Page 3 of Brooklynaire

They don’t even hear me. Missy fits herself against her boy toy and lifts her shirt. Renny adjusts the baby in both their laps, so that the baby can reach my sister’s boob. Matthew latches on, while his two parents gaze at their baby while he feeds, occasionally making sickening little comments about what a great nurser heis.

This is mylife.

I’ve never felt more like a third wheel. Or a fourth wheel. Whatever. But this is my couch, and I wouldn’t get up to leave even if I had somewhere else to go. Which I don’t. I will just sit here, stewing in my own misery, alone with my worried thoughts, even if nobodynotices.

That’s when the doorbell buzzes. The sound is like a knife through my already achy skull. “Could somebody getthat?”

The happiest little family in Brooklyn doesn’tmove.

So I get up to answer the buzzer myself. “Hello?”

“Rebecca.” The man’s voice is low and firm. “Can I comeup?”

He doesn’t even bother to identify himself. He really doesn’t have to. Nate Kattenberger is the kind of man who’s used to beingrecognized.

He isn’t, on the other hand, accustomed to stopping by his assistant’s Brooklyn apartment. I’ve worked for Nate for seven years, and never once has he set foot inside myhome.

It takes me a moment to shake off my surprise. But then I gather my wits and press the button unlocking the front doordownstairs.

I turn my gaze on my living room. The place looks like a bomb went off. “Renny, go put on a shirt! Missy? How much of this baby crap can we pick up in the next 15seconds?”

“None of it? I’m nursing.Why?”

Because the most successful man in the tri-state area is walking up the staircase right now! I don’t even have time to panic. Nate Kattenberger taps on the door less than a minute later. He must have sprinted up two flights of stairs. Since there’s no cure for my embarrassment, I open thedoor.

“You should be in bed.” That’s Nate’s opener. He’s never one for smalltalk.

I don’t answer for a second, because my brain is slow today, and it takes a little longer than normal to get over the same little jolt of disbelief I have every time those intense light brown eyes first lock onto mine. Nate is about ten times more magnetic than an ordinary guy. You’d think after seven years I’d be used to him. Butnope.

“Hey,” I point out a beat later. “You rang my doorbell. I can’t open it and sleep at the sametime.”

“A fair point, Bec. Were you sleeping before Irang?”

I don’t answer; I just wave him in. As he steps through the door, he pulls something into my apartment with him. It’s the biggest arrangement of roses I have ever seen, outside of a funeralparlor.

“Jesus. I’m still breathing, you know.” The joke is supposed to cover my embarrassment at his generosity, but it comes out sounding snappish. And when I try to take the flowers from him, the basket is so big that I don’t even know where to putit.

“Maybe I overshot,” he says with a chuckle. “Here. You take this instead.” He hands me a shopping bag from Dean & DeLuca, and it’s full of gourmet food. “Can I put the flowers on the table by thewindow?”

“If they fit! Watch out forthe…”

Nate trips on the baby swing because I don’t warn him in time. He almost goes down, but saves himself just in time by leaning on thewall.

“I’m so sorry about that,” my sister says from the sofa. She doesn’t, however, apologize for her half-naked boyfriend, who’s gaping at Brooklyn’s most famousbillionaire.

Good lord. We are Brooklyn’s equivalent of a trailer park. And it ain’tpretty.

“Nate,” I say, as if I weren’t dying inside. “You remember my sister Missy.” They met about five years ago when I invited Missy to a benefit at a museum somewhere. I don’t even remember the occasion. “And this is her boyfriend,Renny.”

“How have you been?” Nate asks Missy. The tips of his ears go red, probably because my sister is basically topless. “Are you here to look after Rebecca while sheheals?”

“Nope! We live here,” Renny says, swinging his feet up onto the coffeetable.

I just want to die now. As long as it’s relativelypainless.

“Renny,” I try. “Didn’t you tell me you were going to make a trip to the store? After the baby woke up, you said.” This isn’t even a lie. Hedidmention making a run for groceries. But that was before he distracted himself by jumping mysister.

“Sure,” he rubs his unshaven face. “I could dothat.”