“Laaaaiiinnneyyyyy!”

Wincing, I sink further into the couch cushion as my name is drawn out in an obnoxious whine. My eyes flutter shut and I says silently congratulate myself for not picking up the phone.

“Lainey Bainey Fainey, pick up your phone! You’re just sitting there when you could be out with us having fun!” Drunken laughter filters from the answering machine. “We just did like ten shots of tequila. Shit, I can’t even see straight.”

Eyes on the ceiling, I look over the stucco pattern and sigh.

“Get your ass off of the couch and come down here! Are you still pissed about before? I-” I can hear a commotion on the other end of the line followed by more laughter. “Shit, Trace, get the hell off me! You idiot.”

I can’t help the smile that forms on my lips. I can just imagine the scene that’s taking place on the other end of the line. There’s more laughter and then his voice comes back on.

“Seriously, Lainey, come meet us. We need to get you drunk! Gimme a call!”

A sigh escapes me as the message ends and I lifts my head from the back cushion of the couch. A glance at the clock tells me it’s just past ten, still early enough in the night to go out. Question is, can I deal with a night of Justin Timberlake? More specifically, drunk Justin Timberlake?

Pushing myself off the couch, I go over to the answering machine and listen to the message one more time. It really does sound like they’re having a fun time and it’s hard not to be drawn into the celebrity world that is calling. Decision made, I pick up my phone and dial a number.

“Laina! Baby, you’re coming, right?”

I pull the phone away from my ear at Trace’s loud voice. “Yeah. Where are you guys?”

“Sky Bar. Get yo ass over here!”

I pull off my pajama pants and kick them away from me. Grabbing a pair of jeans, I shimmy them on. “Janice there?”

“She’s always here. You gonna wear something sexy?”

Trace is so gone. He could barely form that ridiculous sentence. “Get a grip, Trace.”

“Hey, hurry up and get here. I’ll buy you a drink.”

The line goes dead and I drop the phone onto my bed and go over to the closet. I don’t know why I even bother to survey the contents considering all I have hanging there are my work clothes. Quickly growing irritated with it all, I grab my favorite tank top and pull it on. My bright blue bra is completely visible through the top but I could hardly care less at this point. Maybe tonight will be the night I start a new fashion trend.

I stuff a couple bills into my pocket and then leave my small apartment, locking the three deadbolts behind me. There’s a cab hanging around outside and I hop inside and tell the driver my destination.

A huge line of people is awaiting entrance into the club and I frown. There is no way I’m waiting in that line. One text and two minutes later and Trace stumbles out the door. A stupid grin covers his face when he spots me.

“Laina!” He manages to get over to me without falling on his face and gives me a sloppy hug. “C’mon!”

The bouncer lets us in with no problem, which makes me smile. Celebrity connections make everything so much easier.

“Nice bra,” Trace comments, snapping the strap of my bra that’s slid a bit down my shoulder.

I tuck the strap back under my tank top. “Thanks. I’m pretty fond of it. Do you like my fashion statement?”

He gives me a once over and rolls his eyes. “Thought I said to wear something sexy.”

I give him an innocent look. “This isn’t sexy?”

“You’re joking right? Your jeans are falling apart, you wear that top all the time, and you’re wearing damn flip flops.”

Grinning, I loop my arm with his. “You like it.”

He doesn’t comment and instead pulls me towards the VIP section of the club. When I go through the curtain separating the VIP from the rest of the club, I’m immediately met with a loud whoop.

“Laina!”

My eyes bulge a bit when two arms grab me around the waist and yank me up in the air. “Petey, you’re breaking my ribs.”

I’m dropped back to the ground and I focus my eyes on Pete’s smiling face. “Thought you were working the night shift,” I say.

“Called in sick. Is that wrong?”

I laugh and pat his stubbled cheek. “It’s typical, that’s what it is.”

He shrugs and smiles. “How’s the man?”

“Still around,” I reply. I open my mouth to say more but before I can get a word out, Trace is dragging me to a table. He pushes me down to sit and slams a shot down on the table.

“You’re about ten drinks behind the rest of us. Start drinking.”

Knowing he won’t leave me alone until I do the shot, I quickly throw it back, wincing only slightly as the liquid burns down my throat. I think I’m finally building up a tolerance to the tequila that they all insist on drinking whenever we go out.

I’m on number three from the shots simply appearing in front of me when a body slips into the chair beside me and I feel hot breath on my ear.

“You came.”

I turn my head to see Justin’s face inches away from mine. “You convinced me to not spend the night watching TV.”

“Good.” He nods towards the full shot glasses in front of me. “You can’t handle all that.”

“I know. I’m just humoring Trace.”

“Come dance with me.”

I have to steady him when he stands and bumps into the table. He’s just as far gone as Trace is. “What about-”

“Bathroom,” he says, cutting me off. “We got time.”

Before I can protest any further, his hand is gripping my arm and he’s pulling me out of VIP to the dance floor. He’s way too touchy when he’s drunk and I spend most of our time out there pushing his hands away. Who knows who’s in this club and I don’t need any stories about me in the tabloids.

I can feel eyes on me and when I look over Justin’s shoulder towards VIP, a heavy feeling settles in my stomach.

“I need to go outside,” I say into Justin’s ear and pull away from him. I push my way through the crowd and towards a back door. The fresh air filling my lungs is a complete relief. I really don’t like the stuffy atmosphere of clubs. It makes me feel like I’m suffocating.

“Hey! Alaina!”

“It’s Laina,” I say automatically as I turn to the voice. When I see Janice standing there my mood drops.

“Thought you weren’t coming tonight,” she says, walking over to me with her arms crossed over her chest.

I push away from the wall I’m leaning against. “I wasn’t going to. Justin called and convinced me.”

A sour look comes over her otherwise beautiful face. “Uh huh. And what about Wes?”

I narrow my eyes at her. “What about him?”

“Does he know you’re here?”

“Why would that even matter to you?”

She glares at me. “You know why, Alaina.”

I grit my teeth together. “It’s Laina,” I bite out.

She doesn’t respond but instead runs her eyes over me. “Did you just roll out of bed to come here? What the hell are you wearing?”

It’s one thing when Trace rags on my outfit. It’s another thing when Janice Cooper does. “I really don’t care what you think about my outfit, Janice.”

She begins to walk towards me and I don’t move from my spot. This girl does not intimidate me.

“I honestly don’t even know how you managed to land a guy like you did,” Janice says. “Must be like a pity thing.”

This is why I don’t typically hang out with girls. They’re catty. Not that I would put all girls in the same boat as Janice, but a lot of girls in this city aren’t far behind her.

“Do you really have nothing better to do than stand out here and insult me?” I ask. I try and move to the side to go around her but she steps in front of me. Now she’s just pissing me off.

“Stay away from him, Laina,” she hisses at me. “You don’t want to mess with me.”

This girl has GOT to be joking. “Get out of my way, Janice. before I move you out of my way.”

She doesn’t move and smirks at me. “You are SUCH white trash.”

My hand is flying before I can think to stop myself and makes a loud smack on her cheek. A shocked cry exits her mouth and she lunges forward, her hands reaching for my hair. I give her a shove before she can get to me but that doesn’t stop her from flying at me again. Before she gets near me, there’s the sound of a guy yelling and then suddenly we’re pulled apart.

Pete’s arm is around my chest, holding me against him but I still struggle to get to Janice who is being pulled away by Justin.

“Let me go, Pete!” I say loudly, yanking my body in the opposite direction of his. He barely budges.

“Calm it down, Laina,” he says and I take a few deep breaths, figuring I should listen. I don’t need to be arrested for assault.

I relax against him. “I’m fine,” I say and his arm loosens around me. Running my hands through my head, I let out a breath of air, feeling myself calm down a bit.

Janice, on the other hand, is anything but calm. Justin’s holding her shoulders but she’s still trying to get to me.

“Let go, Justin!” she yells, making a lunge for me. She doesn’t get far.

“Stop it, Jan,” Justin says, trying to keep a grip on her.

“That BITCH slapped me in the face!” Janice says, her voice as loud as I’ve ever heard it. “That stupid, white trash BITCH!”

“Janice!” Justin reprimands. “What the hell is the matter with you two?”

“Why’d you invite her, Justin?” Janice says, her anger turned towards him. I raise my eyebrows as I watch his expression turn confused.

“What are you talking about?”

“You called and told her to come! You knew she’d come and do this!”

“Do what? Hit you?”

“No! She’d come and do THIS. She’s trying to break us up! She wants you, Justin!”

His eyes shut tiredly as if he’s heard this a million times before. That actually wouldn’t surprise me. “Jan…”

“No!” She slaps his hands away and for a second I think she’s going to charge me but instead she just points an angry finger at Justin. “This is why you don’t stay friends with your BITCH of an ex girlfriend, Justin!” she screams at him and then stalks back towards the club. He only waits a minute before calling her name and running after her.

Damn. I really should have just stayed home in my pajamas.

Doing five more shots after my little tiff with Janice wasn’t my wisest decision and I am paying for it this morning. I’ve been popping Tylenol like it’s going out of style and I’ve drank so much water I feel like puking. My sunglasses aren’t doing much to block out the pain of the bright sun and driving probably isn’t the best idea but after everything that went down last night I can’t just sit around my apartment.

I’m nearing Justin’s house before it crosses my mind that I should call him and see if it’s okay that I come over. Sometimes I forget that I can’t just pop in whenever I feel like it like I used to. It’s hard to break old habits.

“Laina.”

I smile at the grave greeting he gives me after the third ring. “Justin,” I say, trying to make my voice as serious as his but the giggle that escapes me ruins it. “How are you?”

“I’ve been better. I feel like I got hit by a truck.”

“Are you at home?”

“I wouldn’t dare venture out into the sunlight,” he replies.

“I’m coming over.” I pause at the silence on the other end of the line. “Is that okay?”

“You’re already almost here, aren’t you?”

I really do sometimes think he’s psychic. Either that or he just knows me way too well. “Yeah. Open the gate.”

He utters a short, “Fine,” and then hangs up the phone. He’s never been one to draw out a conversation on the phone.

The gate to the house is wide open and I don’t cut my speed going through. My car makes a strange noise when I slam on the breaks to avoid hitting the garage door and I wince a bit. I should be gentler with it considering how old it is. My biggest fear is one day I’m going to be in the middle of the freeway and my car will break down.

I test the front door and have to ring the doorbell when I find it locked. I used to have a key to his house but he asked for it back a month ago. I have a sneaking suspicion that Janice made him get it back. He had never seemed to care before that that we were broken up and I still had his key.

The lock is disengaged and I open the door and am met with the back of Justin’s body as he walks further into his house. I kick off my flip flops and take a minute to greet his dog before walking in the direction he disappeared to. I find him in the den. The lights are all off and only a few rays of sunlight are coming in through the drawn blinds. Justin’s sprawled out on the couch, one leg dangling off the edge onto the floor.

“Why’re you here?” he mumbles when I sit down on the coffee table in front of him.

Deciding we’re at a safe level of lighting, I move my sunglasses onto the top of my head, pushing my hair back with them. “I came to talk about last night.”

He lifts the arm covering his eyes to look at me briefly before laying it back down. “You mean about how you slapped my girlfriend?”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, about that.”

He says nothing and I realize that I’m going to have to be the instigator of this conversation.

“It’s not like I meant to hit her,” I start. “But she was standing there tearing me apart. She called me white trash!”

A groan escapes him. “Why do you care what she thinks of you?”

“I don’t.” Okay, maybe the tiniest part of me cares but I’d never admit that. “She was provoking me though. It’s not like I just attacked her. She freaking had it coming.”

Justin’s mouth twitches a bit and I know he’s trying to hold back a smile. I almost thought it was going to break out but he managed to contain it and put his lips back in a straight line.

“You got out of hand last night.”

I let out a frustrated breath of air. “Maybe a little but she provoked me.”

He drops his arm to his side and pulls himself up to a sitting position. He drops his head and rubs his hands over the back of his neck.

“Why can’t you guys just get along?” he mutters, sounding completely exhausted.

“Hey, I never had a problem with her before that day she told me my dog smelled like vomit,” I say, defending myself.

He doesn’t look up. “Your dog DOES smell like vomit.”

“He’s old! Give him a break. Besides, when you’ve known a person for one week, that’s really not something you should say. You know as well as I do that she’s always hated me. From the very first moment you introduced me as your ‘ex girlfriend’.”

He finally lifts his head to glance at me. “She just has trouble understanding how we’re still friends after breaking up.”

“What’s so hard to understand? It’s called being a grown up.”

He sighs. “She just doesn’t get it, okay? I’ve tried explaining it to her over and over but she still thinks you have some kind of ulterior motive.”

I arch an eyebrow and cross my arms over my chest. “Well that’s a problem on her part.”

He simply shrugs.

“And has she failed to notice that I have a boyfriend?” I ask. “So apparently not only am I white trash but I’m a cheater too?”

He stands up and walks across the room. “Shit, Laina. Give it up.”

Rolling my eyes, I transfer myself onto the now vacant spot on the couch. “I’ve decided that I’m going to be the bigger person and apologize for last night. The lack of phone calls from Janice makes me think that she’s not going to take that first step.”

“Well you’re the one who hit her not the other way around.”

“For all this fuss did I at least leave a mark?” As soon as the words are out of my mouth I regret them. THINK before you talk, Laina. Seriously! “Sorry, I take that back.”

It’s quiet for too long and I open an eye to see that I’m alone in the room. Figures. Pissing Justin off never leads to heartwarming conversations. He’ll just storm off and sulk it out for an hour.

Feeling like I haven’t officially overstayed my welcome yet, I sink deeper into the leather cushions of the couch and shut my eyes. I’m just drifting off to sleep when my foot is poked.

“Laina, Babydoll.”

Every time I see Trace he has a new term of endearment for me. It’s usually cute until he gets creative and starts making them particularly vulgar.

“Still sleeping it off?”

I roll onto my back and stare up at him. “No. I pissed off Justin so I’m letting him have his half hour time out.”

“I didn’t even see him on my way in.”

Is it wrong that I’m jealous that Trace has a key to the house when I don’t? “Hmm.”

“How’d you piss him off? Wait, let me guess. It was about you putting Janice in her place.”

That makes me smile. Trace has more tolerance for Justin’s girlfriend than I do but not by much. I like to think that I am Trace’s favorite ex girlfriend of Justin. He’s always seemed to be pretty fond of me.

“Maybe.”

He grabs my hand and gives it a yank, pulling me up from the couch. “She had it coming. I only wish I had been there to see it.”

“You were too busy macking on that girl all night to notice much of anything.”

He gives a sheepish grin and shrugs. “Well she was hot.”

“Besides, it was hardly anything. Justin and Pete came out right after I slapped her and that was the end of it.”

Trace starts laughing. “You should have seen Janice after that. She was screaming her head off about it until Justin agreed to leave with her. Funniest shit ever.”

I smile a bit and shake my head. “Sorry I missed that.” I stretch my arms over my head, stepping back when Trace pokes me in the stomach. “Think I can take a shower? I feel gross.”

He shrugs. “Not my house. Go for it.”

Trace’s permission is all I need and fifteen minutes later, I’m stepping out of the shower in a bathroom on the main floor and wrapping a towel around myself. I dry myself off and put my clothes back on and then exit the bathroom, towel drying my hair on my way upstairs.

The door to Justin’s room is closed and I knock once before cautiously turning the door handle and push the door open a bit. “Can I come in?”

“You pretty much already are.”

I smile and step fully into the room. Justin’s lying on his bed, watching TV on the large plasma screen mounted on the wall. His eyes go from me back to the TV but then finally focus on me.

