He was tapping on my bedroom window. It was 2:17 in the morning.

I got out of bed, dressed in sweatpants and black T-shirt and slapped the window open. He practically fell through it, adorable in his wet tuxedo and red eyes.

“You’re drunk.”

“I like you. I want you to like me.”

“Go to bed.”

He leaned back out the window, paused. “Do you like me?”

“Against my better judgment, I do.”

“Okay.”

He was so drunk he could barely stand.

“Please go to bed.”

He gave me a salute and walked right through a sprinkler, toward the front house. I closed the window. Brad was lying in the grass facedown, arms and legs in a big X, getting sprinkled on.

I could leave him out there.

I could, he deserved it. But I couldn’t.

I put on sneakers and a hoodie and went outside. He was face-first in a mud puddle. The sprinklers had shut off.

“Brad?”

He didn’t move. I pulled his arm until he was on his back, then pulled both wrists and pulled forward. If I’m making it sound easy, it wasn’t. I slipped and fell in wet grass, and grunted like a tennis player. But I got him to sitting. Half his gorgeous face was dotted with mud.

“Brad?”

No answer. I slapped him. Nothing. Slapped again, harder. He groaned.

Then I pulled my arm back and really hauled off and whacked him.

“Ow.”

“You have to wake up. I can’t carry you.”

“That hurt.”

I crouched, getting my shoulder under his arm.

“Okay, I’m going to count to three. On three, stand up.”

“Do you know you’re beautiful?”

“One.”

“And you smell like a fruit cup.”

“Two.”

He looked at me, the weight of his head tilting his face at an angle to mine.

“You’re the queen of the house.”

“Three.”

We lurched up. Took a step left. Adjusted. Stood steady.

“Can I just sleep here?”

“No. Nicole isn’t going to find your drunk ass on the lawn in the morning. Lean on me.”

We took one step forward, then two. I held his wrist with one hand and his waist with the other. The front of his tuxedo shirt was brown with mud. I got wet wherever his clothes touched me.

“Do you have fantasies, ever?” He hopped onto a new subject as if it was completely natural.

“Like about what?” I asked. His arm around me, his breath soft in my ear. Even his dependence was kind of a fantasy.

“You know what bothers me about fantasies?”

“Watch this chair here. Whoa.” I pulled him left, narrowly missing tripping over a lounger.

“You never know if you’re getting it right,” he said.

I turned to him, and found his eyes taking up my entire field of vision and my nose two inches from his.

“Like when I fantasize about fucking you.”

We almost tripped on the entrance. I swallowed my lungs, stomach, and heart in one gulp. He was drunk. He didn’t mean it. He never thought about fucking me.

Not Brad Sinclair.

He was my boss.