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“It’s called deflecting,” I say, tipping my chair back as I talk to him, “and you’re doing it too.”

His eyes dance. I doubt he’ll ever admit it, but I’m beginning to believe he likes visiting me. I know I like having him around. It keeps my demons at bay for just a little bit longer than it otherwise would.

“You really think I just give clients my name,cherub?” He picks up a stray piece of paper from my bedside table.

“Stop. Calling. Me that.”

“Who’s George?” he asks, reading off the paper.

And now I want to die. I snatch the note from him, crumpling it up and throwing it in the trash.

“Oh, my.George.” Just the way he says that is enough for me to fight off another blush. “Is he the one you’re thinking inappropriate thoughts of?”

If only.

“Why do you care?” I ask.

“When a boy gives you his number, it’s because he likes you. And you kept it. On your nightstand.” The Bargainer says that like the nightstand is the clincher.

What was I supposed to say to him? That the only guy I was fixating on at the moment was the Bargainer himself?

No thank you.

“It’s not like he and I are going to date.” I mumble. “His sister is friends with a girl that doesn’t like me.”

I don’t have to spell out the rest. The Bargainer raises his eyebrows. “Ah.” I can feel his gaze dissecting my body language.

What does he see? My embarrassment? My frustration? My humiliation?

He swings his legs off the bed, the sudden action startling me. He reaches out a hand and pulls me to my feet. “Grab a coat.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re going out.”

Present

In the morningbefore I head off to work, I pad over to my bathroom and inspect my broken door.

Fixed. The Bargainer repaired it without making a deal. My heart pounds harder at this realization. The Bargainer’s a trickster; everything comes at a price. So why not this?

And the Bargainer’s parting lines. I squeeze my eyes shut. Something he said stuck in my mind.

Seven years is a long time to wait, especially for someone like me.

The Bargainer waits for no one, especially not a moonstruck client who was once only too eager to pay back all her favors. But it sounds as though that’s exactly what he did—he waited. It makes no sense.

I roll my bracelet round and round my wrist, counting, then recounting my beads.

Three hundred and sixteen of them are left. That means that the Bargainer removed someafterI bought his precious furniture. Several beads in exchange for the secret I revealed.

I scrub my face.

Right now, more than ever, I think I hate the Bargainer. Hate that he came barging into my life when I was really making something of it. Hate that I had to break up with Eliover the phonebecause I didn’t know what tasks Des would ask of me. But most of all, I hate him because he is easier to hate than myself.

I shuffle intoWest Coast Investigations twenty minutes late, a pink cardboard box tucked under my arm.

For the last six years, Temper and I have been in the PI business. Though what we do is a bit more questionably legal than what the job entails. West Coast Investigations can procure just about anything for you—a missing person, a confession, proof of a crime.