Page 4 of Brooklynaire

“I’ll come with you,” my sister says, bless her. “We’ll carry Matthew in the sling. He’ll be done feeding in a minutehere.”

PraiseJesus.

Renny stands up, rubbing his bare chest. “Hey, is the library open? I finished that awesome book—with the parallel universe? But it ended on a cliffy. I need thesequel.”

Faster, Renny!I can see his shirt through the open doorway of Missy’s room. I mentally coach him toward it.The shirt, Renny. Get theshirt.

“Parallel universes are the best!” He wanders in the general direction of the shirt. “Like, there’s a parallel universe where I’m the quarterback for the Giants. And there’s a parallel universe where you’re the Queen ofFrance.”

“There’s no monarchy in France,” I point out.Put on ashirt.

My sister waves her boobs around, then puts them back into herbra.

“But that’s the point!” Renny yells from the bedroom. Clothed now, he emerges to dance over to his son, scooping him out of Missy’s arms. “Anything can happen in a parallel universe. My little man can fly. Whee!” He supports the baby on his palms and flies Matthewaround.

“Won’t that make him spit up?” I ask, preparing for theworst.

Missy takes the baby back from her goofball boyfriend. “Let’s roll. Good to see you, Nate. Go easy on my sister. She spent the whole morning freaking out about missing work. But she’s not supposed to touch a computeruntil…”

“Missy,” Iwarn.

“Well, you’re not!” Wisely, she opens the apartment door and disappearsoutside.

Renny grabs the baby’s sling, and then a blanket, too. Even if he’s kind of an idiot, he’s actually a good dad. “Later, Nate Kattenberger andBecca!”

The sound of the door shutting behind him is the best sound I’ve heard all day. My embarrassment factor lowers from 100 to, oh, a97.

“Wow,” Natesays.

“They’re a little much,” Imumble.

“No…” He’s staring at the giant brown, velvet roses on The Beast. “Your sofa is reallyquite…”

“Hideous?”

Helaughs.

“Would you believe that it’s super comfortable, though? Georgia and I thought about having it reupholstered, but we weren’t sure it would fit through the apartment door.” I plop down in one corner. “Sit. Try it foryourself.”

Nate drops into the other corner. He lifts his hands behind his head and stretches back. “Yeah,okay.”

“Not only is it comfortable, but when you’re sitting on it you don’t have to look atit.”

Nate laughs again, and I study his profile, as I’ve done a thousand times before. It’s objectively handsome. More than handsome, actually. Hot. Today he’s wearing his trademark black hoodie and a pair of four hundred dollarjeans.

These days he wears suits to his Manhattan office tower. But the hoodie used to be his uniform. Though he didn’t wear expensive jeans or designer sneakers back then. He didn’t have the office tower,either.

When I joined the company, there were 17 employees. Now there are more than2000.

For five years I worked at Nate’s side as his personal assistant. Then, two years ago, he bought the Brooklyn Bruisers hockey team. That’s when he asked me to leave Kattenberger Tech and manage the team’s office instead. Another woman—the frosty Lauren—took my place as his assistant inManhattan.

Nate said it wasn’t a demotion, and I didn’t take a pay cut. I actuallygainedsome benefits, because the hockey team is a separate corporation, with a slightly different structure. And I still see Nate several times a week, at least during hockeyseason.

The move still bothers me, though. I wonder what I did to fall out of favor withNate.

And now I realize I’m staring at him. But he’s staring at me too. “Are you really okay?” he asks, his face unreadable. Nate is famously stoic. The magazine profile pieces about him love to use the word “inscrutable.” The truth is that he’s actually a bit sociallyawkward.

“Iwillbe okay.” I clear my throat. “God, it was the stupidest fallever. I don’t think I even hit my head very hard. I’ll go into the office tomorrow morning, okay? I’ll just take it easy at work for a day ortwo…”