"HONEY, YOU OKAY?" MY MOM asks me when I stand in front of the door to my apartment. No yellow police tape or men with guns bar me from entering, but my fear holds me back, afraid of what I might find. Or who I might find.

"I'm fine," I tell her, swallowing nervously. The hallway feels very cold all of a sudden, even though it's July and there's no air conditioning my apartment building. My mother hugs me, sensing my discomfort. She's a few inches shorter than me when I don't wear heels and half a foot shorter when I don the Manolo's that Antonio got me.

I pat her on the back and fix my gaze on a yellowing spot in the popcorn ceiling. I think it's beer. Or at least, when I moved in I hoped it was. The carpets are tattered and stained, the old-timey wallpaper peeling.This is a far cry from the luxury of the Hamptons house I was in a few hours ago.

"Your shoes are too high," my mother tsks, breaking the tender moment. I don't mind. "You're going to sprain your ankle."

Sadly this is very likely. My ankles are the kind that injure themselves at the slightest provocation, I can twist them just walking down the stairs without any heels at all. It's a gift... or a curse?

"Yes, but they're so pretty," I interject, trying to cheer both of us up.

"And expensive," she tuts. "They look like they're designer, lah. You don't work in an office building; you don't need designer heels."

"The shoes were a present." I roll my eyes but try not to let her disapproval ruin my day any further. Well, I think it's already rock bottom and half-over when my apartment has been ransacked and... Lucas is here? Making his way towards us?

My mother either doesn't notice or doesn't care about the imminent threat of being in my ex-boyfriend's presence because she keeps on going with her tirade-slash-interrogation. "From whom?"

"From her new boyfriend. Isn't that right, Tina?" Lucas approaches us casually, not dressed in a bulletproof vest and all black like last night but clad in jeans and a rumpled button-down with the sleeves rolled up.

My mother looks aghast. "Didn't you just goa on a date with that guy? Why is he already buying you expensive things? Does he think you're a gai, ah?" She uses the Cantonese word for prostitute—which sounds identical to the word for chicken—so Lucas won't understand the slight.

"No, lah. Let's just go into my apartment," I say in Chinese before switching back to English and turning toward Lucas. "Why are you literally stalking me?"

He holds up both hands. "I'm stalking you? That would be illegal and unethical. I work for the government."

I shove open the door to my apartment and stomp inside, only holding it open for my mother and certainly not for my ex-boyfriend. Petty, I know, but it makes me feel marginally better. When he opens the door and walks in after us, I reply. "What else do you call showing up everywhere that I am within the span of twenty-four hours? Do not say a coincidence. And while we're speaking about unethical things, how about me going to your apartment and finding a naked girl in your bed?"

"Well, what were you doing in my bedroom?" He shoots back.

My mother physically separates us just as I'm about to takeoff my new shoes and stab him with them. Well, not really. I wouldn't actually dare commit murder and even then fantasizing about the act still counts. I've really let my temper get the best of me...

"Don't act like children," she snaps. "Christina, you're staying with me until your apartment is re-furnished." 

I bite my tongue to keep from disagreeing. Where else would I go, really? But I don't want to lose the independence I have worked so hard to gain since graduating from university. "Okay."

"And thank you, Lucas, for volunteering to help clean up Christina's apartment."

I suppress the urge to smirk childishly at him or even stick out my tongue. "Thanks."

"Christina, I said he will be helping you, not doing it all by himself. You two can work together like mature adults, can't you?" I want to point out that the human brain finishes developing by the age of twenty-five so technically neither of us are mature adults. But she'll just give me that look like she knows what's best for me, which she usually does. 

"You're not going to stay?" I ask hopefully when she pivots to the door. If she goes I may go to prison for murder or assault. 

She shakes her head. Darn. "I'm an old lady, I might hurt my back lifting something. I'm going to the hair salon. See you!"

When the door closes, I'm in trouble.

I know I messed up with Christina. I should never have let a stripper stay in my apartment, for starters. That was just asking for trouble. And I certainly never should have forgotten about aforementioned stripper's habit of sleeping au naturel. Those were just foolish, rookie mistakes—not when it comes to cheating on your girlfriend but life in general.

Still, I didn't cheat on Christina. Of course, I made it very difficult for her to believe that when I had a naked woman in my bed that morning. In my defence, she was only in my bed, in my apartment, and in my life because of my job. Before we could get her into a Witness Protection program she had to go somewhere safe, and I volunteered for the job. Call it an old-fashioned, out of date chivalric instinct, call it whatever you would like, but I wanted to be the one to protect that girl. 

Yet all it left me with was a broken heart.

"Look, I know you got those shoes from that drug dealer," I say as I help Christina move her ripped and shredded couch over to one of the walls.

She grunts like the couch is too heavy instead of answering me. Really, with all the stuffing ripped out of it and strewn across the floor like snow, all that's left is the bare bones and the springs. It isn't some tremendous weight, so I know she's avoiding conversation.

"I didn't cheat on you."

Her muscles tense like she's considering shoving the couch at me so that it hits me in the stomach, but she doesn't.

"That girl was just a friend, okay? I was sleeping on the sofa the whole time. I never touched her." Well, except for all the times I helped her change her bandage from the gunshot wound, but that doesn't count. "She just needed a place to stay."

Christina bites her lower lip so hard it turns white beneath the lipstick or gloss or whatever.

"I know you hate me. But can't you forgive me?"

I hate pleading like this. I hate it. It just reminds me of all the times my dad would leave for "business trips" and I would beg to go with him, while he would tell me to be the man of the house and stop crying like a baby. Turns out he was cheating on my mom every time.

I would never be an adulterer.

We shove the couch against the wall and Christina starts sweeping. She never takes off those sky-high heels even though they must be uncomfortable to do housework in. I'm the same height as her, really, when she wears them. I shouldn't be begging her to forgive me. I should be cutting her a deal. I should be doing my job.

"Look, I know you've gotten yourself tangled with some... unsavoury characters. I'll cut you a deal, alright? I'm FBI. If you give me information about the guy you're seeing, then I can help you. I can get you away from him. I don't know what kind of dirt he has on you..."

She sweeps more aggressively, bringing up clouds of dust. I start filling a mop bucket for when she's done, the water sounds drowning out any answer she may or may not give me.

Finally, when the bucket is full, she speaks.

"I'll help you. And I forgive you, Lucas."