After the shitty end of my last relationship, I haven't been in a rush to settle into another one. Weekends have been comfortably empty and quiet. When I have had company, I've been circumspect about selecting non-clingers.

The woman beside me at the bar reaches for her drink with her left hand. Sips slowly. Her fingers are delicate and unadorned. There's the sign. The faint circular indentation at the base of her ring finger. Our conversation continues seamlessly, but she knows that I know. A few minutes later and it's naturally wound to a close. I help her into her coat, and she takes my arm.

Married women tend to make the least fuss and see the transaction as it is, without attachments. A few drinks, a casual night and a goodbye before breakfast. The weekends remain comfortably quiet.

I learn a bit more about her on the drive back to my apartment. She's more straightforward than most, and unapologetic about her age – almost forty. I was off by eight years. She's amused. There's no checking of makeup in the vanity mirror, no self-conscious glances in my direction. The allure of her confidence is refreshing.

"If I didn't know better, Mr. Briefs, I'd also be off by eight years," she says lightly as we step out of the elevator on the top floor.

"I'm still mistaken for an intern at times in my own company. A bit annoying, but it allows for some fun." I open the door. "After you."

"If you looked any younger this would be a crime." She walks graciously in, stilettos muffled against the carpeting, and stops.

I close the door behind us and reach for her waist when I see what she sees.

"Hello," she says with polite reserve to the woman lounging on my couch.

"Hello," my sister answers sweetly, giving me her most pestilential smile.

x.x.x

"I didn't know you had a thing for cougars." She's having fun examining my extensive wine collection, peering at the foreign labels with amateurish delight.

"I'm not going to be able to get rid of you anytime soon, am I?"

"Oh come on Trunks, we haven't seen each other in forever! Didn't you miss me at all?" She straightens up, the miniskirt barely covering her ass. It's 1 AM. Completely possible that she brought some drunk idiot into my penthouse and fucked his brains out before I got home. The first sign of evidence on any of the furniture and I might just break that promise I made to our parents.

I check my inbox on my phone. I'd rather read work emails than carry on this conversation. And I realize I didn't get Teresa's number. Not that I'm likely to call her given the depth of this particular embarrassment.

"Tru-unks," she chimes in her playground voice. "You missed me, right?"

"No."

"Of course you did, don't lie."

"No."

"Well if you're going to be that way, then I'll overstay my welcome by two times! Um, how would you say it? By a factor of two?"

"Doubly overstay." Five emails in the trash. One wrongly sent to the junk folder, now replying. "And by stepping foot in here you're already overstaying."

"Still so mean." I hear the pout in her voice like slime in my ear. Then the dull pop of a bottle opening. I sincerely hope it's not a Lafite-Rothschild.

She saunters over, bumping the edge of the couch and almost spilling both glasses. I don't look at her as she sets one glass an inch away from my feet on the cocktail table. She sits on the arm of the couch beside me, leaning her elbow against my shoulder to peer at my phone. Her hair cascades into my face, an overdose of fruity herbal nausea.

I reach a hand up and set her hair on fire.

The harpy scream hurts my ears, but it's still familiar enough that I don't flinch. Wine spills across my lap, missing my phone but ruining the leather on the couch. I should see this whole experience as visiting the doctor for one of those once-in-five-years vaccinations. Painful, but very short and infrequent.

"What the fuck Trunks?" She holds the offended section of her hair gingerly with one hand, swatting at the smoke in the air with the other. She kicks me with her bare foot. On the third kick I shift my leg away and her heel shatters the table.

"You're such a little shit," she snaps before storming off to the bathroom.

I read the last email from the sycophantic new head of sales. Twenty sentences and the man still hasn't reached his point.

"I thought you missed me," I raise my voice over the gush of water in the bath.

x.x.x

"I told Mom and Dad not to tell you I was coming," she says. Her hair is wrapped in a bun, covered securely by a wet towel. She sits with her knees up on the other end of the couch, back against the arm. Her voice is as cold as her glare. "I wanted it to be a surprise."

"So surprise me."

"I don't know why I bother with you. You're still a complete—"

"You never bother with me, and that's great. But when you start, you break into my house and annoy the crap out of me until I want to snap your neck. It's almost an invitation, even."

"You're still a complete ass," she finishes.

"Get to the point."

"Dad thinks you're pathetically out of shape, by the way. I'll tell him you tried to spar with me."

I shake my head. A little singed hair and she resorts to Daddy threats already. Between three, thirteen, and twenty-three there's essentially no difference.

"The point, please."

She crosses her arms, raises her chin a little. "I'm getting married."

I laugh. Silence. She's still glaring at me.

I think she could sit and stare me down for hours without flinching given the right frame of mind. There's no lack of determination in her genes. Just intelligence about what's worth her effort.

"Well, if that's what you want, congratulations."

"It is what I want. Thank you."

"I look forward to meeting the lucky man before his luck runs out." My disbelief is on hold for another day. I just want this to be over. I glance at the clock. "Way past your bedtime. Dad wouldn't want you up this late. I'll call a car for you. The Ritz just had its rooms renovated, you'll like it."

"I'm not finished," she says. She uncrosses her arms, sits up straighter. There's no ring on her hand. I think of Teresa and almost smile. How this night could have turned out instead…

She stands and retrieves her purse from the kitchen counter. She draws out a fine silver chain and leans on the back of the couch, toying with the clasp.

"He gave me this necklace. The charm was ugly so I took it off. But the chain's nice. I thought of something else to put on it. Something much more precious."

"I don't think the Dragonballs are meant to be worn as jewelry."

She laughs, dry and humorless. "That isn't a bad idea. People made crucifixion into a charm. Why not resurrection? But no, I don't want the Dragonballs."

It's a momentous occasion when my sister says anything vaguely intelligent. She at least has more of my attention now as she sits beside me again, her expression placid and unyielding. Whatever she's going to ask has the full force of her determination behind it.

"I want the capsule," she says.