeah, but…” Ric sighed. “This was the last thing you needed, huh?”

“I’m okay. I’m pretty tough, you know.”

Now she was gazing up at him, her gray eyes wide, looking anything but tough. Her mouth was tight with determination, but Ric knew how soft she really was.

Which was probably why he leaned over and kissed her.

He didn’t mean to. He’d tried not to, but damn. He could taste her surprise, and he made himself pull back. “Sorry,” he said.

She was as rattled as he was—but she managed a shrug. “It’s your stupid rule,” she told him. “If it were up to me, I’d be squeezing in one last quickie, right there on that lounge chair.”

Ric turned to look at the lounge chair in question. He couldn’t help himself, and she laughed.

“You want to.” It wasn’t quite a question, but it also wasn’t not. Annie moved closer, her hands on his belt. “It might be a long time before we see each other again…”

He caught her wrists. “You just don’t want to talk about Pam.”

“What’s to say?” But she couldn’t hold his gaze.

“I called Bruce, and he told me that she asked you to help her die.” Ric pulled Annie close, and she seemed to surrender, her head against his shoulder. “What did she ask you to do?” he asked her quietly. “Leave her painkillers where she could reach them?”

Annie sighed. “If you already know, why ask me?”

“Because you need to talk about it. If the mere mention of someone else with terminal cancer—”

“Whoever that is downstairs,” Annie said hotly, “she was a fool. She had four months to spend with her family—probably even more—and she threw it away. Pam was only given three, and she lived more than twice that.”

“And yet, in the end, she chose to stop fighting,” Ric said quietly. “That must’ve been so hard for you. To know she’d given up all hope…?”

Annie was silent, and he knew he’d gotten it right. He’d struck a chord.

“I couldn’t do it,” Annie finally admitted. “Ric, she was in so much pain, and she begged me, but I couldn’t do it. God—and I’m still so angry with her.”

Ric nodded. “Anger and guilt. That’s got to suck.”

“Yeah,” she agreed.

“Give yourself a break,” Ric told her. “You did the best you could.”

“Did I?” She looked up at him with such sadness. “I don’t know. Because I wouldn’t help her, she somehow got out of bed. She must’ve just rolled herself out. She crawled into the kitchen, where we kept her prescriptions.” Her eyes filled with tears. “She was just having a bad day. We had this mantra—tomorrow’ll be better. And sometimes it was.”

“But sometimes it probably wasn’t,” Ric said.

“She told me she hated seeing us—her parents and me—in so much pain. She did it for us—and all we wanted was to have her around for another day.”

“Annie, she was ready to go,” Ric said quietly. “And think of it this way. You’ll never have any doubt that she loved you.”

“Yeah,” Annie said. “And I loved her so much that she died, all alone, on her kitchen floor. I was the one who found her later that night, curled up around Pierre.”

Ric smoothed her hair back from her face. “If she was with Pierre,” he told her, “then she didn’t die alone.”

She was going to kiss him. Ric saw it in her eyes, saw it coming, and he didn’t stop her. It was, after all, just a kiss.

And he was a freaking idiot, because there was no such thing as just a kiss when it came to him kissing Annie, and Annie kissing him.

She was going for that lounge chair, and damn it, he was, too, because, man, she was right—neither of them knew how long it was going to be before they could do this again.

Except this wasn’t what he wanted.

“Stop,” he said. “Stop!” as he finally disconnected his mouth from hers, which was flat-out ludicrous, since he was the one who had her up against the side of the house. He was the one pressed hard between her legs.

She laughed at the absurdity of the situation, which was his downfall, because he could never force himself to back away from her when she was laughing, even when her eyes were filled with tears. Which meant he was standing there, stupidly staring at her—an easy target—when she kissed him again.

Jesus God. “I’m not doing this,” Ric insisted.

“Okay,” Annie said, reaching down into his pants and—Gahd—wrapping her fingers around him.

“I’m serious,” he told her, closing his eyes as she touched him.

“I can see that.” She kissed him again. “Let’s go inside.”

“No,” he said, but he followed her. It was definitely the moment of truth. Once they got into his bedroom, she’d take off her clothes, and that would be that.

But Martell saved him. “Yo, Annie, you ready to go?” From the sound of it, he was taking the stairs up from the office, two at a time.

Annie managed to get her hand back before Martell came in, but just barely. Ric sat down fast. Of course, now that he’d been saved, he wished desperately that he hadn’t been.

“Everything okay?” Martell said, looking from Annie to Ric.

Annie had turned toward the window, pretending she wasn’t wiping tears from her eyes.