“Did you just shower here?”

Can’t really lie about it when my hair is still dripping. “Downstairs.”

He shakes his head and then turns his eyes back to the TV. “You really shouldn’t be doing that.”

I drop the towel on the floor and sit down on the corner of the bed, leaning back against one of the bed frame posts. “Then tell me to not do it again.”

He doesn’t but instead just sighs. I pick at the edge of my frayed jeans and for a minute the only sound in the room is coming from the TV. I finally look up at him.

“I do feel bad for slapping Janice,” I say.

He doesn’t look away from the TV but I know he’s listening so I continue.

“I’m going to call and apologize.”

He looks at me when I say those words. “Why don’t you just let me tell her. She might not take too kindly to hearing your voice at this point.”

I shrug. “Okay. Just tell her I’m sorry for hitting her. And maybe mention that I thought she looked very pretty last night.”

The corner of Justin’s mouth turns up into a half smile. “Besides the red handprint on her face?”

My eyes widen a bit. “Oh…oops?”

He shakes his head and a small chuckle comes out that I know he tried to suppress. It makes me grin. He can only be serious for too long and he’s never been able to stay mad at me. That’s probably one of the only reasons we stayed together as long as we did.

“Don’t you dare ever tell anyone I said this but she probably did kind of deserve it just a little bit.”

My smile widens and I give a satisfied nod. Justin’s not a complete idiot. He knows that Janice can be a bitch.

“Either way I still feel bad.”

Justin shuts off the television and focuses his eyes on me. “I don’t think you’re white trash, by the way.”

I begin to laugh and it’s a minute before I can respond. “You’re not one to date a girl who is white trash so I wasn’t too worried.”

An easy smile comes over his face and he leans back against the headboard and simply stares at me for a moment. It used to make me uncomfortable when he did this but I’ve gotten used to it.

“Ever think that maybe if the planets lined up in just the right order us dating again would work?”

My first reaction is to be shocked at his words but seeing the playful glint in his eye, I merely return his smile with a smirk of my own.

“Maybe one day, J-star.”

“Scrambled or sunny side up, Justin?”

“Uhhh…scrambled,” I say distractedly as Janice’s words pull me away from the newspaper I’m trying to read. I’ve only gotten halfway through the front page story because every two sentences, she’s talking. Honestly, there’s something to be said for quiet in the morning.

“Do you want me to put some cheese in or anything? I could make you an omelet if you want.”

I pull my head up so I’m looking into her questioning eyes. I give her a smile. “Seriously, just scrambled eggs is perfect. I don’t need anything special.”

Her lips turn up and she turns back to the stove. “If you say so.”

Silence falls back between us and my eyes return to the newspaper. I’ve only taken in one sentence when the front door slams, making me jump. A groan escapes Janice and I glance up and wait as footsteps approach the room. Trace appears a minute later and with a sigh, I push the newspaper aside. I guess I’m just not meant to get caught up on current events today.

“What’s the game plan for today, dude?” Trace asks, pulling out a chair from the table. I wince a bit as the chair scrapes against the wood. People have no respect for my house.

“We’re supposed to meet up with Pete at eleven at the course so we gotta leave in half and hour.”

“Are you going to be golfing the entire day?” Janice asks, dropping my plate of eggs in front of me.

“Just a few hours.” I pick up my fork and test the eggs. Not bad. A little runny, but not bad.

“I thought we were going to spend all day together.”

I ignore Trace when he rolls his eyes. He tolerance of Janice seems to have dropped recently. “I’ll be back before supper. We’re going to that Italian place.”

Janice smiles and her foot touches mine underneath the table. “Oh yeah.”

“I called up Wes but he was busy so he’s not coming.”

I stop shoveling eggs into my mouth at Trace’s words. “Wes?”

“Yeah. He’s gotta work today though.”

“I thought Wes didn’t like you,” Janice says to me.

“Uh…we just aren’t friends.”

“So why are you inviting him, Trace?”

Trace completely ignores Janice and instead turns to me. “I think Laina and Wes are going to break up soon.”

I put my fork down and push my empty plate away from me. “How do you figure that?”

He shrugs. “Ever thought about how their names just don’t sound good together? Laina and Wes, Wes and Laina. No matter which way you say them it just sounds off. That means their relationship is doomed.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Janice says with a giggle, nudging me in the side.

“That is kind of out there, Trace,” I agree. “You can’t judge the future of a couple’s relationship with how their names sound together.”

“Of course Justin and Janice sound pretty good together,” Janice says, nudging my side.

I look over at her smiling eyes and the corner of my mouth turns up. “Sounds good to me.”

She giggles again and then takes a sip of her coffee. I look away from her to find Trace staring at us blankly. After a second, he shakes his head and then pulls the newspaper closer to him and flips it open.

“Got any eggs for me, Janice?” he asks.

She rolls her eyes. “I didn’t make you any considering you don’t live here,” she says, pushing back her chair. She grabs my empty plate and takes it over to the sink.

“You know who makes great omelets? Laina.”

A groan rises in me at Trace’s words and I don’t have to look at Janice to know that she’s glaring at him. “Who cares, Trace,” I say.

He shrugs. “I’m just saying.”

“Well don’t,” Janice snaps and I hear the clatter of the dishes as she drops them in the sink. Trace needs to shut up or I’m going to be out some dishes.

I pick up my coffee cup and rest the rim of it against my lips but make no move to drink any of it. I can’t handle the coffee Janice makes. She waters it down and I’ve always figured that if you’re going to make coffee, make it as strong as you can handle. Laina knows how to make a good cup of coffee. Her coffee kicks me right into gear. I could really use a cup of that right about now.

“Can I have a credit card, Justin? I want to get something new to wear tonight.”

Janice cuts into my thought almost as if she knew I was thinking about Laina. I blink at her before nodding.

“Yeah.” I lean back in my chair so I can pull my wallet from my pocket and flip it open. Janice kisses my cheek as she takes the card from my hand and slips it into her pocket.

“Thanks, Baby.”

Trace waits until she’s left the room and gone upstairs before looking at me and speaking. “That girl is going to take you for all your money.”

I roll my eyes and take the newspaper from him and pull it back in front of me. “I’m not an idiot. I gave her the card with the low limit. She can’t do too much damage with it.”

Trace shakes his head. “You just let her spend your money, man. I don’t get it.”

“She doesn’t just spend my money,” I say defensively. “I don’t mind paying for stuff for her. It’s worth it.”

“You make it seem like it’s just a fancy way of you paying her for sex.”

“Shit, Trace,” I breathe out. Janice is RIGHT upstairs and could very easily hear him. “Don’t be an ass. You know it’s not like that.”

He laughs at the fact that he got me a bit riled up and leans back in his chair. “Yeah, yeah. I know you just like to take care of your woman. That’s why you and Laina never worked out.”

He’s dead on with that statement. “Janice isn’t whoring herself out for my credit card.”

Trace gives a quick roll of his eyes and he waves me off. “I was kidding. Lighten up.” He gets up from the table and goes to pour himself a cup of coffee. He barely has a sip in his mouth before he’s spitting it into the sink. “What the hell is this shit? How are you drinking this?”

I push my cup away from me. “I’m not. It’s too weak for me.”

Trace dumps the remaining coffee into the sink. “Let’s go now and stop at Starbucks on the way. I gotta have a decent cup of coffee.”

I push my chair back. “I’m all for that. You buying?”

Trace raises an eyebrow and snorts. “I better since your girl is cleaning you out.”

I give him a shove, hard enough to make him stumble ahead of me. “Shut the hell up, man.”

* * *

After spending four hours golfing in the hot sun, there’s nothing I want to do more than go home and shower. I manage to get all the way upstairs and into the shower before Janice’s voice cuts into the sweet massage the water’s giving my body.

“Justin?”

“What?” I ask over the sound of the water.

“Did you make reservations?”

“Yeah.”

She says something else which I can’t hear her. I open the door of the shower and poke my head out. “What?”

She leans her hip against the doorframe. “Did you call and confirm the reservations?”

I wipe my hand over my wet face. “No.”

She gives me a look. “You should have. I don’t want to get there and find something went wrong with it.”

I give her a reassuring smile. “Nothing will. Don’t worry about it.”

“I wish you had called,” she says, coming further into the bathroom. She wipes the condensation from the mirror and stares at her reflection in the mirror. Figuring the conversation is over, I close the shower door again and continue with my shower. By time I turn off the water, Janice is gone from the bathroom. Her hair products are scattered all over the counter and I push them to the side so I can pull out my own stuff. Sometimes Janice kind of over takes my house but I guess I’m not exactly complaining. Not yet at least.

I do everything I need to get ready and then go into my room to change. Janice goes to push past me into the bathroom and I stop her before she can slide past me. She’s got on this red dress that’s hugging all her curves and my arms slip easily around her.

“Did you buy that today?” I ask, sliding my hands down to her hips.

She smiles. “Do you like it?”

I give her hips a tug and bring her close to me. “You look gorgeous,” I mumble, lowering my mouth down to kiss her exposed collarbone. She giggles and gives me a little push.

“You need to get dressed,” she says, pulling away from me. She gives me a pat on the chest and then moves past me into the bathroom. Shaking my head, I go into my closet and grab some clothes to wear.

My stomach grumbles as I pull on my pants. I am really looking forward to some good food tonight. Janice has been cooking dinner for me every night for the past couple weeks and I don’t think I can take anymore of her health food shit. Every time I suggest ordering pizza or getting some fast food she dismisses the idea and pulls out some tofu or shit like that. Tonight I’m going to load up on all the pasta, meat, and bread I can fit into my stomach. And dessert is not out of the question.

I really need to get Janice off her health food kick so she’ll just relax and eat some junk with me. She’s so concerned with her body and she really doesn’t need to be. She’s got a great figure and a pig out of pizza and beer isn’t going to change that.

Come to think of it though, I’ve only ever gone out with one girl who hasn’t obsessed with her body. Laina was-

“Are you almost ready?”

Damn. It’s like she knows whenever I’m thinking of her proclaimed arch enemy. She can probably read it all over my face. “Just give me a minute in the bathroom.”

I stand up from the bed and Janice’s face falls a bit as her eyes scan over me. “Would you mind changing?”

I look down at my clothes. “Why?”

“Your tie’s pink, Justin. My dress is red. We’ll clash.”

A laugh escapes me. “We’re not going to the damn prom, Jan.”

She gives me a look and a small pout. “Please? Wear that tie with the red dots on it. It’ll match perfectly.”

It’s freaky that she knows my closet better than I do. The fact that I’m hungry is making a little irritated and the stubborn part of me wants to just refuse. But she’s giving me this hopeful look and I don’t want to start a fight with her so I give in.

“Yeah, fine.”

She goes up on her toes and gives me a quick peck on the cheek. “Thanks, Baby.”

Concealing a small sigh, I pull my tie from my neck and go over to the closet. Sometimes having a high maintenance girlfriend is a little much. But I guess that’s what I stated that I was after so not one complaint is going to come from my mouth. Well…at least not when anyone is around to hear.

Kidding. Wes is great. He’s an only child and I’ve decided that he just never had to share things like bedcovers. When you grow up with two sisters and you have to share a queen size motel bed with both of them when you go family vacations, you learn how to share blankets pretty quick. Or at least learn to loosen your grip on the blankets and let your bedmates have a bit of covers when your dad yells at you to stop fighting and go to sleep.

There’s no point fighting him for the covers. Once he’s in a really deep sleep, I’ll weasel them away from him. Until then there’s no point laying here and getting frustrated.

I swing my feet onto the ground, the floor creaking when I put my weight on it. Wes lives in this great Victorian house that’s old and romantic but it sucks when you’re trying to move around in the middle of the night and be quiet. Wes can sleep through anything but the people living in the suite below him are probably staring up at their ceiling and cursing me as I move through the apartment.

I grab a glass of water from the kitchen before moving into the living room. I go to the large windows that overlook the street and pull back the curtains so I can stare out them. It may be almost two in the morning, but there’s still some life on the residential street and I’m kept entertained as I watch two teenager boys sneaking a cigarette across the street. They soon finish and move inside and I’m left staring outside, only the occasional car driving by every few minutes.

I always get some insomnia when I sleep over at Wes’. It’s probably because the house is always so quiet and I’m used to the sound of sirens on the street and people arguing in the apartment above mine. I don’t even realize how comforting those sounds are until I’m away from them. Here, everything is just too quiet. Even Wes. He doesn’t snore or even breathe heavy when he sleeps and it’s just this silence surrounding me and I can’t take it. When it’s that quiet my mind won’t rest and most of my night will be spent staring at the ceiling and thinking.

I don’t even know why I agreed to sleep here tonight. I have to be at work in five hours and my apartment is so much closer to the prison than Wes’ suite. There almost isn’t any point to sleeping now.

The creaking of the floors gives away that I’m no longer alone and I turn my head to see Wes shuffling into the room, running a hand over his slightly unruly hair. I meet his eyes as he comes towards me.

“What are you doing out here?” he asks quietly.

I turn back to look out the window. “Couldn’t sleep.”

He comes up to stand behind me and his hands run up and down my arms. “Why?”

I smile a bit. “Cause you’re a blanket hog.”

He breathes out a laugh and squeezes my upper arms. “I told you to just kick me if I take them from you.”

“I know. I’m just too nice to do that though.”

His hands leave me and then his arms wrap around my stomach. “Anything interesting happening out there?” he asks.

“Nope. Pretty boring.”

He rests his chin on the top of my head and I can hear him sigh.

“Why did you wake up?” I ask, leaning back against him slightly. “You usually sleep through anything.”

“I just woke up,” he says. “Probably would have gone back to sleep but then I saw that you weren’t there and I was wondering where you had gone. Are you going to come back to bed?”

He’s dropped his arms from around me and is now tugging on my hand. I’m still not tired but I know that he’ll be bothered if I stay out here. He gets too concerned about me sometimes. “Yeah.”

I let him pull me back towards his bedroom. I crawl back into the still warm bed and curl up on my side as he goes to the other side and gets in. He arranges the blankets so they’re evenly spread across the bed again.

“There. If I pull them off you again seriously just kick me and take them back,” he says.

I nod. “Okay.”

He kisses me and then lays down on his side. Only ten minutes pass before he’s back asleep and has pulled the covers off me for the second time. I briefly consider giving his leg a kick like he told me to do but it really won’t help matters. Wes is a blanket hog and will always be one I’m sure.

I wait for twenty minutes to go by before getting out of bed again. Wes seemed exhausted and I’m sure he won’t wake up again if I leave. Laying in bed when you’ve got insomnia is only frustrating and I’d much rather go back to looking out the window.

* * *

“Laina, pumpkin, pick up your phone.”

It’s like de ja vu as I sit on my couch and listen to the message playing over my machine. The phone’s in my hand but when I saw Trace’s cell number on the caller display, I immediately knew he was going to try and get me to go out somewhere and it would be easier to not pick up than to refuse the invitation.

“Laina, it’s six and I know you’re home. You’re probably sitting on your couch and screening your calls like you always do and I must say I’m hurt that you don’t want to talk to me.”

A small smile comes to my lips and I turn the phone over in my hands.

“Pick up…come on, Laina. We’re going to get something to eat.” He pauses for one moment before, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…”

Trace is smart. He knows that I can’t handle listening to his off key warbled voice attempting to ruin one of my favorite songs. I quickly pick up the phone.

“Stop.”

The song is quickly replaced by his laughter. “I knew you were sitting there listening. So what are your plans for tonight?”

“Having a bath and going to bed,” I reply, sinking further in the couch.

