Mr. Big Love (Mr. Big 2)

"Bored to tears," Candace said, making an exaggerated face of sadness. She was seated in her recliner, in her pajamas, and had been working on her laptop.

"What about your class? Aren't you excited about it?"

"Yeah, it's okay, but I swear if I have to stay in this apartment for six months, I'll go stark-raving mad."

I went to her recliner and bent down to give her a kiss on the cheek and a squeeze of affection.

"We'll get you out on the weekend," I said. "Luke will come and help you outside and we can wheel you along the river. How does that sound?"

"It sounds fantastic, which is terribly sad. Anything to get me out of this house. I've been here for two weeks and I'm all out of episodes of Game of Thrones and True Detective."

"You can re-watch the whole Avengers franchise," I said and plopped down on the sofa beside her recliner.

"I did that last week," she said and rolled her eyes dramatically.

We laughed.

"Seriously," I said, and looked her over. "How are you doing? Any news on the case?"

She shook her head. "Nah. I don't think they'll find who did this unless he tries to contact me, and we get a good look at him."

"You seem awfully relaxed about it," I said, shaking my head. "If it was me, I'd be obsessed and afraid to go to sleep at night."

She shrugged. "What am I going to do? Barricade myself in the apartment and buy a gun? You can't live your life always afraid. It was probably just a rando psycho who pushed me on a whim. He likely didn't target me specifically. He probably just wanted to kill a pretty young woman because he was one of those incels -- involuntary celibates -- who hate all women. That's the most likely case. If we find him, he’ll probably have a manifesto about the radical feminists who are destroying Western Civilization or something."

I couldn't get over how well Candace was taking this.

"You're such a stoic. If it had been me, I'd be a sniveling mess, hiding in my apartment, and I would definitely consider getting a concealed handgun permit, no matter how hard it was to get one."

"Really?" she asked, her expression dismissive. "You'd actually get a gun? Carry one around on you?"

"If I thought there was a strange man following me."

"There's no strange man following me, sweets," Candace said and shrugged. "A psycho pushed me off the platform. That happens every year. I looked up the stats and someone is pushed off the platform by a nutcase almost every single year. I'm lucky to be alive."

"I hope you're right and it wasn't Blaine."

"Blaine wants you, not me."

I nodded. "But you might be a way to get to me. And the police say he hasn't checked in yet with his parole officer about his move. If he doesn't by his deadline, he'll go back to jail."

She raised her hands up in surrender. "There's nothing I can do about it anyway."

"You are so chill," I said with a sigh. "I wish I could be so relaxed about it."

"I have to live my life. What do you want me to do? Hire a bodyguard and never go out again? Even it if was Blaine, that's not the way I want to live my life. As soon as this damn cast is off, I'm going right back to my normal life. In fact, I can't wait to ride the subway again. There's no chance that some rando will try and push me off the platform again, statistically speaking. I'm free." She laughed at that.

She smiled at me and all I could do was shake my head and laugh with her.

"Enough talk about me," she said and seemed to snuggle down into the recliner. "What's happening with you and Mr. Big? Any news on the engagement front?"

I told her about Saturday night and facing the Marshall family.

"So, he's really going to announce the engagement at the function? He's got balls. I'll say that for him."

"Why do you think that?"

"His mother won't be happy, am I right?"