“You, uh, need a few more minutes?” Martell asked. “It’s pretty hot out, I should go get Pierre out of the car, if you’re gonna—”

“No,” Annie said, taking a deep breath and turning back around. “I’m ready to go, and Ric should get back downstairs. Did you see what’s going on in his office?”

“No,” Martell said. “What’s his name, Yashi, told me you were up here.”

“Don’t look,” Annie said. “It’s going to be awful.”

“Okay, now you made me curious.” Martell started down the stairs.

“I’m not kidding,” Annie called after him. She turned to Ric. “Be careful.”

He nodded. “You, too.” I love you. He didn’t say it, because it would have made her more upset, which was crazy.

“Thanks for…trying to make me feel better about Pam,” she said, and followed Martell down the stairs.

“Damn!” Ric heard Martell shout. “Why did you let me look?”

“Let you look? I warned you,” Annie’s voice drifted up the stairs, and then was gone, as she and Martell left the building.

Ric sat there, with the silence bearing down on him. It was heavy on his chest, making it hard to breathe.

He launched himself off the sofa and thundered down the stairs. “Annie!”

The craziness was hers. She was just going to have to get used to hearing him say it.

He threw open the door, but she was already in Martell’s car as he backed down the drive, transmission whining. She didn’t even see Ric—she didn’t look back—she was preoccupied with greeting Pierre, laughing as the little dog licked her face.

Ric watched as Martell’s car disappeared down the street.

“Jules just called,” Yashi reported as he went back inside. “He’s running a little late, but he should be here any minute.”

Robin sat at the desk in Jules’s hotel room, in front of Jules’s computer, sick to his stomach.

Jules was in the bathroom, getting ready for his meeting with Ric Alvarado and Gordie Burns Junior. It was a jeans–and–T-shirt meeting, but Jules had also pulled a loose-fitting, lightweight jacket out of his closet and tossed it onto the bed. The jacket was to cover the gun he’d taken from a locked case—the gun that he’d tucked into the shoulder holster he’d matter-of-factly strapped on. His donning of that holster and his quick, professional check of that gun screamed of routine and everyday, ordinary habit in a way that was both sexy as hell and terrifying.

Robin could hear him now, brushing his teeth, the bathroom door ajar.

On the computer screen, the digital video footage that had been uploaded to YouTube ended with Robin’s evil twin chugging a bottle of whiskey and tripping over the ottoman in his hotel suite—landing hard on his back, all while laughing hysterically.

He hadn’t dropped the bottle, though. As he brought it to his mouth, the footage froze into a still shot—a close-up that was undeniably of Robin’s own face. His eyes were open, and he was laughing.

It could have been worse. The amateur filmmaker—a budding directorial genius with the YouTube handle of CelebrityHunter—could have chosen to end with a still of that extremely nonflattering but thankfully almost completely nonrecognizable, two-second-long close-up of Robin’s nonresponsive private area. Of course, that didn’t mean that any of the two and a quarter million viewers hadn’t thought to hit pause at that particular moment in the download.

A little work with Photoshop to sharpen the image and, voilà. There he’d be, the perfect desktop background for millions of personal computers. Robin put his head in his hands.

“Watch it again.”

He looked up to see that Jules had come out of the bathroom.

“No,” Robin said. “I’ve…seen enough. It’s…like the ultimate out-of-body experience. He looks like me and he sounds like me—”

“He? It’s you, Robin.” Jules put on his jacket, zipping it closed at the very bottom. “You did all those things last night.”

“Yeah,” Robin said quietly. “I know.” Which was why he didn’t want to watch it again. When he watched it, he couldn’t imagine Jules ever forgiving him.

“I’ve got to go,” Jules told him just as quietly. “You do, too. You’re supposed to be meeting Annie.”

“I left her a key card at the front desk of my hotel,” Robin said. “I called and told her I was going to do that, so…If it’s okay with you, I thought I’d shower here before I, uh, go meet her.”

Jules nodded. “Just don’t be here when I get back.”

Ouch. Robin forced a laugh. “I guess you know me pretty well. I thought if I just never left, you’d come back and, well…You seem to like me better when we’re in bed, so I thought…Maybe you’d either forgive me or forget why you were angry, if we just made love for, like, two weeks, nonstop—”

“Sex,” Jules corrected him sharply. “This was sex, what we just did. Don’t get it confused with something that it’s not.”

Wow. That one really stung.

“Shut down my computer when you’re done watching that again, and make sure the door locks behind you.” Jules turned to leave.

Robin stood up. “So this is what, then? Goodbye? Thanks for the sex —see you around in a year or two?”

Jules stopped but he didn’t turn back. “I don’t know what this is,” he said, his voice low. “I don’t know anything anymore.”