“Don’t be such a loser. Come out with us instead.”

I sigh and shut my eyes. “I’ve had a really long day, Trace.”

“All your days are long. That’s why you need to come out with us and relax. Take a load off.”

“Trace…” I trail off and there’s the sound of muffled male voices and then Justin comes over the line.

“Lainey, we’re almost at your place. Come out with us.”

“I won’t be good company. I’m tired.”

“We haven’t hung out with you for a while and we miss you. We’ll pick you up a coffee before we get there and you’ll be good to go. You don’t even have to work tomorrow.”

I sigh again and rub my eyes. “How far away are you?”

He knows he has me when I say those words and I can hear the smile in his voice as he responds. “Five minutes but we’ll be ten cause we’re gonna get you a big cup of coffee.”

I smile a bit at that. I guess I could use some coffee. “Okay. I just have to change.”

Justin relays the message and there’s a mumbled reply from Trace. “Trace says to wear something sexy,” Justin says.

I laugh and shake my head. “I’ll try to look my sexiest.”

“We’ll see you in a few.”

I hang up the phone and then proceed to sit there for another couple minutes before dragging myself up and to my room. I change out of my work clothes and into a pair of jeans and t shirt, immediately feeling a little better to be in comfortable clothes. Spending all day in black dress pants and a button up shirt kills me.

I pull the hair elastic from the bun I had twisted my wet hair into this morning and let it fall in waves around my shoulders. It’s a bit unruly and I consider pulling it back into a ponytail but it feels so good to have it down after having it pulled back all day that I quickly disregard that idea.

Justin’s black Escalade is sitting outside my apartment building when I walk out the main door. As soon as I open the back door and climb in, a cup of coffee is passed in my direction. I take it from Trace and raise it to my lips. Once I’ve taken a large sip, I utter a, “Thanks.”

“That’s the sexiest you could muster?” Trace asks, his eyes running over my body.

I do up my seatbelt and give him a small smirk. “You haven’t seen what I have on underneath this.”

Justin looks back at me from the driver’s seat and smiles. “You’re so coquettish, Lainey.”

I’m convinced he uses bigger words than necessary to make himself seem smarter than he actually is. I don’t humor him. “Uh huh. Where are we going?”

“Chi.”

“We go there all the time,” I whine, slumping into the seat. “We just go there cause you don’t have to pay.”

Justin’s eyes look at me from the rearview mirror. “Are you saying Chi isn’t good?”

He doesn’t sound offended probably because he knows that I’m tired and in a bit of a bad mood so I’m just bitching for the hell of it. “We never go get Mexican.”

Justin laughs. “Whenever you eat Mexican you’re sick for hours after. Why do you torture yourself just for a bit of food?”

“Because Mexican food is amazing,” I say with a smile and then move my eyes to stare out the window at the passing scenery. I have my coffee finished by time we pull up to the front of the restaurant and the caffeine is serving its purpose to perk me up slightly. As we walk into the restaurant, Trace hangs back with me a bit.

“You’re so quiet,” he comments. “You actually did have a long day. I thought you were just saying that.”

I shake my head. “Long day.”

“What happened?”

“I’m counseling this kid, Tyler, and he’s just really tough to deal with.”

“What’s he in there for?”

“Assault. He’s got major anger issues and it feels like there’s nothing I can say to him that he wants to hear. He’s just such an angry kid.”

Trace puts his arm around my shoulders and pulls me against his side. “You’ll get through to him, I’m sure. You always do.”

I sigh and nod. “I hope so.”

“And you’ve got the weekend off so you need to just forget about work and concentrate on having fun.”

It’s easy for Trace to say that but I can’t always just shut my brain off that easily. I’m probably going to end up laying awake in bed all night going over the events of the day. “I’ll try.”

“I’m so glad you came out,” he says as we follow Justin through the restaurant. “Justin hasn’t hung out with you for over a week and you know how he gets.”

I can’t help but smile at that. Justin has this tendency to let his ego get out of control and Trace always says that I need to be around cause I deflate it for him. I don’t know, I just treat him like I treat everyone else, which I guess works. Trace says it’s been worse ever since Janice has been around because she apparently strokes his ego to monstrous sizes. Like he needs the help.

We stop at a table in the back of the restaurant and I slip into my seat and half listen to Justin and Trace as they talk. I don’t involve myself until I realize that Justin’s ordering for me. I stop him mid sentence.

“I’ll actually have this,” I say, pointing to some random item on the menu.

Justin shuts his mouth until the waitress is gone. Then, “You always get the almond chicken,” he says.

“And I was planning to until you decided you had the right to order for me,” I reply, raising my eyebrows at him.

Justin rolls his eyes but Trace laughs and gives my arm a squeeze.

“So glad you came, Laina,” he says.

I’m just getting out of my car when Trace stalks out of my house, slamming the front door behind him.

“Hey,” I say, shutting my car door. I take in the pissed off look on his face. “What’s up?”

“You know what Janice just said to me?” Trace asks me, his eyes dark with anger.

Oh no. Do I want to know what Janice said to him? “Uh, what?”

“She said I should think about losing some weight.”

Shit. “She probably-”

Trace cuts me off before I can go any further. “Forget it. I’m leaving.” He starts towards his car and reaches it before turning back to me. “She’s got a lot of nerve, Justin,” he says and then gets in and slams the door behind him.

I rub my temples with my fingers as he drives away and take a few deep breaths to clear my head before heading into the house.

“Janice?”

“Kitchen!”

I walk through the house to the kitchen. I stop in the doorway and lean my shoulder against the doorframe. Janice is sitting at the table, looking through a cookbook. She looks up at me and smiles.

“Hi.”

“What did you say to Trace?”

Her smile fades a notch and her eyes examine me. “From the look on your face I’d say he already told you.”

I fold my arms over my chest. “I want to hear you say it.”

She sighs and pushes back her chair. She doesn’t say anything as she stands and goes over to the sink to put her glass in. Finally, she turns to face me. “I said he could stand to lose ten pounds.”

“Why the hell would you say something like that?”

“Because I came in here and he’s pigging out on pizza and it’s eleven in the morning. Come on, Justin. He’s got a bit of a beer belly. I’m just looking out for his well being.”

Something’s telling me that’s not entirely true. “Give me a break, Janice. Trace is perfectly healthy and even if he wasn’t it’s not your place to tell him to lose weight. That was a rude and inconsiderate to say.”

A frown settles on her lips. “I wasn’t trying to be rude.”

“Yeah well I don’t think you were trying to be kind either.”

Her mouth goes from a frown to a pout and she walks over to me. “Don’t be mad at me, Justin,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

I don’t budge from my position as she slides her arms around my stomach. “You need to stop being rude to my friends. It’s really starting to piss me off.”

She laughs slightly. “Justin, it was one comment and I said I was sorry.”

“I want you to call Trace and tell him you’re sorry.”

I don’t miss the quick roll of her eyes. “Why? I’m sure he’s over it by now.”

“Call him.” I push her arms away from me. “Don’t bother talking to me until you do.”

She starts to protest but I’m already walking out of the kitchen. I don’t slow my pace until I’m upstairs in my bedroom. I lie down on my bed and put on my ipod. As music starts in my ear, I stare up at the ceiling.

Janice has this mean streak and although I’ve never directly experienced it, I know Trace and Laina have and that’s not cool with me. No one treats my friends like that, let alone my girlfriend. I’m not going to lose my friends because my girlfriend is a bitch to them.

I shut my eyes tightly. Lately I’m just not sure about the future of me and Janice. She’s exactly what I said I was looking for in a girlfriend but now that I have it, it’s kind of lost its appeal. She can be a little too high maintenance, even for me.

The bed dips under new weight and I open my eyes to see Janice. She moves into the middle of the bed where I am and curls against my side. I pull my headphones from my ears.

“Did you call Trace?” I ask.

She nods, one of her hands coming up to play with the hem of my shirt. “I told him I was sorry and I shouldn’t have said he needed to lose weight.”

I shut my eyes again. “Good.”

It’s silent for a moment and I feel her hand on the side of my face. I open my eyes again to look at her. She’s staring at me with sorrowful eyes.

“Don’t be mad at me, Justin.”

“You need to start thinking before you say things.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

I examine her eyes for a minute. I know I shouldn’t let it go too easily since she did offend my best friend but she does seem sorry and the slight quiver to her chin is starting to make me feel bad. After a minute I finally nod. “Okay.”

Her sad expression is replaced by a smile and she pulls herself up to lean over me. Her lips brush over mine and after a second I start to return her kiss. She said she was sorry and I’m going to leave it at that.

My shirt is pulled from my body before I know what’s happening and with half open eyes, I watch as she begins to kiss from my stomach to my chest. She pauses at my collarbone.

“I found a new recipe for vegetarian lasagna I’m going to make tonight,” she mumbles against my skin.

Shit, why are we talking about this now? “Uh huh,” I reply, trying to pull her back up to me.

Her lips trail from my shoulder to my neck. “I was thinking of going shopping before I make it though. Will you come with me?”

“Yeah, fine, whatever,” I say, desperate to end the conversation and finish what she started.

She begins to say something but before much can come out of her mouth, I cover it with mine and flip us over so I’m on top. She smiles up at me and loops her arms around my neck.

“Does this mean I’m forgiven?” she asks.

I lower my head to her neck and begin to kiss her soft skin. “Yep,” I mumble, hoping this will be the end of the talking for a while.

* * *

“Hey, man. Where you at?”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line before Trace responds. “Laina’s.”

“I’m gonna come over.”

“Janice with you?”

“No. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” Not giving him a chance to protest, I hang up the phone and drop it on my lap. Knowing him, he’s probably still a bit pissed with the whole Janice thing and may not want anything to do with me or her for at least a couple days. He’s gonna have to suck it up though. I’m bored and want to hang out.

I’m careful to grab all my stuff and set my car alarm when I park outside Laina’s apartment building. She lives in one of the sketchiest parts of LA and I’m always paranoid leaving my car there. I know she doesn’t make a lot of money, but she could probably afford to live in a slightly safer neighborhood. I couldn’t believe it when she first brought me to this place and showed me how she has six deadlock bolts on her door but only locks three so if someone were to try and break in, they wouldn’t know which were locked and which weren’t. Needless to say, when we were together, I almost always made sure we stayed at my house and not here.

Her apartment was actually the breaking point for our relationship. One day I told her I wanted to buy her a condo so she would be out of this neighborhood. The next day she called me and told me it would probably be best if we broke up and after a long talk I agreed with her. She hated depending on other people and I like having people depend on me. It was bound for disaster and it was best to just end it before things got nasty. It was the healthiest breakup I’ve ever had.

The apartment door isn’t even locked when I test the door and I shake my head as I open it. It’s like she doesn’t even value her safety.

I make sure to lock the door behind me and then step out of my shoes. I only have to take a few steps through the tiny apartment until I’m in the living room where the TV is playing.

Trace and Laina are laying on opposite sides of the ratty couch, their legs tangled in the middle and neither look away from the TV when I enter the room. The best greeting I get is from Horace, Laina’s boxer, whose tail thumps on the ground when he sees me. I squat down to pet him, cringing a bit at the stink coming from him. Laina really needs to get him in a bath.

“What are you guys watching?” I ask, sitting on the only other available spot, a large floral beanbag chair. My knees are practically touching my chin and I shift a bit, trying to get somewhat comfortable.

“It’s a weight loss show,” Trace says. “Laina and I both figure we could stand to lose some weight.”

He’s being good natured about it so I play along. “That’s what I hear.”

Laina gestures to the TV. “We’re just getting some tips to start us off.”

I shake my head a bit. “She did actually call and apologize, right? She didn’t just tell me that?”

“Oh, she called,” Trace says. “Said she was sorry and thought I’d like the advice.”

“I have yet to meet a person who wants to hear any advice involving their weight,” Laina says, stretching her arms over her head. “I guess when you’re a size zero you don’t get that though.”

I don’t comment. The issue of weight is not something I want to get into. I’ve had enough drama for the day. “What are you actually watching?”

“Animal planet,” Laina says. “Horace wanted to watch it.”

My eyes move to the dog, who has taken particular interest in me since I’m practically sitting on the floor. “He doesn’t seem interested.”

“That’s because it’s on commercials. Just wait until the segment about the pigeons comes on.”

I shift in the beanbag chair again. “Uh huh.”

“So where is she?” Trace asks, his eyes on the TV.

“Shopping. I was supposed to go but it didn’t sound too appealing.”

“Doesn’t she ever work? It’s four on a Wednesday afternoon.”

“She quit.”

Trace’s eyes move to me at those words. “She quit,” he repeats.

“Yeah. She quit her job at the real estate agency because she wants to pursue a career in interior design.” I don’t miss the look Laina and Trace share. “What?”

“Does she know anything about interior design?” Trace finally asks.

“How the hell would I know? It’s what she wants to do so she’s going to do it.” I’m sick of talking about Janice so I turn the conversation around on them. “Speaking of it being four on a Wednesday afternoon, why aren’t you at work, Lainey?”

She doesn’t lift her head from here its laying on the couch armrest. “One of the kids I’m working with got his court date moved up to today so it got canceled.”

“So you get the rest of the day off?” I ask. “Sweet deal.”

She nods and turns her attention back to the TV. I sigh and stretch my legs out in front of me. At my movement Horace gets up and comes over to me, pushing his face in my lap. I cringe a bit and push him.

“Horace, get off me,” I say. “You stink.”

Laina throws a pillow at me and turns on the couch to look in my direction. “Be nice. He smells like flowers.”

“I don’t know what kind of flowers you’re getting, Lainey, but he does NOT smell like flowers. You need to hose him down or something.”

She watches me for a second and then smiles. “He only smells cause he threw up this morning and then ate it.”

I jerk my hand away his face. “Shit!” I say and struggle to get out of the bean bag chair. After a few unsuccessful attempts, I’m up and I leave a laughing Trace and Laina and go to the bathroom to wash my hands.

“He got his stench on my shirt!” I say, coming out of the bathroom. “I can still smell it all over me.”

Laina stretches out her legs. “Oh come on.”

“Seriously! It’s disgusting. Do you have something I can change into?”

She stares at me for a second before nodding. “Yeah. I still have some of your old shirts here.” She jumps up from the couch. “Come on.”

I follow her into her bedroom and sit down on the edge of her bed. I watch as she opens her bottom dresser drawer and starts to rifle through it.

“Whatcha doing keeping some of my clothes, Lainey?” I ask. “Keeping them around so on the lonely nights you can wrap yourself in them and pretend I’m here with you?”

She doesn’t look back at me but I know she’s rolling her eyes. “Exactly that, J-star.” She straightens and tosses me a t shit I’ve been looking everywhere for. “Here.”

“Thanks.” I get up and pull off my shirt. I throw it to her, hitting her in the chin. “Be a doll and wash that for me, would you?”

She gives me a scathing look and kicks it back towards me. “You sure know how to charm a woman, don’t you, Justin.”

I shrug and shake out the shirt. “Hey, I got you, didn’t I?”

“Briefly.”

“I wouldn’t call eleven months brief,” I reply.

She shakes her head. “Those are some nice scratches there.”

My head jerks down and some embarrassment spreads through me when I see a couple scratches on my upper chest that Janice left. I don’t know why but I really don’t want her to know about my sex life. “Stop staring at my body, Lainey,” I say, covering up any embarrassment with an easy tone. “I know I’m irresistible but try to control yourself.”

She rolls her eyes and leans down to pick up my dirty shirt. “Do you actually need me to wash this?”

