“Let me tell you a little about my next-door neighbor. This is the hottest guy in my building. Maybe the hottest guy on my block. He is so attractive that if he rolled up on me in an alley in a windowless white van, wearing rubber gloves and waving duct tape, claiming he has candy—I’d get in. Not only is he a prominent, single professional, but he also pulls off a really magnificent beard. When I moved in here back in September, he was going for all these runs with his shirt off and the man has Jesus’s abs. In fact, that’s what we’re gonna call him. Jesus’s Abs.

“So he comes in like some kind of knight in shining pajama bottoms. I have barf in my hair, and not in a fun, too-many-tequilas-in-Cancun kind of way. In a tiny-human-vomited-in-my-hair kind of way. He offers to hold the baby while I go take a shower. I let him. Please don’t judge me. It was a very quick shower. And when I come out, he has baby whispered this child. They’re both lying on my sofa together. It was quite honestly the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. He looked like one of those staged photos Instagram models post of themselves doing casual stuff around the house while looking effortlessly sexy. Nobody looks this good lounging in real life. Seriously.

“As you guys know, I’m a sucker for hot bearded men. It’s my weakness. But honestly, after this last week? I’m starting to find dad bods attractive. Like, I’m at the point where I see a man at Target with a beer belly, a receding hairline, and a kid strapped to him in a BabyBjörn and I’m checking him out like ‘I bet that guy could change diapers allllll night.’ So seeing this man with my cranky baby on his chest—I maybe fell in love just a little bit.

“‘Are you ready for love?’ you ask.” I cocked my head to the side and let my braid fall over my shoulder. “No. My position on dating has not changed, Jesus’s Abs aside. So don’t get excited. Also, even if the attraction was mutual and this is a guy willing to overlook my many, major shortcomings—oh, and this—” I got up, opened my bathroom door, and turned the camera to scan the disaster that was my apartment. I shut the door and came back to me. “Yes, those are actual diapers full of human waste, on my coffee table. This is what it looked like when he came over. How could he not fall in love, right? Anyway, I am still not on the market for the foreseeable future, for reasons previously and frequently discussed. But a girl can still window-shop.”

I yawned into the back of my hand. “Time for bed. A couple of things before I go. If you enjoyed this video, make sure you subscribe to my channel. And, as always, any donations to my favorite charity are deeply appreciated. Together we can find a cure.”

I ended the video and sent it to Malcolm. He would insert links, add hashtags, and within the next two hours have the video uploaded to my YouTube channel, where my subscribers, who probably thought I was dead after not posting anything for almost two weeks, would likely descend on it like rabid bears.

From there I had only a rough idea how this would all go. I was a travel vlogger. My videos were almost always filmed on location. I had never made a video from inside my apartment. This was a far cry from my norm, and I might even lose subscribers for this. I honestly didn’t know.

I had loyal fans who would stick with me no matter what. But most of the Internet had very short attention spans. If I wasn’t consistently giving them something entertaining, they’d leave.

If I lost my ability to make money…

I tried not to think about it.

I mean, I sorta knew what would happen with the video. All the usual stuff would go down in the comments. Some people would be supportive, some people would not, and the supportive ones would attack those hating on me. Probably more than a few would harp on my judgment for letting a stranger hold my baby. A few others would shit-talk the state of my living space. There would be the standard hateful comments about my appearance.

Most of it would roll off my back. After being the focus of this type of attention for more than two years now, nothing could hurt me. Also, I had a little thing called perspective, in higher doses than most people, and I don’t sweat the small stuff.

Ever.

And most things were, in the grand scheme of things, very, very small…

Especially when you might only have a year left to live.

CHAPTER 3

CHEATER GETS BUSTED!

ADRIAN

I ran the trash from Vanessa’s down to the dumpster. When I got back to my apartment, the light was on in my room. Rachel was out of bed and whirling around the bedroom, tossing things into her carry-on.

I stood blinking at her in the doorway. “What are you doing?”

“Packing.”

I drew my brows down. “What? You’re leaving? I thought your flight wasn’t until three. We were supposed to have lunch.”

She didn’t answer me. She went into the bathroom, and I could hear her moving around, drawers opening and closing, the click of the medicine cabinet. She came back in and put her makeup bag into her luggage and zipped it, extending the handle.

“Rachel…”

“I’m getting the seven fifteen flight,” she said without making eye contact. “We’re training a new recruit and I need to be there.”

“You need to be there? You just decided this at four in the morning?”

She paused for a moment, looking at the floor before her eyes came up to mine. “Adrian, I think we need to take a break.”

I froze where I stood. “What? Why?”

She peered at me from across the room and her chin trembled. “I shouldn’t be here. I have responsibilities and commitments, and I shouldn’t be halfway across the country—”

I nodded. “Okay. You’re right, it shouldn’t always be you coming here. Let me come to you for a while. I’ll drive out, take a week off.”

She shook her head. “No. This isn’t working for me. This isn’t what I signed up for. I didn’t expect things with us to get so serious. I can’t let myself get further into this, not with my circumstances…”

I shook my head at her. “What circumstances?”

“Adrian, I’m married.”

The words hit me like a smack. “What?” I breathed.

Her chin quivered. “I’m married,” she said again.

I stood there staring at her for a solid thirty seconds.