“Muslim,” he says. He waits like he expects something from me. When I don’t respond, he says, “Tell me about this man you love, Helena.”

The man I love? I suck in my cheeks and stare at the place where he’s sitting like I can see him.

“Tell me about all the women you didn’t, Muslim.”

He slides his glass back and forth across the bar top, considering me.

“It’s your power move,” I tell him. “Getting women to tell you their truths while you hide all of yours. Is that right?”

“Perhaps.” I hear the catch in his voice.

“What causes you to want that power?”

He laughs. It’s a deep, throaty laugh.

“The lack or distortion of something usually causes a deep need for it,” he answers. “Wouldn’t you think?”

“Unless you’re a sociopath. Then you just crave things because you were born with the need. Are you a sociopath, Muslim?”

“My truth for yours,” he says. His voice slays me. It makes me feel lightheaded with all of that richness. A grating finery. I want to kiss him based on his voice alone.

“All right,” I say slowly. I turn my body toward him because I’m really getting into this. “He’s my former best friend’s fiancé. They have a baby.” I tell him the story of Della’s time in the hospital, and of my time with Kit and Annie. When I’m finished, there’s a flash of light as he lifts his glass to his mouth and takes a sip.

“Yes, I am,” he says. It takes a minute for me to realize he’s answering my question and is not commenting on what I told him. “I find out what makes people tick, and then I use it against them.”

“And when you say people, you mean women?”

“Yes,” he says.

I am a little stunned.

“Don’t you … don’t you feel bad about that?”

“I am a sociopath, remember?”

“But you’re not supposed to admit that,” I say quietly.

And then he says, “Does he feel the same way about you that you feel about him?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “He feels something.”

“So why aren’t you doing anything about it?”

I am taken by surprise, though I probably shouldn’t be, considering he just admitted to being a sociopath.

“What is there to do? He’s with someone else. They have a baby.”

“You have something of his,” he says. At first I shake my head; I have nothing of Kit’s. I wish I did. Then I feel the ache in my shoulder. There is a manuscript in my purse, the envelope wrinkled and soft. How does he know? I get chills.

“I do. A book he wrote. I haven’t opened the envelope to read it.”

I expect him at least to recoil about that one. Instead, I see his shoulder lift and fall in a shrug.

“Did he write it to reach you?” he asks.

“Good question. I don’t know. Maybe to say goodbye.” My eyes focus on the tinsel. It doesn’t look so bad. I don’t know why I was so jazzed about it.

“You’ll never know unless you read it. Then you can decide what to do.” His voice is a little melancholy. I’m just noticing. Rich and sad.

“There’s nothing to do. He’s moved on. I told him to go.”

Where is the bartender? My drink is done. I need saving from this man who is trying to bend my thoughts.

“You’re going to tell me that all is fair in love and war,” I say. “And that’s just not true.”

He laughs. It’s a throaty laugh. Not insincere, but not completely honest either.

“There is only war in love,” he says. “If anyone tells you otherwise, they’re lying. The constant fight to keep love relevant, while growing and changing as a human, is the battle. You fight for them, fight to keep them, fight to love them. Do you fight for yourself, or do you fight for the relationship? What can’t you live without? There’s your answer.”

I listen. He speaks with conviction, and whether or not I believe him, I am compelled to weigh his words. I see him stand up, and I am given a brief glimpse of his face as he slides a bill out of his wallet and drops it on the bar. He is even younger than I thought, handsome, with a neatly trimmed beard. He walks toward me, and I tense. It’s the roll of his shoulders—a man who moves like a lion. I don’t want to know who he is, but I do. He feels dangerous, like a man with an agenda. I’ve barely had time to register the agenda part when he’s looming over me, and I have to look up at him. The sunlight from the windows glints in my eyes. I clutch the edges of my stool like a child.

“We are only given one life. You want to waste it waging war against yourself, go right ahead.”

He reaches out and touches a thumb to the space between my eyes, then leans down to speak close to my ear. “Or you can fight for what you want,” he says softly. His breath blows up strands of my hair. “What are you scared of, Helena?”

I’ve never said it out loud. Never confessed to a friend, but here I am confessing to a stranger.

“I’m scared of what they’ll really think of me. If I embrace who I know I am.”

I am trembling. My confession saps the strength, the whiskey, right out of me.

He smiles like he was waiting for this all along. He has warm skin; I can feel the heat radiating off him. God, this man is probably never cold.