I laugh and take it from her. “I was kidding. Just give me a plastic bag to put it in so it doesn’t infect my car.”

“Insulting the smell of my dog is no way to get on my good side,” she says, turning to walk out her door. I catch up to her and throw my arm around her shoulders.

“I’ve never been on your bad side, Lainey. Who are you kidding.”

She opens her mouth to respond but is cut off by my phone ringing. I drop my arm from her shoulders and dig in my pocket for my cell. When I see Janice’s name on the caller ID, I put a bit of distance between Laina and I.

“Hey.”

“Hi. I’m done buying everything and I took a cab to my house. When do you want me come over and make dinner?”

I stifle a sigh. The last thing I want to be eating tonight is vegetarian lasagna. Especially after I heard Trace and Laina talking about ordering Mexican. “Uh…I think I’m gonna pass out on that tonight.”

“Why?”

Ugh, her voice is whiney. I hate whininess. “Because I’m with Trace and I want to hang out with him. We spent all afternoon together.”

“You said you wanted the lasagna though.”

I’m pretty sure I never said that but I don’t want to sit here and argue about it. “Tomorrow.”

There’s a long pause and then a sigh. “Fine.”

“Great. Talk to you later.”

“Bye.”

When I end the call, I look up to find both Trace and Laina staring at me.

“So invited yourself to dinner, did you?” Laina asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Vegetarian lasagna,” I say in response. “I can’t do it. Don’t make me suffer through vegetarian lasagna.”

Her face softens into a smile. “I’m not that cruel. But you’re buying.”

I smile throw her my wallet. “Order away.”

“Excuse me, Ma’am. I’m going to need to see some ID.”

Heaving a sigh, I turn and give Pete a look. “You’re not as funny as you think you are.”

He grins and falls into step beside me. “Yeah I am. What are you doing for lunch? I’m assuming that’s where you’re going.”

“I’m going to eat outside. Are you on your break?”

“Sure am. Allow me to accompany you.”

I smile and allow him to link his arm in mine. “Why thank you, kind sir.”

“So anything exciting happen this morning?” I ask as we walk outside.

Pete shrugs and steers me in the direction of a picnic table. “Couple kids got into a fight but what else is new in juvi. One of them was that kid Tyler you’re working with.”

I groan a bit and drop my things on the top of the picnic table before taking a seat. “Of course he was involved. I cannot get through to that kid.”

“Give it time,” Pete says. He reaches across the table and steals half my sandwich from me. “Are you here till five today?”

I nod.

“Anything exciting planned for tonight?”

“No. But tomorrow Horace has a date with Bella.”

Pete begins to laugh. “Justin’s letting your dog hang out with his baby?”

“They’re friends,” I reply. “Justin can’t deny Bella of her best friend and soulmate.” I finish the half of my sandwich and then stare longingly at Pete throwing the last bite of sandwich in his mouth. I really shouldn’t have let him taken half of my food. Now I’m going to have to resort to the vending machine.

“So I got an interesting phone call from Janice yesterday.”

I raise my eyes from the picnic table to Pete. “Did you.”

“She told me that Justin’s going to propose soon.”

I almost choke on the water I’ve just put in my mouth. “Propose?” I manage to get out within a few coughs. “They’ve been dating for like…three months or something.”

Pete laughs. “Yeah, I told her she’s crazy. But she says that she’s really serious about him and he’s really serious about her.”

Somehow I highly doubt that. But I’m not just going to come out and call his cousin a liar. “That’s…interesting.”

“Yeah. I just don’t think that Justin’s the type to move that fast. Do you?”

I shrug. “You hang out with him more than I do.”

Pete flicks a piece of bread crust at me. “You know him more than me. You’re the one who dated him for a year.”

“But that was like eight months ago,” I reason. “A lot can change in eight months.”

“Not that much.” He shrugs and cracks his knuckles. “I think Jan just wants a big rock on her finger. Her mom’s been telling her since she was seven that she needs to find a man who will take care of her.”

“Well she’s certainly found that,” I say, more to myself than to Pete. Trace is always complaining how Janice is just after Justin for his money and who knows, maybe she is. But I really don’t think Justin is dumb enough to propose after three months of dating a girl. He’s been burned way too much in the past to do something like that.

Not wanting to discuss Justin and Janice any further, I crumple my paper lunch bag into a ball and toss it to Pete. “How late are you staying today?”

“Late. I’m covering Shane’s shift.” He checks his watch and then stands. “I’m gonna go back in. I’m technically not supposed to be on break right now.”

I laugh. I think Pete is one of the most slack people I’ve ever met. When he is actually working he puts his heart into it but he’s definitely known to take frequent breaks to ‘rejuvenate’ as he calls it. “Slacker.”

He grins and catches the paper bag ball. “I do what I’m good at. You got a busy afternoon? You should come play cards with me and Ed.”

“Unlike you, I have actual work I need to do. I have a session with Tyler today.”

Pete raises his eyebrows at me. “Good luck. With how he’s been today, he’ll probably just punch you in the face or something.”

Pete, my lovely coworker, is one of the most encouraging people I know. “Thank you.”

He laughs and then turns to leave, tossing the paper bag over his shoulder on his way toward the prison. Even after he’s long from sight, his words are playing over in my head.

I don’t like the thought of Justin and Janice getting engaged. Not that I really believe it’s about to happen, but I can’t help but think about it now. That would be the worst thing. It’s not that I’m in love with Justin and I want him back because Wes and I…well we’re just fine. It’s just that Janice hardcore hates me. And if she and Justin were to get really serious, I feel like he and I wouldn’t be allowed to be friends anymore. Not if she had anything to say about it.

I shake my head and laugh at myself as I get up. They’re AREN’T getting engaged so it’s stupid to sit here and think about it. She probably is just after a trophy ring. Trace is probably right about her. That wouldn’t surprise me. Trace is usually right about most things.

Once I’m back in the detention center I head straight for the vending machine. I swear I feed half my paycheck into this thing, which is really bad when you think about it. I justify it by telling myself that other than the vending machine and my occasional Mexican takeout fix, I’m trying to eat healthy.

The bag of skittles just isn’t enough to carry me through the day. My session with Tyler didn’t go well for either of us and no amount of sugar is going to improve my mood at this point. By time I’m leaving at five, all I want to do is go home and consume a massive amount of chocolate. I’ll start that whole healthy eating thing tomorrow.

I really do believe that there are days when the universe decides to shit all over you. I’ve already had this long day with the whole Tyler thing and I’m irritated with myself for still thinking about what Pete told me at lunch. It’s all just given me a headache and when I decide the day can’t get any worse, the universe decides to defy me and stall my car a half hour away from my house.

“No!” I exclaim, turning the key in the engine. I get nothing and my words get more desperate. “Don’t do this to me, Christopher. Not today.”

The engine stays silent when I try and turn it on again and my desperation turns to anger. “Shit!” I drop my head to the steering wheel and squeeze my eyes shut. “Damnit.”

This truly is the perfect end to a just wonderful day. A semi might as well come and mow me over at this point.

I don’t move from my slumped position for a good five minutes. That’s how long it takes for me to accept this situation for what it is and figure out what to do. I guess I should be glad that my car broke down on a side street and not on the middle of the freeway. This could be worse. Not by much, but it could be worse.

I could call a cab but that would involve dishing out a lot of money to get back to my apartment and that’s just not an option. I look around my surrounds before pulling out my cell phone. I’ll need to use my phone a friend lifeline on this one.

“Hi.”

I smile when Wes picks up after a couple rings. “Hey. What are you doing?”

“I’m just about to go into a meeting.”

“Now? It’s five thirty.”

“Late meeting. What’s up?”

“Christopher broke down on me.”

There’s a small pause. “Oh. Did you call a tow truck?”

Wes always takes the easy option. “No. I’m not paying for a tow truck. They’re freaking expensive.”

“Then how are you planning on getting home?”

“Well I was hoping you’d be free and come rescue me, my knight in shining armor.”

He laughs. “I would but I can’t miss this meeting. My boss would have my head on a platter. Call a tow truck and I’ll pick up the tab.”

“I think I’ll try some other people before I do that. I’ll be here all night waiting if I do that.”

“Okay well let me know how it goes.”

“Mm hmm. Bye.”

“Bye, Laina.”

Okay so one person down. I go to the next number on my list.

“Trace isn’t here because he’s out being cooler than you’ll ever be. Leave a message.”

I roll my eyes. I can’t believe he got his four year old nephew to record that at his voicemail. I don’t bother leaving a message and hang up. He’s no good to me.

I try my coworker, Merissa, next but I get her voicemail as well and a large sigh escapes me as I hang up. Seriously, it’s quarter to six on a Tuesday evening. Where the hell is everyone?

My next number is what I figure as a dud since he’s always too lazy to pick up his phone but I’m surprised with a response after two rings.

“Hey, Lainey.”

“How much do you love me?”

“That seems like a bit of an awkward question for you to ask an ex boyfriend,” Justin replies.

“Are you busy?”

“Depends.”

It always depends with him. “My car broke down and I’m stranded.”

He laughs as I expected him to. “Finally. Are you going to scrap it?”

He’s a horrible person to suggest such a thing. “No!”

“I love how shocked you sound at that suggestion,” he says, still laughing. “Yeah, I’ll come rescue you. Where are you?”

“I’m right by that quickie mart off 63rd.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“You rock.”

“I know. Bye.”

“Bye.”

Once I’ve hung up the phone I realize how hot it’s become in my car. I leave all my crap on the passengers seat and get out. I had turned onto a residential street when my car had started acting weird and it’s pretty quiet.

Sighing, I pull myself up to sit on the hood of the car and wait for my knight to rescue me. It’s fifteen minutes later when I hear the thumping of a bass and a car engine. I raise my head up from where it’s resting in my hands and watch as Justin’s car drives up. He parks his car a couple feet away from mine.

“So is your car a goner?” he asks as he gets out of his car.

I hop off the top of my car. “I dunno. You tell me.”

He saunters over to me and pulls off his sunglasses. “Pop your hood.”

I do as he says and stand to the side, my arms crossed over my chest, watching him lift up the hood and peers in.

“Your engine’s a mess,” he finally says, straightening. “When’s the last time you got it checked over by a mechanic?”

If my car’s running, I feel like taking it to a mechanic is a waste of time and money. “It runs just fine.”

A smirk settles over his face and he merely stares at me with a raised eyebrow. “Does it?”

I frown and kick at the tire. “It did.”

He looks at me for another second. “Were you crying?”

“What?”

“Your eyes.” He gestures to his own. “Were you crying?”

So maybe I had let a couple tears out when I was waiting for him. Sometimes after a really long day it just feels better to get it out. “I was frustrated.”

“Frustrated until you realized I would rescue you?”

I don’t humor him. “You were fourth on my list.”

His smile falls. “Fourth? Who’s before me?”

Why he thinks he would be the first one I would call is beyond me. “I tried Wes but he was about to go into a meeting so-”

“He left you sitting stranded on a random road for a meeting?” Justin interrupts, his eyebrows raised. “Nice boyfriend.”

I completely ignore him. “Merissa didn’t pick up and I only got Trace’s voicemail when I called him.”

An insulted look comes over his face. “Trace is before me on your list of people to call?”

“I hang out with him way more than you. And I figured he’d be free.”

“He’s got a date tonight. Maybe you should rethink your number three.”

“Don’t get your panties in a knot. I called you and you came and everything’s fine.” I cast a despairing look at my car. “Well not everything.” I rub my hand over the top of the side mirror. “Is he really dead?”

“I think your engine just overheated. How long have you had it off for?”

I shrug. “I dunno. Half an hour maybe.”

“Try starting it again. It might be okay by now.”

I get back in my car and say a quick prayer before turning the key. When my car sputters to life, a smile breaks out across my face and I hop out. “It’s working!”

Justin laughs at me. “I can see that. But even though it’s working now you have to take it in and get it looked at or next time it might be broken for good.”

“Yeah, sure,” I lie. As long as my car’s running, I’m not subjecting it to a mechanic. “Sorry for dragging you all the way out here for nothing.”

He shrugs and shoves his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “It was no problem. I wasn’t doing anything anyways.” He looks at his watch and then back to me. “What are you doing right now?”

“Going home and making dinner.”

He gives me a smile. “Since I came out here and rescued you, you should make me some dinner too.”

“I don’t know if I have enough food at my house to make enough for you,” I reply.

“So come over to my house and make something there.”

I open my mouth but before I can even ask my question, he’s answering it.

“Janice is out with her mom.”

That’s really all I need to know. “Okay.”

“Cool. So I’ll drive your car in case it breaks down again and you can take my car.”

I hold onto the door handle protectively. “No way. Christopher will be just fine.”

He rolls his eyes and tries to move me out of the way of the door. “Come on, Lainey. You can drive my nice BMW. I can promise you it runs much smoother.”

“I don’t care.” Seriously, he should know me well enough by now to understand that no one drives my car but me. “You can follow behind me if you’re so concerned.”

He rolls his eyes and gives my shoulder a bit of a shove before going back to his car. “I’m following behind you,” he says over his shoulder as if I didn’t JUST suggest that.

“Yeah, I’m sure you will,” I respond before getting into my car. I put my car into drive and then pull out ahead of him, not particularly looking forward to him tailing me all the way back to his house. He just better not be shocked to get the bird if he gets too close.

I don’t know how, but Laina’s car managed to make it all the way to my house without falling apart on the freeway. The car is a ticking bomb and she seems completely unconcerned with that. If it were me, I’d be fearing for my life each time I had to go above twenty miles per hour. It’s almost at the point where I want to just buy her some car and have hers towed but she’d probably never talk to me again if I did.

“Looks like someone hit you,” I say once we’re both standing in my driveway.

Laina doesn’t even bother looking at the backdoor of her car that I’m pointing at. “Yeah, someone hit me a couple days ago while I was getting groceries.”

“They didn’t leave a note or anything?”

“Yeah, they did. It’s not affecting the driving or anything though so who really cares.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. That’s so typical of her. She could care less about what her things look like as long as they function. She simply doesn’t care what people think of her. I guess that’s an admirable quality but it sometimes dives me completely crazy.

“So what are you thinking of making for me to eat?” I ask, stepping ahead of Laina to open the front door.

“Um…I don’t know,” she replies, obviously distracted by Bella as the dog jump on her. I watch Laina drop down to the ground and let Bella crawl all over her. She’s one of the few people I know who doesn’t care if the dog slobbers all over her.

I sidestep both of them and wander to the kitchen. There’s a message waiting on my machine from my mom and I’m in the middle of listening to it when Laina appears, Bella close to her side. She hops up on the counter and stares at me.

“How’s your mom?” she asks once the message is done.

“Good. She asks about you sometimes.”

Laina’s eyebrows rise. “And what do you say?”

I shrug. I don’t want to let on that I probably talk to my mom about Laina more than I should. “That you’re around.”

She places a hand to her heart. “I feel so special.”

“I thought you might.”

She jumps off the counter and goes over to the fridge. “What do you feel like eating?” she asks.

I only have one simple request. “Nothing vegetarian.”

She looks over her shoulder at me like I’m a complete idiot. “Why would I be making anything vegetarian? Seriously.”

I relax against the counter and grin. “Sorry to doubt you, Lainey.”

She pulls her head out of the fridge. “How do you feel about tacos?”

Just the word causes my stomach to growl. “I feel pretty damn good about tacos.”

She pulls a package of ground beef from my freezer and dumps it in a frying pan. I hoist myself up on the counter and watch as she begins to fry the meat.

“So other than getting into a tiff with your beloved car, how was the rest of your day?” I ask.

