I shove his chest lightly. “What was the advice in that? Sounded more like an observation, and not even an accurate one.” It’s not that I don’t trust my brother and not that I don’t want to get into it with him.

The big issue is I haven’t got a clue what to do about Natalie, and I’m not ready to start blabbing about our little fucked-up union to everyone. That’s not fair to her. “And on that note, I’ve got somewhere to be.”

I’m meeting Natalie soon.

As I catch the subway to head downtown, I half wish I had asked out Penny. Mostly, though, I wish I wanted to. I wish I wanted to ask anyone else on a date half as much as I want to grab a coffee with a woman who’s on her way to becoming my ex-wife.

24

Before I see Natalie, I make a planned pit stop in Greenwich Village to see Chase.

I hold the yellow and black magnetic tool up to the wall in the apartment, scanning the plaster surface. “The problem is, this stud finder pretty much goes off constantly when I’m around,” I deadpan.

“Har, har, har,” Chase says as I search for the studs in the living room wall of the one-bedroom he’s considering leasing. “Think you’ll ever retire that joke?”

I shake my head as I rap my knuckles against the wall. “Some jokes never get old. Anyway, here are the studs, so we can set up shelves no problem. I know you want lots of them to show off to the ladies all the big books you’ve read. But you probably won’t even get any chickadees back to your pad, on account of you being so ugly.”

He sighs deeply. “You’re right. I won’t get them here. Because they won’t be able to wait to climb me like a tree. They’ll be all over me in the elevator.”

I drop the stud finder into my back pocket then make a persistent beeping noise. “Oh man, it won’t stop going off with me right here.”

“It’s finding me, obviously,” he says, leaning against the doorframe of his potential living room.

I point a finger at him. “See? Even you can’t resist. You cannot deny the power of the stud finder joke.”

He swings his gaze around the empty apartment. The leasing agent let him take a final look before he signs. He asked me to join him to make sure the place didn’t have any hidden structural issues. Not that he’d be on the hook for them, but we’ve both heard horror stories of renters moving into crumbling apartments and then battling landlords for repairs. Best to make sure the home is in solid shape beforehand, and this one looks good. That’s all the more remarkable since it’s an older building, and it’s on a great block with a cobbled sidewalk and cool restaurants.

Chase gestures to the naked floors and walls. “This place is a steal, huh?”

“Yeah, snap it up for sure.”

“Awesome. I think I’ll just go see the leasing agent now. When I asked her for the keys to check it out, all I had to do was flash my killer smile and she handed them over. She’s hot for me.” He bats his hazel eyes as he grins. “She gave me a discount on account of me being so handsome.”

I roll my eyes. “Dude, she did not give you a discount. One, you’re not Henry Cavill, or the shortstop for the New York Yankees. You don’t have that sort of pull. Second, it’s New York. No one gets a break on an apartment.”

“You’re just jealous of my amazing ability to land the ladies like that.” He snaps his fingers. Then, in an instant, his tone downshifts to serious. “So, what’s the deal with your wife?”

I lean against the kitchen doorway and sigh heavily. We both let go of the jokes. “Shit, man, I don’t know. I can’t figure out what the hell to do.” I tell him the latest so he knows the score—our annulment went AWOL, we fucked like bunnies on her desk, and afterward she became the Queen of Do-It-Yourself-Divorce.

With a frown, Chase scratches his head. “You got me. I’m stumped.”

“C’mon, Doctor Brain. You’re never stumped.”

“No, I mean I don’t get what the problem is.” He slams a fist against the other palm. “You could just bang her.”

I cringe. “That’s a little crass. Besides, it’s not like that.”

“No. It is like that.”

I shake my head. “It’s hard to separate all the stuff.”

“You mean you’ve never had sex without feelings?”

“Of course I have. I meant it’s hard to separate all the other . . . entanglements. Like the fact that I’m her employer.”

He taps the right side of his skull. “You put the sex in the sex portion of your head.” He raps the left side. “You put the work in the work portion.” He wipes one palm against the other. “Done.”

I shake my head, amused. “And my sister wonders why I call you a dog.”

His eyes light up, and his expression shifts from jaded playboy to eager beaver. “Your sister asks about me?”

I roll my eyes. “Don’t get any ideas. Besides, after what you just said about different portions of your brain, you can stay the fuck away from my sister.”

“I’m just giving you a hard time. About all of this, including the banging.” Now he’s got his bedside manner in full swing. No teasing, no fucking around. “You know what you need to do. You care about this woman, like I said before. When that happens, there are no separate parts, so you’ve got to shut it down.” He slices his hands through the air. “She’s your employee, so you just can’t go there.”