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third-floor apartment. Like you.”
    Two third-floor apartments. Two flights of stairs. They’d need safety grilles on the windows. Check the fire escapes. Jesus, neither of them had a yard. You couldn’t raise a kid with no yard.
    A kid needed a house. A yard. Fences and toys and a bike and a dog. Plastic plugs in the electrical outlets and…all that shit Mike and Lisa had raising four boys. They’d even put some kind of Velcro strap on the toilet lid.
    “Holy shit.”
    “Are we starting to freak on the outside now, too?”
    He hadn’t realized he said it out loud. “I think so.”
    “You sure know how to turn a girl’s life upside down, Kevin Kowalski.”
    “Feeling a little sideways myself, Beth…” Shit. He didn’t even know her last name and it was too late to hide the fact. Smooth.
    Her laugh was short and cynical. “Guess I should have written it on a napkin for you.”
    ***
    Thursday nights were pretty slow at Jasper’s, but Paulie didn’t mind. They always drew in enough of the regulars and the drop-ins to make the time go by, but not so much of a crowd people were shouting and getting impatient.
    Usually Kevin took Thursday nights off, but tonight he’d stuck around. Or his body had, at least. His mind was someplace else and wherever that someplace was, it wasn’t happy.
    Paulie wiped her hands on a towel and walked to the end of the bar, where he was sitting and staring into an empty coffee cup. “Want a refill?”
    “Last thing I need is more caffeine.”
    Her boss—and best friend—wasn’t the type to dwell on things so she leaned her elbows on the bar and propped her chin on her hands. “What’s up with you?”
    “Gonna be a dad.”
    Okay, she hadn’t seen that coming. “No shit. Anything to do with the brunette you took upstairs yesterday? The one whose boss’s nose you broke a few weeks back?”
    “Beth. She and the woman I told you about—the bartender at Joe’s wedding? Same woman.”
    “So…wow.”
    “Yeah.” He was tapping the empty mug on the bar, so she took it away and dropped it into a buspan. “Guess that ninety-eight percent effective warning on the box wasn’t just legalese.”
    “Tell your parents yet?”
    “Nope. Nobody but you.”
    A guy down the bar was practically leaning over it, waving his mug to get her attention, but he could wait. “You okay with it?”
    He shrugged. “I wasn’t expecting it, but…yeah. I think I’m okay with it.”
    “Is she okay with it?”
    “Hard to say.” He laughed. “I think she’d be happier if was some other guy’s.”
    “Cut it out,” she yelled at the thirsty guy who’d moved on to banging his glass on the bar. “I’ll be right there.”
    “Go,” Kevin told her. “I’m just going to hang out and watch the game for a while.”
    “No problem,” she said, giving him a sympathetic look before wandering down the bar to check on her customers.
    She gave the glass-banging idiot a refill with a side of dirty look. A group came in and took a table in the corner, in Darcy’s section. A few regulars came in on their heels, dispersing to their usual spots, mostly at the bar.
    “Boston suits at table ten,” Darcy said. A petite, quiet brunette, she was Paulie’s opposite in almost every way. And she was a great waitress with a sunny personality that made up for her total lack of interest in sports.
    Paulie nodded, giving the group a once-over from behind the bar. Like other groups of businessmen from the city, they’d go one way or the other—they either wouldn’t tip for shit or it was Darcy’s lucky day. Couldn’t tell from looking at them which type they were.
    Dick Beauchamp was sitting with them, though, and he wouldn’t let the staff of his favorite watering hole get stiffed. Odd to see him so early or in his suit, though. One of his companions threw back his head and laughed.
    Paulie’s heart stopped.
    “Oh shit.” She dropped to the floor, hiding behind the bar.
    “Paulie?” Darcy must have