Her shoulders shrug. “Not too eventful,” she says, not turning around. “That kid, Tyler, I’m working with keeps getting in trouble.”

She had told Trace and I about that kid when we went for dinner last week. The impression I got was that he raises hell everyday and Laina basically has to pick up the pieces and try and get his rage under control. She’s got way more patience than me, that’s for sure, because if I had to deal with some teenager with anger issues I would probably lose it pretty quickly.

“How’d you end up getting stuck with this kid?”

She shrugs again. “I’m one of the more experienced counselors at the detention center and I guess I just got lucky.”

I snort a bit. “I’d hardly call that luck.”

“Yeah, well…” she trails off and the only sound for a minute is the frying beef. She’s the one to break the silence.

“So I had an interesting conversation with Pete today,” she says, half turning away from the stove so she can face me.

I bring up my hands to crack my knuckles. “Oh yeah? What about?”

She wets her lips and doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. When she does speak, she’s already turned back to the stove. “He said that Janice told him you were proposing soon.”

I almost choke on my spit at those words. “What?”

She doesn’t respond.

“Janice told him I was proposing?” I ask and get a nod in return. “Laina.”

She looks at me when I say her name and I stare at her for a good minute. “Are you joking around?”

She raises her eyebrows and gives me a look that let’s me know she’s not.

“I’m not proposing,” I say, the words coming out sharper than I intended. “What the hell, Laina.”

She points her spatula at me and Bella quickly gets the piece of meet that drops from it. “Don’t get mad at me,” she warns.

I take a deep breath and force my fingers to unclench from the edge of the counter. “I’m not. But…I’m not proposing. It’s been three months. Where the hell did she get that idea?”

“How the hell would I know?” Laina asks me and then turns her back to me again. I stare at the back of her head for a long minute, trying to process the fact that Janice thinks I’m proposing.

“What exactly did Pete say to you?” I finally ask.

She looks at me and seems completely exasperated with this conversation. Whatever, she knows me well enough to know that I’ll badger her with questions over something like this.

“Exactly what I said to you.”

“Why would I propose to ANYONE after only three months?”

She heaves a sigh and I know she’s annoyed with me at this point but I can’t just let it go.

“She said you guys are serious about each other.”

“It’s been three months,” I repeat, still not understanding how the hell Janice managed to come up with this. There’s no way she honestly believes I’m going to propose marriage to her. I’ve never given that impression. At least…not that I can remember.

“So let’s drop this subject,” Laina says, cutting into my thoughts. “And sorry I ever brought it up.”

I open my mouth to protest ending this conversation but then shut it. She’s probably right.

“Okay what can I do to help?” I ask, sliding off the counter. Laina immediately puts me to work putting things for the tacos into bowls.

Dinner is uneventful but fun. I always have a good time with Laina. That’s what drew me to her in the first place. It’s pretty special when you can find a person who you can completely relax around and lose track of time with.

Laina’s telling this story and I’m practically doubled over in laughter at it. I’m so distracted that I don’t even realize anyone else is in the house until I hear the click of heels across the tile floor. My laughter stops when I look up and see Janice standing in the doorway, staring at Laina and I.

Laina’s the one who breaks the awkward silence. “Hi, Janice. How are you?”

Janice’s eyes move around the messy kitchen. “Fine,” she says.

I push my chair back a bit from the table and wipe my mouth with a napkin. “I thought you were going for dinner with your mom.”

Her eyes cut to mine and she has an annoyed look to her. “I did. It’s nine o’clock.”

I glance at my watch and am surprised to see it is indeed just after nine. I had no idea it was getting so late. “Oh,” I say simply, not really having much else to say. Just seeing Janice is bringing back the conversation Laina and I had back to mind and I can’t help but be a little irritated.

“It’s such a mess in here,” Janice says. “I just cleaned it this morning.”

Laina stands up. “So I’ll start cleaning up,” she says simply.

I get up before either of them can say anything else and start walking towards the doorway. “Come here for a sec, Janice,” I say on my way past her. She follows, almost on my heels.

“You didn’t say she was going to come over here when I talked to you this morning,” she hisses at me as we exit the kitchen.

I don’t look at her. “This morning I didn’t know she would be. Her car broke down and she called me.”

“She has a boyfriend. Why didn’t she call him?”

“She did. He was at work.” I open the door to the laundry room and once Janice is in with me, I shut it. “If it makes any difference, I’m only number four on her list of people to call.”

“You shouldn’t be on any of her lists!” Janice says, her voice slightly louder now that we’re alone.

“She was stranded far away from home and needed some help,” I say, wanting to end this conversation so we can move onto the other one I need to have with her. “I’d do it for anyone.”

“Not anyone,” she mumbles under her breath but I choose to ignore it.

“I’m not going to talk about this anymore,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. “I have to talk to you about something else.”

She leans back against the washing machine and stares at me. “What?”

“You realize we’ve only been dating for three months, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And I mean, we have fun and everything and I really care about you but we really haven’t known each other that long.”

An uncertain look flickers through her eyes. “Are you…are you breaking up with me?”

“No,” I quickly say. “But I also don’t want you to be thinking I’m ready to propose marriage to you at this point.”

Her eyes get wide. “Why would I think that?”

“I’m sorry, but did you not say that?”

“Who told you that?”

“Pete told Laina you told him that.”

She’s quiet for a second before speaking. “I was kidding around with Pete and it was a stupid joke.” Her hands raise to her hips. “Maybe Laina should get her facts straight before repeating stuff.”

My eyebrows draw together as I examine her face, trying to decide if she’s telling the truth or not. Her eyes are giving me a pleading look as if begging me to believe her and I do.

“Okay.” A small laugh escapes me. “Sorry but I had to make sure. I was a little freaked out by it.”

A smile pushes away the pleading expression and she comes over to me and wraps her arms around my waist. “I’m not some psycho commitment freak who’s trying to get a rock on my finger,” she says with a giggle. “It’s only been three months.”

I nod with some relief and bring my hands up to rest on her hips. A lot of stress has left me knowing that she’s not expecting anything of me. “Exactly.”

She leans up to kiss me and I return it but pull away before it gets too deep. Laina’s still in the kitchen and I’m not going to stand here and make out with my girlfriend while she’s by herself in another room.

“Come on,” I say, breaking away from Janice. “Let’s go help Laina clean up.”

“I don’t see why I should help clean up her mess,” Janice says, trailing after me out of the laundry room.

“Then don’t help,” I reply. “But it’s my mess too so I’m gonna help.”

Janice says nothing but I don’t miss the glare she throws Laina when we re-enter the kitchen. I give Janice’s arm a light pinch, silently telling her to not start anything.

“Whoa, superstar,” I say, taking in the mostly clean kitchen. “You’re a cleaning machine!”

Laina smiles and takes a mock bow. “Thank you. It’s just one of my many talents.”

Janice breaks past me and goes to the fridge. I have to restrain a groan when I see her not so accidentally brush past Laina. I realize it’s stupid to figure my ex girlfriend and current girlfriend would get along but some civility would be nice.

The tension in the room is obvious and after only a minute of silence, Laina acknowledges it.

“So I guess I’d be the third wheel in this situation,” she says, receiving a not so attractive snort from Janice. “I’m going to go home. I should call Wes.”

I step in before Janice can make any snide comment that is surely on the tip of her tongue. “I’ll walk you out,” I say, ignoring the look I’m getting from my girlfriend.

“I’m getting you in trouble,” Laina says as we step onto the front step outside.

I roll my eyes and follow her down to the driveway. “Janice doesn’t control who I hang out with,” I say a little annoyed. Seriously, why does everyone think she has this big hold on my life? I’m not completely whipped.

“So are Horace and Bella still hanging tomorrow night?” Laina asks when we reach her car.

“Seven o’clock, dog park,” I confirm. “I would never disappoint Bella and cancel that date.”

“Perfect.” Laina opens her car door and hops inside. “Thanks for the rescue, J-star,” she calls through the open window and I give her a wave as her car sputters off down the driveway.

I stay standing there, not overly anxious to get back inside. But when five minutes has passed and I know Janice’s irritation is probably growing by the second, I give in and go to the lecture I’m sure I’m about to endure.

“Wesley James Crawford the Third.”

I don’t get the smile I usually receive when I drawl out Wes’ full name. Instead he just looks up from his desk with weary eyes and then looks back down.

“What are you doing here?”

Not exactly the greeting I crave for. I come further into his office and drop to the chair across from his desk. “I came to take you to lunch.”

“It’s not even noon yet.”

I pull my chair closer to the desk, not missing his sigh at my action. What is with him? “It’s ten to. And I have an appointment at one thirty so I had to go early for lunch. You don’t have any meetings today, do you?”

“No. But I’m busy.”

My eyes narrow. Wes is being a bit of a jerk right now. He’s not even looking at me when he talks and I find it a little hard to believe that the papers in front of him are that much more interesting than me. “Are you alright?”

He picks up a pen and writes something down. “Yes. But I’m busy.”

“You’re always busy,” I respond. I get up and go around to stand behind him. “We’ll go to lunch and you can relax. You need it.”

He only lets me rub his shoulders for a few seconds before shrugging my hands away. “Laina, I have a million things to do and if you had called instead of just coming over here I would have told you that I do not have time to take lunch.”

My arms drop to my sides and I frown. Wes’ office is kind of out of the way for me and I took all this time to come here and surprise him at work and he’s acting like I’m the world’s biggest inconvenience.

“You have to eat,” I say, moving some papers aside so I can sit on the edge of his desk. His eyes follow my movement.

“Christy will grab me a sandwich.”

Christy, his secretary. I’ve only encountered her three times but each time she’s been a bitch to me.

“You seriously can’t take an hour out of your day to spend time with me?” I ask, tapping my fingers against the mahogany wood I’m sitting on. “You’ve been constantly working for the past two weeks.”

“I’m a lawyer, Laina. And I’m the middle of a case with an extremely important client. If I win this, I might make partner.”

I roll my eyes before I can help it. Wes’ only goal in life is to make partner. He’s not even thirty yet and it’s made him into a complete workaholic. “One hour isn’t going to change if you make partner or not.”

This time he rolls his eyes and gives me a look like I’m completely stupid. “It does make a difference. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

“You’re being a real jerk right now, you know that?” I ask, jumping down from the desk.

He sighs and leans forward to put his head in his hands. “Look, I’m really stressed and then you just show up out of nowhere and start trying to drag me away from my work because you need company for lunch.”

“I don’t need company for work,” I say hotly. “I just thought it would be nice to surprise you at work and take you out. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it would be this massive problem.”

His eyes move to his open door. “Can you please just keep your voice down?”

“You know, how about I just leave and then you won’t have to worry about my little temper tantrum embarrassing you,” I say, grabbing my bag from the ground. “Hope your sandwich is just amazing,” I call back to him before stalking from his office. I ignore the smug look Christy gives me. That stupid bitch is probably just trying to get in Wes’ pants.

Once I’m finally out of the office building I feel like I can breathe again. That place is so stuffy.

In my car, I pull out my cell phone and go through my phonebook, trying to decide on who I could call who would join me for lunch now that I’m suddenly free. I settle on the most obvious choice.

“Hey, Cupcake.”

“Trace, what are you doing right now?”

“I was thinking of showering.”

“Skip the shower and come meet me for lunch instead.”

“Okay. But don’t complain if I’m smelling bad.”

“I’ve gotten used to it at this point,” I say, smiling when I hear Trace snort.

“Bitch. Where do you want to eat?”

“It’s nice out. Meet me at that park near the detention center. I’ll pick up subs and we can eat there.”

“Didn’t you say yesterday you were going to meet Wes for lunch today? I’m not going to get shit on for stealing you away, am I?”

I frown at that. “That’s a long story that I’ll tell you when you get here. The short version is that he didn’t want me for lunch.”

“Now that I find hard to believe. What kind of a fool wouldn’t want to spend lunch with you?”

I can’t help but smile at his words. Trace always knows exactly what to say to boost my mood. “That’s what I think.”

Trace laughs and I can hear the sound of a car engine starting in the background. “I’m leaving now. I’ll be there in twenty.”

“Awesome. See you then.”

I hang up the phone and then start my own car. Things are definitely looking up.

* * *

Horace and Bella’s playdate is taking place at a dogpark that’s in between Justin house and my apartment. I’m the first to arrive which isn’t too much of a shock because if Justin doesn’t have Trace or Rachel making sure he’s on time for things, he’s perpetually late. I figured that out within the first month of knowing him though, so I’ve come prepared with a book to read while I wait for him.

I’ve got a chapter read when the sound of Bella’s bark interrupts me. Looking up from my book, I see Bella running towards Horace, who’s sniffing at a tree. Justin’s following behind his dog, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans. Bending down the corner of the page I’m on, I get up and walk towards him.

“You’re late,” I say when I reach him.

He shrugs and gives me a smile. “Were you expecting something other than that?”

“No.” I watch as Bella takes off across the field and Horace races after her. “I’m counting on this to wear Horace out. He’s been antsy ever since I got home from work.”

Justin begins to slowly walk towards our dogs and I go with him. “Horace and antsy don’t go in the same sentence. Your dog is the most chill animal I’ve ever met.”

“He knew it was date night with Bella and he’s been excited about seeing her.”

“So then it’s your fault for getting your dog all riled up to see mine,” Justin says with a laugh.

I roll my eyes but can’t keep the smile from my face because he’s right. I may have gotten Horace more excited than necessary for tonight. But I figure the dog has a boring life and he needs all the excitement he can get.

“So how was your day?”

I contemplate his question for a minute before answering. “Good then shitty then good again.”

He laughs at my response. “So let’s start with the good parts.”

“Tyler had his court date this morning and he’s getting off on probation.”

“That’s awesome.”

“Yeah. He has a lot of community service and he has to still come in a do counseling with me but at least he can go back to school and have a bit of a normal life.”

“Great. So what’s good thing number two?”

I lean down and pick up a stick from the ground and toss it ahead of us for the dogs. “I had lunch with Trace and he finally gave me the money he owed me.”

“He owed you money?”

“I lent him twenty bucks last month when we went out for dinner and it was taking him FOREVER to pay me back.”

“I feel like it’s not right to borrow money from you. That’s like taking food away from a starving man.”

I hit Justin in the chest. Hard. “Shut up, ass. I’m not destitute.”

He laughs and rubs where I hit. “I’m kidding.”

“Just because I’m not swimming in money like you are, that doesn’t mean I’m welfare.”

He smirks and I can tell that he’s dying to comment on that, probably wanting to say something along the lines of how I should be on welfare but he manages to refrain. “So what was the shitty part of your day?”

My face falls a bit as I recall the incident with Wes. “I had an attack of a jerky boyfriend.”

Justin seems more interested in that than the two good parts of my day. “What did he do?”

I stop walking before we end up in the middle of a pack of dogs. “I went over to his office to take him out for lunch and I got completely rejected.”

“Why?”

I cross my arms over my chest and stare out across the field. “He was busy. Which used to be understandable. Now it’s just annoying.”

“Isn’t he a lawyer?”

“Yeah.”

“So when you decided to date him didn’t you figure that he would be busy a lot?”

“Well yeah but this is ridiculous. Yesterday he actually scheduled me into his daytimer for dinner.”

Justin begins to laugh and quickly tries to cover it. “Sorry. That’s kind of funny though.”

“It’s retarded. I can’t take him being busy all of the time to the point where I can’t even see him spur of the moment.”

Justin’s quiet for a minute before saying, “I was pretty busy most of the time we were dating cause I was doing that movie.”

I shake my head. “That was different. You were busy but you took time to relax. It was never a situation where you went for weeks with the only break being when you’re sleeping.”