“I do.” Robin’s voice shook with conviction. “I know that if you want me to watch this fucking awful video again, I’ll watch it again. I know I’ll do whatever I can to make this up to you. I’ll stop drinking. I’ve already stopped—”

Jules laughed as he turned to face him. “Are you kidding? You better watch that video another fifty times if you think you’re just going to be able to announce that you quit and—”

“I am. I did.”

“Forty-eight hours.” Jules’s anger was palpable. “I give you forty-eight hours, tops, before you take another drink—although it’s probably going to be more like four.”

Jesus. “Your unmitigated support overwhelms me.”

“You want me to take this seriously.” Jules got in his face. “You check yourself in somewhere. You do a lockdown rehab—twenty-eight days, minimum—”

“I can’t do that, and you know it.” Robin stood his ground. “I got a movie about to premiere. I don’t need that anyway. That’s bullshit. I’m not an alcoholic—”

Jules headed for the door.

“I’m not. ” Robin followed him. His own mother had been an alcoholic who’d lived and died—literally—for her next drink. If she didn’t have her gin and tonic, her hands would shake and she would become physically ill, like a drug addict needing a fix. She’d died when Robin was eleven, when she drove her car into a tree during a late-night booze run—Jules knew that. “I should know the difference between an alcoholic and someone who sometimes parties a little too hard—”

“Yeah,” Jules agreed. “You should.” He closed the door firmly behind him.

“I do know!” Robin shouted, because the alternative was to chase him down the hotel corridor dressed only in his boxers.

Instead, there he stood. Alone in Jules’s hotel room, with the silence bearing down on him. Just don’t be here when I get back.

At least Jules hadn’t said goodbye.

When Robin finally sat down at Jules’s computer, there was an e-mail alert flashing in the lower-right-hand corner of the screen.

He clicked on it. He knew he shouldn’t have. This was Jules’s personal e-mail account.

But Jules knew he was using it. He knew Robin was sitting in front of his laptop computer right now, and maybe he’d sent an e-mail from his phone, saying that he’d reconsidered, and maybe it would be a good idea for Robin to wait there for him to get back from this meeting, which he’d just found out was going to take only a few minutes anyway…

But the e-mail wasn’t from Jules. It was to Jules. It was from someone with an e-mail address of SpongeBob at some freemail account. And the subject line read RE: RC WTFO?????

He was RC—Robin Chadwick. And WTFO was Navy radio-speak for “What the fuck, over?” After playing a SEAL in Riptide, he spoke their language well enough to know that.

Robin clicked to open the e-mail, and a picture—a photo—appeared in the upper left corner of the screen. It was the same tall, drop-dead gorgeous man—Sam—who’d come into town to give Jules the bad news about Ben’s untimely death. In the picture, he was standing next to a strikingly beautiful black woman in a wedding dress. Jules, also tuxedo clad, was on the woman’s other side, and all three of them were laughing.

These were Jules’s best friends—Sam and Alyssa. A few years ago, Robin had spent a very pleasant evening with Jules and several pitchers of sangria, in a Mexican restaurant in West Hollywood, listening to stories about Jules’s former FBI partner Alyssa Locke. At the time, he’d wondered if—despite Jules’s claim of being gay—there wasn’t a little unrequited sexual attraction in Jules’s longtime relationship with Alyssa-the-Amazing. But now, looking at that photo, he could see only happiness on Jules’s face.

Happiness, and unconditional love.

And that was when he should have clicked to close that e-mail, and gone back to YouTube to do as Jules had demanded, and watch him nearly kill himself all over again.

Instead, Robin read the words on the computer screen.

Hey, it’s Alyssa, borrowing Sam’s email addy. I just thought I’d give you my 2 cents, sweetiepie.

1) I’m so sorry about Ben.

2) the tadpole is definitely gay, single, and interested in meeting you—and, yes,really cute. Really.

3) you spent years trying to talk me into dating people you thought were really cute, but I was in love with Sam, so…

4)the perfect career isn’t perfect if you’re not happy

5) I love you—you’ll always have a private sector job waiting for you, working with me

6) if you really love the fuck-up (Sam’s word, but it does seem to fit) that much, GO FOR IT!!!!

Directly beneath that was a copy of an e-mail that Jules had apparently sent this afternoon, probably while he was setting up his computer for Robin to watch the YouTube disaster. Robin had still been in Jules’s bed, hoping that Jules would climb back in.

He hadn’t, much to Robin’s disappointment. SpongeBob, Jules had written.

I’m not offended. I hear you. Thank you for being such a good friend. I’m probably going to do something really stupid, but God help me, I love him.

Robin’s heart was pounding. Jules loved him. Jules loved him.

