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I take my bag and look at the strap. Yup, the little blue streak is still there. “It’s okay, Fritz. I really appreciate your trying. Thank you. Thank you very much.”

After a little bit more soothing, and my declining the offer of a picnic basket of food, he goes back into the house. As I hear the door thunch shut, I stare down at my bag’s defect.

The moment I first noticed the pen streak, I wanted to get a new purse. Totally. I kind of like things perfect, and I was so frustrated I’d messed up my own bag . . . its imperfection made it less in my eyes.

Now I measure the thing in the moonlight, looking at all its little dings and faults. Man . . . it’s been with me for almost two years now. I’ve taken it to New York City to meet with my editors and my agent. On vacation to see my two best friends in Florida. It’s been to signings with me in Atlanta and Chicago and Dallas. It’s held my two cell phones: the one I use for my friends in the States and the one for my friends overseas. I’ve put in it receipts from car tows and bank deposits and dinners out with my husband and movies with my mother and my mother-in-law. It’s held pictures of people I love and change I didn’t want and the business cards of folks I needed to keep in touch with. It’s been locked in my car during walks with my mentor and quick trips into shops for bottled water and . . .

I smile a little and toss the thing onto the front seat of the Toyota Prius I rented from Enterprise. I get in and close the door and reach for the key I’d left in the ignition.

A knock on the Prius’s windshield scares the shit out of me, and I nearly dislocate my neck to look toward the sound. It’s Vishous with a towel around his hips and a bandage on his shoulder. He points down like he wants me to disappear the window.

I do. A cold breeze comes in, and I hope it’s just the night and not him.

V gets down on his haunches and puts his massive forearms on the side of the car. He’s not making a lot of eye contact. Which gives me a chance to study the tattoos on his temple.

“She made you come out here, didn’t she,” I say. “To apologize for being a prick.”

His silence means yes.

I run my hand up and over the wheel. “It’s okay that you and I don’t get along. I mean . . . you know. You shouldn’t feel bad.”

“I don’t.” There’s a pause. “At least, not usually.”

Which means he actually does feel bad.

Jeez. Now I don’t know what to say.

Yeah, this is awkward. Very awkward. And frankly, I’m surprised he’s staying out here with me and the car. I expect him to go back to the Pit and to the two people he feels comfortable with. See, V doesn’t do relating. He’s a thinker, not a feeler.

As time passes, I kind of decide that his presence with me now proves that yeah, in his own way, he really does care that it’s been rough between the two of us. And he wants to make amends. So do I.

“Nice bag,” he says, nodding to my purse.

I clear my throat. “It has pen on it.”

“You can’t really see the mark.”

“I know it’s there, though.”

“Then you need to stop thinking so much. It’s a really nice bag.”

V bounces his fist against the car’s panel, as a little good-bye kind of thing, and gets to his feet.

I watch him go into the Pit. Across his shoulders, cut into his skin, are the Old English letters: JANE.

I glance at my purse and think of everything it’s held and everywhere it’s been. And I start to see it for what it does for me, instead of what it lacks because of that imperfection.

I start the car and turn it around, being careful not to hit Rhage’s purple GTO or that giant black Escalade or Phury’s sleek M5 or Z’s Carrera 4S. As I leave the compound’s courtyard, I reach into my bag and take out my cell phone and call home. My husband doesn’t pick up because he’s asleep. The dog doesn’t answer because he doesn’t have opposable thumbs (so operating the handheld is difficult for him).

“Hi, Boat, I didn’t get the interview, but I got something to write about, anyway. I’m wired, so I’m just going to drive until I get to the other side of Manhattan. Probably end up crashing