He’s silent. “Well…I don’t know what to tell you. Is he still at work?”

“Most likely.”

“Call him?”

I snort. “He can call me.”

Justin smiles at that. “That’s why you’re awesome, Lainey. You don’t put up with anybody’s shit.”

Usually people don’t like that quality of mine. “Well thank you.”

“Janice puts up with every single thing I do.”

I quickly glance over at him and then back at the dogs. Justin rarely talks about Janice with me. He’s never brought her up voluntarily like this before.

“Oh yeah?” I ask cautiously. I don’t know how to talk to him about her.

“I could treat her like total shit and she wouldn’t say anything.” His eyes shoot towards me. “Not that I do,” he quickly says.

I laugh. “I know. Because your mom would have your ass if you did.”

He breathes out a laugh. “Yeah she would.” He rests his hands on the back of his head and laces his fingers together. “But really. What is it that makes someone put up with someone else regardless of how bad or inconsiderate they are?”

“A lack of self respect,” I say and then quickly clamp a hand over my mouth. I hadn’t meant for that to come out. At least not before sugar coating it. “Sorry.”

He gives a shrug as if that’s exactly what he had expected me to say. “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want your honest opinion.” His arms drop back down to his sides. “Maybe I’m gonna have to talk to her about it.”

I nod politely even though I don’t think it’s possible to logically talk to Janice. “Wouldn’t hurt,” I respond, reaching into my pocket as my phone starts vibrating against my hip. I pull it out and sigh when I see the caller ID.

“Wes?” Justin guesses.

“Yeah. Give me a minute.”

He nods and I open my phone. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Wes returns and when I don’t say anything to that, he sighs. “I’m home now.”

“Okay.”

“Do you want to come over?”

I love how he thinks I just sit at home waiting for him to be free. “I’m out.”

“Doing what?”

“I’m at the dogpark with Justin.”

Wes lets out a short laugh and the hard edge to it makes me shut my eyes briefly. Please don’t go there. Please-

“So is this your way at getting back at me?”

And he went there. “Getting back at you?”

“For not going out for lunch with you today.”

“I’m over it.”

“Then why are you with-”

“Seriously Wes?” I interrupt. “Are you seriously going to ask me that?”

That shuts him up and it’s silent on the other end of the line for a long moment. Finally, “When will you be home? I’ll come over.”

“Probably not before nine and I’m tired. I want to go to bed early.”

He let’s out an exasperated sigh. “Tomorrow?”

“You can fit me into your busy schedule?”

He misses my sarcasm. “Tomorrow night. I’ll be out of the office by six.”

“You can call me tomorrow afternoon and I’ll let you know.”

He sighs again. “Fine. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Yep. Bye.”

Justin looks over at me when I hang up. “How’d that go?”

I roll my eyes and lean down to pet Bella, who is pressing against my leg. “Typically.”

“Did he say sorry?”

“He doesn’t say sorry.”

“Because he’s always right?”

I smile a bit. “Exactly. It’s the lawyer in him.”

“But you don’t put up with it.”

I give Justin a look. “Come on. Do you know me at all?”

He laughs and gives my shoulder a push. He’s quiet for a minute before smirking at me. “So I’ve got a girlfriend who puts up with anything and you’ve got a boyfriend who never apologizes for a thing he does.”

I know where he’s going with this. “Think we should hook them up?” I ask with a raised eyebrow.

He laughs at my question. “Absolutely.”

Janice would kill him if she heard him joking around like this and that thought alone is enough to make me join him in laughter.

Man, I’m a bitch sometimes.

My lip automatically curls up a bit when I come into the den and find Bring It On playing on my television. I get that everyone has a favorite movie but Janice has already forced me to watch this particular movie four times since we’ve been dating and I think if I have to see Kristin Dunst do one more cheer my head will explode.

“Can we change this?” I automatically say, dropping down into my recliner chair. “I hate this movie.”

I don’t look directly at her, but out of the corner of my eye I can see Janice turn her head to look at me. It’s quiet for a short moment before the movie is paused.

“This is my favorite movie.”

Maybe it’s because I had that conversation with Laina yesterday about how Janice will just put up with anything but suddenly I want to push things just to see how far I can go.

“This is one of the stupidest movies I’ve ever seen,” I say, still not looking at my girlfriend. It’s easier to just stare at the paused image on the television than look at her when I’m being an ass. “There’s no point to it.”

“That’s why it’s fun.”

“I wouldn’t call killing off brain cells fun.”

A long pause fills the air and I’m inwardly wincing but trying to keep my face steady on the outside. I need to know how far I can take this.

The movie abruptly shuts off and leaves the screen glowing blue. “Well what do you want to watch?”

I don’t reply but instead start picking at my nails. I really don’t want to watch anything at all. I more just wanted to see if she’d turn her movie off or not.

“Is there a game on you want to watch?”

I shrug.

“Another show?” she presses.

It’s quiet and finally I hear her sigh.

“Do you just want the remote?”

She sounds defeated and I break down. Even though I’m telling myself I’m just testing a theory, I can’t be such an ass anymore.

“No.” I stand up and brush the front of my shorts off. “Watch whatever you want.”

She calls my name once as I walk out of the room but I ignore her. I make it upstairs in peace and sink down in the armchair I have sitting near the large picture windows in the room. Slouching down, I rest my head against the back of the chair and stare outside.

When I know things aren’t right, I try and avoid any introspection. Ignorance can truly be bliss. But you can only be purposely ignorant for so long before you have to sit down and figure stuff out.

Things with Janice aren’t right. Ever since Laina told me that thing about Janice talking about me proposing, I can’t get it out of my mind. I don’t know if Janice said it or not but it hasn’t stopped me from thinking about our future. And quite honestly, I really don’t see anything with her. I don’t see myself settling down with her and proposing. I can’t picture getting married to her or having kids with her. Not wanting to sound like a jerk, but she’s kind of become a one night stand that just won’t end.

Maybe if she were a bit different things would be better. I am and always have been attracted to her physically. It’s hard not to be. She could be a model if she were taller. But the more I get to know her the more I realize she’s got this split personality. Half the time she’s sweet and the other half she’s sour. I usually only experience the sweetness but I’ve seen her sour side come out, especially to Trace and Laina. And the fact that she can just switch it on and off with such ease makes me wary.

“Justin?”

Her voice breaks me from my thoughts and I lift my head to see her coming into my room, somewhat timidly.

“Are you alright?” she asks softly. Her hand run up and down the front of her pants and I begin to wonder if I’m making her nervous.

“Fine.” Guilt is eating away at me for how short I was at her before and I can’t help myself from apologizing. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you before.”

“You had a long day,” she says, coming over to me.

Some irritation goes through me at her words. She knows nothing about how long of a day I have or haven’t had. She shouldn’t just accept me saying that I shouldn’t have snapped at her. She should get upset with me and make me never want to do it again. Her letting me constantly walk all over her is starting to get on my nerves. Before I can say something about it, she’s reached me and is climbing onto my lap.

“Do you want to talk about your day?” she asks, moving so she’s facing me, her legs on either side of mine.

I lean my head back and stare up at the ceiling. “No.” My eyes shut when I feel her lips connect to my neck and I can’t help a sigh escaping me as she kisses my skin. I’m too tired to even push her off me so I just let her do her thing. The sound of her kissing my neck is the only noise in the room for a good minute before she breaks the quiet.

“I’m meeting a potential client tomorrow for lunch. She wants me to redecorate her bedroom.” She gently bites on my earlobe. “Is it okay if I grab one of your credit cards?”

My eyes open. “What?”

Her hands move under my shirt and her nails scrape lightly against my stomach. “I should pay since I’m trying to get her business. And The Ivy is expensive.”

I sit there for a minute, unmoving, as she continues to kiss me. Suddenly something Trace said to me a while ago pops into my head and I can’t stop myself from saying it.

“You know, you always seem to start making out with me right before asking for money.”

She pulls her head away from my neck and looks at me. “What?”

I know there’s a smirk on my lips and I try to wipe it off but I find myself unable to do so. “Trace thinks you whore yourself out to me whenever you need something.”

Her mouth drops open and a second later she’s off of me and has her hands on her hips as she glowers at me. “And what do you think, Justin?”

I shrug, which, wow, is that the wrong response. Her face screws up in a scowl and her chin trembles a bit.

“I can’t believe you’d say that,” she says, sounding near tears. “I don’t have sex with you to get your money.”

Sighing, I lean forward and put my head in my hands. The asshole part of me is back on the surface. Before I can say anything else, she sits on the table in front of me and puts her hands on my knees.

“Trace knows nothing about me or our relationship,” she says. “Can we just forget about him for tonight?” Her thumbs rub in circles on my knees and I feel her kiss the top of my bent head. “Let’s just forget about it.”

A laugh escapes me and I stand up abruptly, causing her to jerk away from me. “You’re serious?”

She looks confused. “What?”

I laugh again even though this really isn’t funny. “I basically just called you a whore, Janice! And you just accept it!”

Her eyebrows draw together. “You said Trace said that.”

“And I didn’t disagree. I should have disagreed but I didn’t and you just let me get away with it.”

She opens her mouth to say something but after a moment of silence, I carry on.

“I insult your favorite movie for no reason whatsoever and you just take it. And then I call you a whore and it’s like nothing to you. Do you really have that little self respect?”

Her chin’s trembling again and I can see her eyes welling up with tears. “I have plenty of self respect, Justin.”

“You don’t! I can be the biggest ass to you and you just take it. You let me walk all over you and it’s completely exhausting.” I stare at her for a second before spitting out the next words. “Grow a backbone, Janice.”

She wipes at the tears that have fallen from her eyes and slowly gets up. She turns her back to me and stares out the window and after a minute I’m fully prepared to just leave my room. Right before I’m about to, though, she turns back to me. Her eyes are now dry and narrowed at me.

“I have a backbone, Justin,” she says, her voice a little too calm for my liking. “You DON’T walk all over me. What exactly do you want me to do? Do you want me to be just like how Laina was with you and argue with every single thing you say and do?”

My eyebrows rise at her words. I can’t believe she’s actually going there. “Don’t talk about my relationship with Laina like you know anything about it.”

“You’re right!” she exclaims. “I don’t know anything about it because you NEVER tell me anything about it. No matter how many times I ask it’s just this huge secret that I can’t be a part of. And that makes you a really big jerk, Justin.”

I’m almost impressed that she’s actually getting upset with me. Last time I saw this was when she yelled at me after her fight with Laina at that club. “You don’t need to know anything about it.”

She crosses her arms over her chest and shakes her head. “Maybe if you and her weren’t all chummy I wouldn’t need to know about it. But you spend more time with her than you do with me.”

I roll my eyes at that. “That’s not true. You practically live here. Uninvited, might I add.”

The anger in her eyes falters and she looks like she’s going to cry again. I don’t pull my eyes away from hers and we’re engaged in a silent staring contest for a minute before she finally breaks down and drops her arms to her sides.

“Then maybe I should just leave,” she says but not making any move to do so.

I don’t disagree, which is what I know she’s waiting for. After a long moment of silence, her shoulders slump a bit.

“Fine,” she says softly.

I don’t move as she walks past me and I stay still until I hear the sound of the front door close. Once I know I’m alone, a large breath of air escapes me, along with a small mirthless laugh. That actually felt pretty good to say all that stuff.

My house is only quiet for a short few minutes before I hear the front door opening, causing me to shut my eyes briefly. Having Janice leave for the night was a bit of a relief. I don’t want her to think we should talk this out tonight.

I’m halfway down the stairs, mentally preparing myself to tell her she needs to go home, before I see Trace kicking off his shoes.

“What’s up with Janice?” he asks, dropping his keys and coat on the floor. “I think she left skid marks with how fast she peeled out of here.”

I reach the bottom of the stairs and start towards the kitchen, Trace following behind. “We got in a fight.”

Trace accepts the bottle of beer I hand him from the fridge. “Bout what?”

“I told her she needs to grow a backbone.” I twist the top of the bottle off but don’t immediately take a drink. “I kind of mentioned how you had said she whores herself out for my money and then I didn’t disagree with it which didn’t go over great.”

Trace snorts in laughter, choking on his mouthful of beer. “That’s hilarious, man,” he laughs in between coughs. “I can’t believe you actually went there.”

I shrug and pick at the bottle label. “You might have been right about it.”

“Course I’m right about it. You were just too whipped to see it.” He takes another drink and then leans back against the counter. “So are you guys broken up or what?”

I shake my head. “She was pissed and left but we didn’t break up. We gotta talk through some things.”

“You know she’s all wrong for you. Just drop the dead weight.”

Trace has been telling me this for months now but it’s only now that I’m actually hearing what he’s saying. I simply shrug in response and finally raise my beer bottle to my lips to take a sip.

With how mad Janice was, I probably have at least a day to myself before I have to deal with her. Hopefully that’s going to be enough time to sort all this shit out in my head.

You can always tell when I’m PMSing because I get a bit of Tourette’s and start swearing at things that really don’t deserve it. Normally my phone ringing while I’m in the middle of doing some dishes is a welcome relief. But today it causes a row of curses to spew out of my mouth. Bubbles fly everywhere as I shake off my hands and reach for my phone.

“Hello.” I don’t even try to sound pleasant.

“Did I call at a bad time?”

A large sigh escapes me and I wipe my forehead with my still damp hand. “What’s up, Justin.”

“I was just wondering what you’re doing right now.”

“Cleaning.”

“You don’t clean,” he says with a laugh and I roll my eyes.

“My mom’s coming over so I thought I should have my apartment somewhat presentable.”

“Oh. Nevermind then.”

He sounds rejected. “What?”

“No, I was going to see if you wanted to come over.”

“Not tonight.”

“Okay.”

“Are you that bored?”

“No.” I hear him move around and groan a bit. “I just got in a fight with Janice and I wanted to talk to someone about it.”

My eyebrows rise. “I don’t think I’m the one you should be talking to about problems with your girlfriend. Where’s Trace?”

Justin sighs. “He says the same thing over and over.”

“I’d probably have nothing new to add.” Seriously, where does Justin come from that he thinks it would be appropriate to talk about his love problems with his ex girlfriend? Especially an ex girlfriend who is hated by his current girlfriend? He’s got a screw loose.

“Okay,” I say after a minute of silence. “So good luck with that.”

“Oh. Yeah. Do you want to come over after your mom’s gone?”

“She’ll be here late so no.”

“Alright. What if-”

“Call Trace or your mom or something,” I say, interrupting him. Sometimes he gets so needy and it drives me nuts. “I have to go.”

“Yeah, okay. Say hi to your mom for me.”

“I will. Bye.” I hang up the phone and breath out a curse. On a good day I don’t have a lot of patience to listen to people and their love problems. Today, the thought of gouging out my eyes with a spoon is more appealing than listening to Justin bellyache about his roller coaster of a relationship with Janice.

Justin’s call takes up the rest of my cleaning time and before I can go back to the dishes, there’s a knock on my front door. I abandon the dirty dishes and go to get the door.

“Sweetie, the lock on the front of your building is broken,” my mom says as she steps into my apartment and gives me a hug.

I squeeze my arms tight around her. “I know. I called last week but no one’s come to fix it yet.”

It would be the perfect opportunity for my mom to lecture me on how ghetto this building is and the lack of safety of the neighborhood but she knows it would just be a waste of her breath. “Call again tomorrow,” she simply says, dropping her arms from around me and giving me a kiss before coming all the way into my apartment.

I close and lock the door behind her. “Is dad working tonight?” I ask, wandering behind her to the kitchen.

