I was afraid to use the bathroom, for the love of Pete, knowing that she could hear me peeing.

Everything about this stunk. Stink. Stank. Stunk.

Pushing him away was soul-crushing. “I’m going.”

His eyes darkened. “You can’t spend the night in your house. It’s unprotected.”

“I’ll go to Kar Yee’s place,” I reasoned. “Bob can’t stay there forever. She’ll end up killing him. I’ll give him a break. It’s good for everyone.”

“We haven’t spent a night apart in weeks.”

“Every time you go on a photo shoot we spend the night apart.”

“And I despise every damn second of it.”

“I hate it too, but I’m not going to Yoko your family. If anyone’s going to ruin Christmas, it’s gonna be her, not me. Because when I’m not here in the morning, she can damn well tell Jupe that she was the one who made me leave.”

I hadn’t known it until I said it, but that was it, wasn’t it? I wasn’t interested in playing the martyr. I wanted her to lose. And the way that Lon’s eyes crinkled at the corners, I knew he’d picked up on this, too.

“Besides,” I said, picking up the folded sheets of sketch paper. “I have to track down that Noel Saint-Hill punk in Morella tomorrow. It’ll save me a drive.”

Which was true, but I had something else I wanted to do. Because at some point during the hedgehog attack and Rose’s insistence that I leave, I realized there was someone who could tell me if my mother was still alive and kicking on another plane.

Kar Yee’s apartment smelled like microwave popcorn. I surveyed the pristine white-and-gold living room and kitchen, and smiled when I spotted her lone tribute to the holidays: a tabletop white Christmas tree wrapped in red lights sat on the glass table in the dining room, and beneath it, a pile of presents, including Jupe’s tiny opera figurine, now spattered in drops of dried red paint. Kar Yee’s bah-humbug protests in the bar were such a crock.

I dumped a duffel bag of clothes in the foyer near a low wooden rack made for visitor’s shoes. Kar Yee was a shoe-phobe. She was convinced that footwear was invented by Satan himself—or, at best, carried the plague. It was almost one of those obsessive-compulsive things. She often walked around Tambuku’s office in socks or silky slip-on dance things. It was kind of ridiculous, but it was worse when we lived together in college—God help the person who dared to put their disgusting shoes on her dorm bed.

But I guess we all had hang-ups. I slipped off my boots, placing them next to a pair of men’s brown lace-ups, and padded down the hall.

Like every other room in her compact apartment, the decor in her bedroom looked as if it belonged in some swank Far East hotel. Gold leaf-patterned curtains draped the window, blocking out her view of midtown Morella. A muted, oversized painting of Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor hung over the bed. She was sitting in bed, propped up against gilded pillows, wearing her collarbone brace over yellow silk pajamas. Her normally super-shiny black hair looked dull and limp, pulled back into a bun atop her head. A mostly empty snack bowl was wedged between her legs.

Bob sat in a stuffed chair next to her, his feet on an ottoman. He appeared quite comfortable, lounging in a light blue Hawaiian shirt, white pants, and no shoes. A taupe blanket with a woven cherry blossom pattern lay across his legs. I wondered if this is where he’d been sleeping instead of the couch in the living room.

As I stepped through the doorway, they looked up from what they’d been watching on TV. They were both smiling goofy grins.

Clearly, I’d walked into some sort of apocalyptic nightmare.

“What are you watching?” I asked.

“A Three’s Company marathon,” Kar Yee said in a lazy voice. “Bob says the three of us should move in together and recreate episodes. What do you think? Tambuku could be the Regal Beagle.”

“Are you both on painkillers now?”

This was too weird for me. I’d be glad when the bar was open again and Kar Yee was in the back office being her normal ruthless self.

“Are you okay?” Bob asked me.

Kar Yee feigned a pouty face. “Never mind little miss killjoy. She’s sad. She doesn’t get to sleep with her big-handed boyfriend tonight. Boo-hoo.”

“Big-handed?”

A lock of Kar Yee’s hair slipped out of its sloppy topknot. We’d managed to get most of the paint out, but not all, so she’d had her hair stylist come by and chop off an inch of her bob. Now it was too short to stay in its binding. “His hands are veiny and muscular,” she explained.

“You make it sound like he’s got gigantic ham hands.” They were like the rest of him: strong and lean. He was in perfect shape. It was almost criminal. Muscular, but not showy or beefcake-y. Fabulous arms. And a beautiful stomach with the most perfect ridge of dipping muscle right above his hipbones and—

“His fingers are long, but they sure aren’t skinny,” Kar Yee noted. “Pressing all those camera buttons must give them a regular workout.”

And taking all these pain pills must be rotting soft spots right through her brainpan.

“They are very tan fingers,” she added, the beginnings of a slow smile lifting her lips.

“So’s the rest of him. He spends a lot of time outdoors.”

“Is he tan below the waistband?”

“Please stop fantasizing about Lon.”

Bob squirmed uncomfortably beneath the cherry blossom blanket. He looked as if he might hack up all the popcorn they’d been chowing down. “Is this what you two talk about after work?”