Even today, when I’m so angry with him—when I’m so hurt by what he’s done that I’m practically bleeding from the ears, I still love him with every breath I take. I know exactly who he is and what he is, and God damn him, I love him anyway. He’s an alcoholic and a liar—he lies to himself most of all—and I don’t know if he really loves me enough to try to make this work—or if he’s just going to bulldoze over me and break my heart. Again.

“I’m not an alcoholic,” Robin said, but of course there was no one in the room to argue with him. I don’t know what I’m going to do, Jules had written, and now Robin’s heart was pounding for an entirely different reason—fear.

I suspect I’m better off without him. And yes, I know what I’ll be giving up if I don’t make myself walk away. I do hear you, and I’ve obviously got a lot to think about. I love you guys. Stay safe. More later.

Beneath that was, presumably, a copy of the e-mail Sam had first sent to Jules, several hours earlier.

I’m assuming you’ve seen this, but in case you haven’t…

There was a live link to the YouTube.com footage, of course.

I heard what you said in the car, but holy fuck, Squidward, you sure know how to pick ’em. I’m probably going to offend you, but I gotta say it—you sure you’re not confusing love with lust? Maybe I’m wrong about this, but I’m pretty sure you’ve gone a long time without getting any on a regular basis, and that can do funny things to the human brain—particularly the male one.

Again, I’m probably gonna offend you big time here, but I think I know what you’re looking for (Alyssa with a penis?) (only half kidding), and I do understand that Ben wasn’t it. I thank God for that, considering the current circumstances. But I can’t believe it’s crazy-ass RC, either.

Right now Lys is shouting at me not to do it, but I got to tell you that my old team’s in the neighborhood doing drills, and one of the tadpoles has set my highly honed gaydar aflame. I’m not going to give you his name in an email, but after your vacation’s over, I highly recommend you drop in at Coronado. I think he might be your type—tall and blue-eyed. (Holy fuck, did I really just type that?) Lys says he’s even cuter than RC.

Jules had told Robin that Sam—and it was definitely Sam writing this e-mail—was now in Spain, working with Alyssa to track down a rumored suitcase nuke. No doubt SEAL Team Sixteen—which was Sam’s “old team”—wasn’t just in the neighborhood to do drills, but rather to provide any backup that might be necessary should the civilian team need assistance.

As for the tadpole that Sam had mentioned…A tadpole was a young, new member of a SEAL team. Apparently Sam was trying to set Jules up with a gay SEAL. One who was, according to Alyssa, who’d confirmed it in her message at the very top of the e-mail, cuter than Robin.

“Like hell he is,” Robin muttered.

But that wasn’t all Sam had to say.

I know you hate the whole “don’t ask, don’t tell” bullshit that this tadpole brings with him to the table, but think about what you’ll get with RC. You’ve got to know that your career won’t survive a relationship with that crazy fuck-up. Even if he goes into rehab and dries himself up, this YouTube shit’s not gonna go away. It’s going to haunt him forever—any time he so much as farts in public. And that’s not even taking into consideration the scandal that’ll hit when he’s finally outed—and he WILL be outed sooner or later, count on it. Idiot like that’s gonna fuck it up royally, too.

You could risk it—keep your relationship with him on the down low, but that’s some fucking irony, huh? I know you want to be in an open relationship, but even if RC came out tomorrow, you’d STILL have to keep your affair with him jammed in the closet. You know this—don’t fool yourself into thinking there’s a way this will work. No way are you going to be picked to replace MB if you’re in a public relationship with RC. You WILL be passed over. You know it.

MB—Max Bhagat. Holy shit, was Jules really up for that kind of a promotion? He hadn’t mentioned it to Robin at all.

I’m not saying that you can’t be in an open gay relationship and win this position—you can. As long as it’s with some nice, quiet, anonymous civilian. Or even some military hero who eventually resigns his commission and comes out when he joins the civilian world. (And this kid I’m talking about already has a job waiting for him with me and Lys—that’s a guarantee. He’s a solid operator.)

I just want to make sure you think about what you’ll be giving up. It’s a huge deal, Squidward. You’re gay and you’re out—and you will be in charge of THE most important counterterrorist unit in the U.S.

Or you can be tabloid fodder.

Is the fuck-up really worth it?

Sam signed off with Stay safe. Love, SpongeBob.

Robin closed the e-mail and went back to YouTube, where he clicked on the link to replay the footage that CelebrityHunter had posted there just this morning. Since he’d viewed it last, there had been another additional quarter of a million hits to the site.

And as he watched himself knocking over a pile of deck chairs by the hotel pool, as he watched himself teetering on the rail of his balcony, twelve stories above the ground, shouting “I’m the king of the world!” all he could think was no.

No, the fuck-up featured in all his drunken glory on this digital video wasn’t worth shit.