“He’s at the Laker’s game with Stan Mackenzie.” Her eyes flicker around my tiny kitchen. “Were you doing dishes?”

“I was trying to but then Justin called wanting to bitch about him and Janice and I got distracted. He says hi by the way.”

My mom slips her rings from her finger, sets them to the side and then dips her hands into the soapy water. I don’t even bother telling her she doesn’t need to finish them for me because I know she would just wave me off. My mom’s one of those crazy people who actually enjoys cleaning. “Are he and Janice having trouble?”

I shrug. “I don’t really know,” I say, grabbing a towel so I can start drying the dishes. “I can’t handle listening to all the issues they have so I told him to call his mom or Trace. I don’t have all night to sit and listen to him whine.”

“Well at least he considers you a good enough friend that he can confide in you about things like that.”

I dry off a plate and set it to the side. “And normally I’d be flattered but…what exactly am I supposed to say? I don’t like Janice and I don’t particularly like Justin when he’s around her. So why would he call someone who doesn’t even like his girlfriend to talk about relationship problems. Shouldn’t he just assume that I’d tell him to break up with her?”

My mom’s quiet for a moment before giving me a look. “Maybe that’s why he’s calling you. Maybe he wants that advice.”

I hadn’t considered that and I let her words go over in my mind a few times as I ran my towel inside a glass. “Trace tells him that all the time. Anything I tell him will be the same shit Trace is constantly telling him.”

“Maybe it means something different coming from you.”

I don’t like the thought of that. “It shouldn’t.”

“But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t.”

I roll my eyes and lean back against the counter. “I just don’t think it’s appropriate for me to give him advice for his relationship with Janice,” I say, taking the last plate dish from my mom to dry off. She pulls the plug to let the water drain and dries off her hands.

“Maybe not.” She helps me put my dishes back in the cupboards and then goes to my small table and sits down. “Is Wes working tonight?”

I can’t help but roll my eyes again. “When isn’t he?” I return. I give Horace a nudge with my foot to move him out of the way and then drop into the chair across from her. “There’s some important client.”

“There’s always an important client, Sweetie.”

“I’m beginning to get that.” I push my chair onto the back two legs and prop my feet onto the edge of the table. “How have you not strangled Dad by now?”

She laughs. “He grew out of his workaholic nature. Every lawyer has it in them though.”

“But you know when I was little, I don’t remember Dad being out at meetings every single night.”

“It takes a lot of work, Laina,” she says with a small shrug. “It’s not always easy.”

I rub the heels of my palms into my forehead. “I don’t think I have the patience for this.”

“Are you and Wes having problems?”

“Not like…overt problems. I’m just getting so tired of dealing with him being at work all the time. Even when I finally get him to myself he’s still thinking about work. I can tell.”

My mom regards me for a minute before speaking. “Is Wes right for you?”

I get my upfront personality from my mom but when she pulls it out on me it still has the ability to stop me for a second. I stare at her for a brief moment before looking down at Horace. “Wes is…He’s just Wes.”

“Are you happier with him than you’ve been with any other guy you’ve ever dated?”

I only have to pause briefly. “No.”

She nods and doesn’t have to say anything else. She’s proven her point very easily and now it’s going to be stuck in the back of my mind for a very long time.

It’s quiet for a moment before I groan and drop my head back. “Ugh, why do you do that, Mom?”

She laughs slightly. “Do what?”

“Now I feel like I’m in a dead end relationship.”

“Oh I never said that,” she says with a bit of scolding in her voice. “Just because you aren’t completely happy right now doesn’t mean that you won’t be. It’s just going to take some effort on both your parts.”

“Everything in my life takes effort. Do I really want this one extra thing to deal with?”

“Well is it worth it?”

I haven’t seen Wes for five days and only talked to him on the phone once in those five days. I don’t even know anymore. “I don’t know at this point.” My eyes connect with hers again and I silently ask her what I should do.

“You know I like Wes, Laina. I think he’s a great guy.”

“But not for me?”

“I never said that.” She laughs slightly like she always does when I get myself worked up. “I didn’t mean to cast all this doubt in your mind.”

I drop my chair back to all four legs and get up. “Let’s just talk about something else.”

My mom won’t press a topic if I don’t want to talk about it so she asks me about work and I’m able to temporarily forget about these sudden uncertainties about Wes and my relationship. In fact, I don’t have to think of it at all until midnight when Wes decides to stop by unannounced for a visit. My mom had left twenty minutes before and I had just changed into my pajamas and brushed my teeth when he knocks on my door.

“Hey,” I say, more than a little surprised when I see him. “What are you doing here?”

He steps into my apartment and kicks off his shoes. His tie is loosened around his neck and shirt looks crumpled. His normally perfectly combed hair is wildly out of control and looks like he’s been running his fingers through it all night. He looks more undone than I can ever recall seeing him.

“I just wanted to see you,” he says, dumping all his things on the floor by his shoes. “I know it’s late and I should have called but I didn’t.”

“It’s okay. I was just about to go to bed though.”

He nods and loosens his tie even more. “I’m so tired I feel like I’m going to pass out.”

I guess that means he’s staying over so I turn and go to my bedroom. He enters behind me and strips down to his boxers before joining me in bed. I sigh a bit as his arms go around me and he pulls me against him.

“It feels like so long since I’ve seen you,” he mumbles into my hair.

“That’s because you’re always at work,” I reply, nuzzling my face into his chest. I really enjoy having someone to snuggle up to in bed at night and it feels like forever since I’ve last had that. “Maybe if you would take a break once in a while you’d see me more.”

He squeezes my side as if to gently admonish me. “You know I can’t do that.”

I sigh and pull back so I can turn onto my side facing away from him. My mom is right that Wes and I need to work on our relationship but how exactly are we supposed to do that when Wes is under the impression that he can’t ever NOT be working? “Nevermind then.”

“Laina…” There’s shuffling and then he presses up against me. “You have to understand that I can’t just take two hour lunch breaks or blow off work and leave halfway through the day. I’ll never move up if I do that.”

“Why do you need to move up? What’s wrong with just being an associate?”

“Because I don’t want to be an associate. I want to be partner. And that involves working a lot more than other people.” His arm moves around my stomach. “Come on, Laina. Your dad’s a lawyer. This shouldn’t be new to you.”

“My dad never worked like you do,” I mumble. “He wasn’t completely obsessed with making partner.”

He kisses my shoulder. “I’m not obsessed. But it’s important to me and you knew that when you first met me. Why is this suddenly such a big deal?”

I don’t respond because there’s no arguing with him. He has issues seeing things from other people’s perspectives, especially when it involves his career. I’m already tired and I’m not going to waste my breath having a one sided discussion with him.

“Laina?”

“I’m tired, Wes,” I finally say, hoping he’ll leave it at that. It’s too late for this.

My prayers are answered when he only lets out a sigh and then pulls away so he can settle into bed. Within minutes he’s asleep, leaving me in my thoughts. And now in the quiet all I can think about is the discussion I had with my mom and the one I just had with Wes.

Relationships are just not supposed to be this frustrating.

Not to toot my own horn, but I’m excellent at decision making. I don’t have to sit around and debate pros and cons of something before deciding on what to do. I’m able to look at a situation and quickly determine what the best solution is for me and then carry it out.

Which leads me today and the big decision I made this morning. After Laina blew me off on the phone last night, which I’m going to blame on the fact that I’m pretty sure she was PMSing, I was forced to sit at home by myself and think about my fight with Janice. Too much thinking was giving me a headache so I ended up taking a couple aspirin and calling it a night around ten.

But when I woke up this morning it was suddenly blaringly obvious that I had two options with my relationship with Janice. Either I could continue it or end it. And it only took a couple minutes to come to my decision.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that things aren’t perfect between us. Her clinging is starting to get on my nerves and it seems to only be getting worse with time. She tries to be interested in my life but when I really think about it, we don’t have that much in common. Our tastes in music are different, we hang out with different types of people, and our personality styles are completely opposite in a lot of ways. Not to mention the fact that a lot of my friends don’t like her.

Besides, I see no future with her. And I’m too old to just be fooling around all the time. I’m past that shit.

The bell above the door of the coffee shop rings as the door opens and I look up from my cup of coffee to see Janice enter. She looks put together but once she sits down across from me, her bloodshot eyes give her away. I guess she didn’t sleep quite as good as I did last night.

“Hey,” I say, sitting up a bit straighter. “What do you want to drink?”

“Nothing,” she replies. She falls silent and stares at me and…oh man, she has that look to her that she’s expecting me to apologize or something. She’s either in complete denial about the state of our relationship or more oblivious than I thought.

I take a sip of my cooling coffee and then set it back on the table. “So,” I start and clear my throat. “We need to talk.”

“Are you going to be a complete ass to me again?” she asks, folding her arms over her chest.

I don’t deny it or get upset at her words because the fact of the matter is that I was an ass to her yesterday. It was to prove a point to myself but I was still an asshole. “No, I’m not.” I drum my fingers on the table for a brief moment, trying to find the right way to say this. Finally I decide to just got with the most direct way as possible. “Janice, I need to be single.”

The look on her face tells me that it’s not what she’s expecting to hear. She stares at me for a minute with no expression in her eyes before answering with a quiet, “What?”

“I want to be single.” I take a deep breath. “I don’t want to date you anymore.”

She begins to smile a bit as if she thinks I’m joking but a serious look quickly replaces it. “Is this about last night?”

“It’s not just last night. It’s every night. It’s every night and every day and every moment.” A hurt look is starting to come over her face and I quickly go on. “Stuff isn’t horrible with you, Janice, but it’s not right. We’re not right for each other. You can see that as much as I can.”

“Relationships take work,” she responds but there’s not much conviction in her voice. “You can’t just give up whenever things aren’t perfect.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.” I sigh and bring up a hand to rub my temples. “Look, I had fun with you and you’re a great person but we aren’t right for each other at all. It’s going no where and I just want it to end before it gets really messy. I just want to be single.”

Even as I finish that little speech, I’m saying a silent prayer that she’ll be a grownup about this whole thing and just accept what I’m saying. I want to end this as civilly as possible. The last thing I need is breakup drama in my life.

Janice is quiet for a really long time and I just want to end this and leave but I’m smart enough to know that pushing words out of her is a bad idea. So I simply sit there and try not to feel too bad about the tears I can see welling up in her eyes. Janice is an emotional person in general and I’ve seen her cry plenty of times before. I can’t let myself feel horrible about her crying now and break my resolve. I can think of five different people who would kick my ass if I did.

After a good three minutes of silence, she finally raises her eyes to meet mine and speaks, her voice quiet. “Do you want to be single, Justin, or do you want to be with Laina again?”

Her question shocks me a bit because it was the last thing I expected to come from her mouth. I had prepared myself for her to bitch at me or simply try and make me feel bad. I hadn’t prepared myself for her to call me on something that I had been pushing back in my mind for a while now.

“Pardon?” I ask with a little laugh to mask my surprise to her blunt question.

“Can you honestly say that if Laina didn’t break up with Wes tomorrow and want to get back together with you that you wouldn’t do it? Even though you ‘want to be single’?”

I take a sip of my coffee to buy a bit of time to answer this question. Her eyes are drilling into me and I can’t put off answering for too long. “That’s ridiculous, Janice.”

My answer doesn’t seem to satisfy her the least bit and she abruptly pushes back her chair and grabs her purse. I quickly stand up as well.

“Don’t just leave if you’re mad. I don’t want to end this on a bad note.”

She gives me a frustrated look. “Justin, do you really expect me to just sit here and listen to you bullshit your way around everything? I’m pissed off and hurt and I can’t be around you right now.”

I back off, knowing that pushing her is only going to cause a fight. She can chill off and then we can either have a civil conversation about everything or just let bygones be bygones. “Fair enough.”

She fumbles through her purse for a minute before pulling out her car keys. “I have stuff at your house I need to get.”

“Did you want to come get it now or…”

She quickly shakes her head. “No. I’ll get it later.”

“Okay well just give me a call when you want to come over and get it.”

She gives a short nod and then turns on her heel and leaves the coffee shop. Once she’s gone, I sit back down and let out a large breath of air. I can’t help but feel bad that she’s upset but at the same time, it feels like a huge weight has been lifted off my chest. That has to be a good sign.

I only sit in the coffee shop for another couple minutes before tossing my half empty cup in the garbage and leaving. As I’m pulling my car out onto the street to drive home, I dial Trace’s number. There’s a ritual that happens when one of us breaks up with a girlfriend and I know he’s been dying for the moment when Janice and I broke up to do it.

Trace picks up and barely has a ‘hello’ out of his mouth before I cut him off, a smile forming over my lips as I speak.

“Dude, we’re going to get drunk tonight.”

* * *

Mornings after I go out with Trace are usually particularly brutal. My head feels like it’s about to burst open and my eyes feel glued shut. The worst taste in the world is in my mouth and all I want to do is go to the bathroom and rinse my mouth out but I’m pretty sure that any movement is just going to result in my throwing up.

I’m sure that given a few more hours of unconsciousness in bed would make me feel a hundred times better but I’m not granted that luxury today. After only being awake for ten minutes, I can hear Trace’s voice and Bella barking. I hate that he never gets hungover regardless of how much he drinks. Of course I think I hate him a bit more for the fact that he’s getting my dog riled up after a night of drinking.

I’d so much rather just stay in bed but with all the noise coming from downstairs, it’s better to just get up and go see if I can get them to both shut up at least until I get some aspirin into my system.

I need to never drink ever again. Going to a strip club and getting shit faced seemed like a great way to celebrate a break up. But whatever Trace was giving me knocked me out completely. This is going to be a long ass day.

“Shut the hell up,” I mumble when I stumble into the kitchen where Trace and Bella are. Bella immediately runs over to me but I push her away before she can jump up on me. I can’t deal with an overeager dog right now.

“It’s almost noon,” Trace comments as though I should have been up at the crack of dawn after being out until three in the morning.

“Thanks for the update,” I reply, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. The sunlight coming in through the windows in the kitchen is only intensifying my headache and I open the bottle of aspirin sitting on the counter. After swallowing more pills than I probably should, I take a couple more large swigs of water and then drop into a chair at the table. “I’m never doing something like last night again.”

Trace laughs and I’m finding it harder and harder to appreciate his presence. “You sure seemed to be having a good time last night.”

“That’s because I was drunk off my ass,” I reply, dropping my head down. I run my hands over the top of my hair a few times and wrinkle my nose at the smell of alcohol and stale cigarettes radiating off me. I need to seriously shower. “I don’t remember anything that happened after about half an hour there.”

Trace is silent for a minute and when I look up to see what his problem is, I find him staring at me. “You don’t remember anything?” he questions.

A bad feeling goes through me. Great. What stupid shit did I pull last night? “Why?”

“You called Laina.”

The bad feeling intensifies. “What?”

He shrugs. “Around one I left to go to the bathroom and when I came back you were on the phone leaving a message on her answering machine.”

My head drops again. “Shit. What did I say?”

“I just caught the end of it. Something about how you still loved her.”

My head jerks up at his words and pain immediately courses through my head, making me stop for a second before I ask, “Why the hell didn’t you stop me?”

Trace looks amused and it’s making me want to punch him in the face. “I did. I took your phone away. I didn’t realize you were going to start drunk dialing the minute I wasn’t there.”

Letting out a stream of mumbled curses, I drop my head into my hands. I can’t believe I called Laina last night while I was drunk. I can’t believe I told her I still loved her. Not because that’s unnecessarily untrue, but it wasn’t exactly something I wanted to throw out there.

