Free One Real Thing by Anah Crow and Dianne Fox

more delicate, with a hint of somewhere warm and distant that was completely at odds with her cool, brisk personality. For all that she could be mannish, as she described it, in her actions, there was nothing masculine about her curves. And she was always direct about what she wanted, from coffee to sex.
    “I would.” Nick slid his free hand from Caroline’s hip to her breast, rucking up the snug yoga shirt as he went, so all he touched was bare skin. He was very lucky.

Chapter Six
    “Great story!” Max gave Nick a high-five and danced off to his office with a printed copy of the article Nick had thrown together to explain his sudden absence. Apparently interviews with Senator Ingalls’s interns were a hot commodity now that the story about her husband’s affairs and abuse of power had broken.
    Nick was having trouble focusing on his success, though. His mind kept slipping back to the fourth-floor walk-up a few blocks away, wondering if Holly was okay. Finally, at lunchtime, as he was walking out of the building to pick up a hot dog from the cart on the corner, he gave in and called.
    “Hello?” Holly’s voice was thick and tight.
    The sound made Nick’s gut twist, and he stepped out of the path of the crowd and stood back against the building so he could focus.
    “Holly, it’s Nick. Are you okay?”
    “Yeah, I’m okay. Sorry. I was sleeping and I left the phone across the room.” There was the sound of Holly’s body hitting the bed. Nick couldn’t believe he recognized it. “What day is it?” Now Holly seemed panicked. “I didn’t miss lunch, did I? The fucking meds…”
    “Shh.” Nick wished he could reach out and calm Holly down with a touch. “It’s okay. It’s only Monday. I’m heading out to get lunch. I was calling to see if you wanted to join me. I know I said tomorrow, but…” He hadn’t been able to wait.
    “I’m not even dressed. If I knew antidepressants were like this, I’d never have wasted my liver on booze,” Holly said wearily. “If I meet you for lunch tomorrow, then I can’t miss my appointment with the shrink in the morning, because I hate lying to you.”
    “It’s not an either-or proposition.” Nick looked at the sea of people flowing around him, crashing and ebbing against the intersections before moving on. “You have to go to the gym anyway.”
    Silence for a moment. “I hate you,” Holly mumbled. It didn’t sound very hateful. There were times, Nick knew, when Holly had hated him. And then there were times he said it and it sounded like something very, very different. “Where are we having lunch?”
    Nick hadn’t really thought that far ahead. “The Westway,” he decided. “Over on Ninth. Should I meet you there?”
    “Yeah, I’ll find it.” Holly was making quiet noises that were probably him wriggling out of his pajama pants without getting out of bed again.
    God, Nick really shouldn’t know what those noises were, and he wasn’t thinking about the visuals that went with them. And he shouldn’t know how Holly’s hair smelled when it was damp from sleep, how bitter it was when Holly was sick and how spicy and honeyed it was when Holly was well. Nick’s head hit the wall behind him, and he scrubbed a hand over his face, reeling his mind in from all the places it shouldn’t be going.
    “Great,” he managed. “I’ll see you there.” He ended the call and slipped the phone back into his pocket, then threw himself into the crowd and let it carry him along.
    The diner was crowded, but Nick got a table in the back. He pulled out his phone to check his email but ended up staring at the door instead, watching for Holly.
    He didn’t need to wait long. Holly slipped through the crowd, pushing his sunglasses up to reveal how worn and gaunt he still was. He looked drugged and on edge all at once, the grace and confidence gone from his bearing and movements. When he caught sight of Nick, the relief on his face was naked.
    Nick found himself holding