“Hey, man, it could have been worse,” Trace says. “You could have called Janice and tried to reconcile things.”

I shake my head. “I would hope that even with all the alcohol in the world I wouldn’t try to reconcile things with her.”

“You and me both.”

I lift my head so I can take another drink of water. “I wonder if I should call Laina and find out what I said on that message.”

“I think you should go over there before you call her. If you said something to piss her off she’s probably not going to answer your call.”

He’s right. “Think she’s home today?”

“It’s Saturday so she should be. You probably shouldn’t going over looking like that though. You look like shit.”

He’s pointing out the obvious at this point. “Yeah I know,” I say, pushing back my chair to stand. I give Trace instructions to walk Bella, not that I think he’ll actually do it, and then trudge back upstairs. I still feel like crap but after an incredibly long and incredibly hot shower, I feel halfway human again. Human enough to go over to Laina’s and grovel if necessary. Maybe I’ll luck out and her answering machine malfunctioned. Or maybe she hasn’t even heard it yet and I’ll be able to delete it before she does. I have no idea of the extent of what I said but I do know that it couldn’t have been anything that’s not going to make things completely awkward.

I can’t help but shake my head when I’m able to walk right into her apartment building. As if this place wasn’t unsafe enough, now the lock on the front door is broken and anyone can walk right in. If I didn’t think that she’d kick my ass, I’d give her money for a hotel room until at least the lock is fixed. She could at least just stay with Wes. He’s got to live in a safer neighborhood than this.

I try and steer clear of touching the staircase railing on my way up the stairs to the third floor of the building. I’m not a complete germaphobe but I can almost see the germs and bacteria crawling all over this place. You could probably catch syphilis from touching the wall.

I have to build up a bit of courage before knocking on Laina’s door. I can hope all I want that she didn’t hear whatever message I left last night but the fact of the matter is that she probably did. I’m just hoping that she can take it as me being drunk and going off on something that I shouldn’t have.

The door swings open soon after I knock on it and all hopes that Laina didn’t hear the message fly out the window when I see her angry face.

“Hey, just listen to me for a second,” I say, stopping her from shutting the door by sticking my foot in her apartment.

She lets go of the door and folds her arms over her chest. “I’m really pissed off at you right now, Justin. Are you sure you want to say another word to me?”

I manage to push my way into her apartment and shut the door behind me. “Look last night I was really drunk and apparently I phoned you and said some stupid stuff.”

“Some stupid stuff?” she asks in a loud voice. “You said that we never should have broken up and you’re still in love with me!”

I cringe a bit but shrug. “Okay so I said some stupid stuff,” I repeat. “But let’s just chalk it off to the fact that I was drunk. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“It was a big deal!” she yells and I stumble back a bit when she plants both hands on my chest and gives me a shove. “Wes was here and he heard it!”

Okay so this is worse than I thought. “Lainey, I’m sorry,” I try, but I’m only met with another shove. This time my back hits the door behind me.

“No, you don’t get to just say you’re sorry and think that’ll fix everything! What the hell were you thinking calling me and saying those things!”

I shrug helplessly and say my next words carefully. I’m not putting it past Laina to punch me in the face. “I was drunk. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“Is it your goal to cause trouble between Wes and I?” she asks angrily, jabbing her finger into my chest. It hurts but I don’t make any move to push her hand away. I kind of deserve some abuse. “We finally have a night where I get him away from work and everything is going great and then you call and spout off this whole thing about you wanting me back and how I should dump Wes!”

“Okay but he shouldn’t get mad at you about that,” I say. “You don’t control what I do.”

“But you constantly force me to be the one to explain your idiotic behavior. You can’t do shit like this, Justin! You can’t just expect everyone to just look past you doing all these stupid things!”

“Okay so what should I do?” I ask, hoping there is something I can say that will make her less mad at me. “Should I call Wes?”

“No! Don’t be a complete moron. You are the last person he wants to hear from right now.” She gives me a look that makes me think she’s going to hit or shove me again but then she backs away and stalks a few feet away. “What about Janice?” she asks, abruptly spinning around to face me.

I rub my chest where she had been poking me. I’ll probably have a bruise. “I broke up with her yesterday.”

“And I guess that just means now that you’re single you can just go after any person you like, huh? And I just happened to be the first number you called?”

I don’t want to cause more drama and tell her that there may be some truth behind what I said so I force myself to nod apologetically. “I’m sorry. What can I do to make this better?”

She stares at me for a long moment before speaking, her voice quiet. “You can go away.”

My eyebrows draw together. “Away?”

“Just leave. Let me get things right with Wes again. I’ll call you when that happens. Until then just leave me alone, alright?”

I hate that she’s asking me to do this but I have to respect it. “Okay.” I continue standing there until she gives me a pointed look and gestures to her door. With reluctance, I open the door. I offer one more apology over my shoulder before leaving her apartment, shutting the door behind me. The entire way back to my car all I can do is pray that I haven’t just ruined everything with one drunk phone call.

Lately I’ve felt almost smothered by everything. I’ve been in so many meetings with Johnny Wright about starting a new cd and then there’s been the whole Janice thing and just being in LA can wear on you at a certain point. Getting away for a few days was the only solution besides going a bit crazy. And I tend to always opt for vacation over craziness.

The ten hour drive to British Columbia is more relaxing than I anticipated it would be. I could have very well flown up there but there was something about being alone in my car and listening to my music that completely appealed to me. And nine and a half hours later I’m not regretting driving at all.

Life’s been pretty good the past few days since breaking it off with Janice. She came and got all her stuff yesterday, which was a bit of a tense situation but she was an adult about it and that was a huge relief. When Laina and I broke up, I finally got it that you can break up with someone and still be civil with each other. I don’t want to make any enemies so having things be at an okay place with Janice is a good thing. I don’t think we’ll ever be friends like Laina and I are, but at least if I see her on the street I don’t have to duck into the nearest store and hide.

And as for things with Laina…well she hasn’t called me to tell me that she and Wes are okay but knowing her, she’s just being dramatic and things are already back to being fine with them. She probably just wants me to sweat it out, which I’m definitely doing. But soon she’ll have to give in and talk to me. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

It’s close to ten at night when I finally get to the lakeside cabin my friend, Jessica, owns out here. It’s the perfect place to get away and Jess never has a problem with letting me come out and spend a few days relaxing. It’s not the biggest house but it borders right onto this beautiful lake and it’s in a really gorgeous part of the province.

This is actually where I met Laina for the first time. Her parents own the house next door to Jessica’s and I was spending a few days out here the same time as Laina was out here by herself. The first morning I was here I had come outside and from the deck I could see this girl floating on an air mattress in the water. She hadn’t been too far away to not notice how gorgeous she was and immediately I wanted to know where she had come from and how I could get to know her. The best feeling in the world had been when she came out of the water and ended up walking right to the house next door. She had given me a quick glance but that was all I got back from my blatant staring. That night she was eating on her deck and I built up the nerve to go over there and the rest is history. Needless to say, I have some pretty good memories attached to this place.

The cabin is completely quiet when I unlock the door and I take a minute to stand in the dark solitude before taking off my shoes and moving through the house to put my bags in a bedroom. Driving all day has worn me out and I think after I grab a glass of water, I might just go right to bed.

I’ve been here enough times to know the layout of the house and I don’t bother turning on lights as I go to the kitchen. There are bottles of water in the fridge and I grab one and twist off the lid.

Jessica’s cabin and Laina’s parents’ cabin are pretty close together. And looking out of the window in the kitchen, you can see right into the bedroom of the other cabin. And when I happen to look out that window and see Laina in the other cabin, I almost choke on my mouthful of water.

What the hell is she doing out here? She never mentioned she was coming to the cabin. Not that I’ve talked to her in a few days but still. What are the chances that we’re both out here at the same time?

I wonder if she’s here alone or with Wes. I can’t see him in the bedroom but I don’t have a great view or anything.

Scratch that, I have an EXCELLENT view. Laina just took off her shirt, leaving her in a red bra and her jeans. Despite the fact that I just swallowed some water, my mouth goes dry as I stare at her move around her room. This is so not helping matters. I should not be watching her.

Of course I’m going to watch her. She looks hot. Laina’s got a great body. She’s in shape but she’s got definite curves and her current outfit is only accentuating them.

I watch as reaches an arm around her to scratch her back and then pull the elastic from her hair and let it fall down her back. This is doing nothing to help me get over this returning infatuation that’s been slightly developing for her over the past few days.

It takes major willpower but I manage to force myself to reach over and shut the blinds, blocking that lovely view. For all I know, Wes is there with her and the last thing I need to see is them together. That would probably scar me.

I was previously tired but now that my vacation has been taken in a different direction than I thought, I’m completely awake and the thought of trying to sleep seems implausible. I have an intense urge to go over to the cabin next door and see if Laina is indeed there alone and wants to hang out but I resist. That’s probably not the best idea to bug her now considering she looked like she was getting ready for bed.

I opt instead to try and distract myself by watching some TV. Not that my mind didn’t spend the entire time returning to the vision of Laina standing there in her bra and pants. I have a feeling my dreams are going to be good tonight.

* * *

Relaxation is laying on an air mattress in the middle of the lake with the sun beating down on your back. If I didn’t have to worry about money, I would quit my job and spend all my time out here. Times like now are when I wish I had money to burn but until that day happens, I’m going to have to be content to just live vicariously through my parents’ assets on the weekends I can escape LA.

I woke up early this morning and when I stepped out the front door, I was met with Justin’s car sitting in the driveway of the house next door, which was a complete surprise. It wasn’t there when I got here yesterday afternoon and I had no idea he was planning on coming out here. Not that I’ve been watching, but there’s been no movement from the cabin next door and I’m beginning to question if he’s died in there. More than likely though, he’s avoiding me because he thinks I’m still pissed at him, which I’m basically over at this point.

My sunglasses slide down my nose a bit but making a move to push them back up seems like way too much effort so I just let them be. I probably should go back to the deck and put on more sunscreen but moving right now seems like an unreasonable idea. If I burn, then I burn. That seems like a small price to pay to continue to lay on my stomach here.

I bob up and down a couple times when the waves from a passing motorboat disturb the stillness of my air mattress and that action wakes me up enough to be more aware of the noises around me. Specifically the sound of someone swimming near me. I crack open my eyes and they connect with Justin coming towards me. I make no effort to lift my head from where it’s resting on my arms but keep my eyes on him as he nears me.

“Are you approachable yet?” he asks once we’re in earshot of one another.

I lift one arm to push my sunglasses on top of my head and then drop my arm into the water. “Yeah.”

He comes to the front of the raft where my head is and rests his arms on the very edge. “What are you doing out here? I didn’t know you were coming out.”

“Last minute decision. I have Monday off work so I thought I’d spend the weekend here. What are you doing here?”

He shrugs. “I needed a break from the city.” He glances behind his shoulder at my cabin. “Are you here alone or…?”

“Mm hmm. No one else could come with me.”

“What about Wes?” he asks with some hesitation evident in his voice.

I bump my sunglasses and let them slide down over my eyes and let out a sigh. “Taking time off for Wes seems to not be an option.”

I guess he easily read into my tone because he doesn’t let the subject drop. “Are things okay with you and him?”

I roll my eyes behind my sunglasses. “We’re having problems.”

“What kind of problems?”

I stare at him for a moment before answering. He actually looks concerned about the well being of Wes and my relationship, which after the drunk phone call I received from him, isn’t a look I would expect. “Just the same stuff as usual. He won’t ever leave the office and can’t get it through his head why that would bother me.”

“Is, uh, is he still upset about that whole, uh, phone call thing?”

Justin looks completely embarrassed even asking that question. “He’ll be fine.”

“So he’s a workaholic. Hasn’t he always been?”

“Yeah.” I sigh. “It’s just worse now. Or maybe it just bothers me more now.”

“You don’t sound happy at all.”

I shrug, trying to play it off. I didn’t exactly come out here to sit and dwell on Wes and I.

Justin reaches forward and suddenly my sunglasses are back on top of my head and I’m not longer hiding behind them. “Lainey, if you’re this unhappy, why are you sticking around?”

I shrug again, putting off responding. I probably shouldn’t be having this conversation with my exboyfriend. Especially since there seems to be some unresolved feelings between us.

“Maybe I’m wrong I was under the impression that things were never super serious between you and him. So if you aren’t having fun anymore, why not just ditch him?”

A week ago, I would have taken his advice as gold. But now things are different. After that phone call I don’t know how to take what he says. I realize that he was drunk but that doesn’t mean what he was saying wasn’t truth. If he’s as in love with me as he says he is, he may not have my best interests at heart right now.

“It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“How?” he immediately questions. “Are you engaged? Pregnant? Do you owe him something?”

I swear he’s trying to be a jerk. I push his arms off the edge of my raft and point my sunglasses at him. “Things aren’t the same between Wes and I as they were between you and Janice. I can’t just dump him at some cliché coffee shop.”

He looks offended and I’m not sure if it’s because I just brought up Janice or because I dissed his favorite coffee shop. “How do you know anything about how I broke up with Janice?”

“Trace and I discussed it.”

“You discussed it,” he repeats.

“We went for dinner and we discussed it,” I reply. “Did you really think we wouldn’t?”

He shrugs and replaces his arms on my raft. “I guess you guys are the biggest gossip queens that I know so I should have expected it.”

If he expects that calling me a gossip queen would offend me, it doesn’t because I know it’s true. I love good gossip. “Either way, I’d like to try and work things out with Wes before I just ‘ditch him’.”

“It’s only your time you’re wasting,” he responds and I immediately splash some water in his face.

“You’re being an ass.”

He simply smiles at me. “Just speaking my mind.”

“Ass.”

He rolls his eyes and flicks some water back at me. “What are you doing tonight?”

“Why?” I immediately ask. With Justin, it’s usually necessary to get all the information before agreeing to anything.

“Because we’re both just out here alone and there’s no point of us both just sitting alone in our respective cabins.”

“What exactly are you proposing?”

“You come over and I’ll make you a nice gourmet dinner. Then we can get completely plastered.”

Even though getting drunk with him may not be the smartest thing to do, it beats sitting around alone all night watching a movie, which were my previous plans. “Promise not to take advantage of me?”

He holds out his hand, pinky extended. “Pinky swear.”

I smile and latch my pinky onto his and give it a firm shake. “Then it’s a date. I’ll be over there at six.”

“Perfect.”

I push his arms off my air mattress again. “Now go away and let me tan in peace.”

“I was going to take out Jess’ boat. You want to come?”

“No. Go away.”

He laughs and gives my raft a push, sending me in a slow circle. “Six tonight. Don’t be late.”

“Uh huh,” I reply like it’s not completely calling the kettle black for him to tell me not to be late when he’s in a perpetual state of being late.

I close my eyes again and hear the sound of him swimming away. It takes an actual effort but I force our conversation about Wes out of my mind. Maybe Justin doesn’t have the purest intentions, but what he said does make sense. But this is my mini vacation and I told myself coming out here that I wasn’t going to sit around and obsess about my relationship with Wes. Instead I’m going to lay out here until I burn and then go get drunk with Justin.

That can only end well, right?

“You’re not even dressed,” I state when Justin opens the door that night.

“You’re early,” he retorts.

I check my watch. “By like a minute. Were you really planning on getting dressed in this minute?”

“Maybe,” he says, stepping back from the door so I can enter the cabin. I can’t help but let my eyes run over his body that’s merely clad in a towel. I swear he does this on purpose. When we were dating I told him that my favorite part of his body was his chest and ever since then it’s like he finds opportunities to take off his shirt when I’m around. If I didn’t appreciate the view so much I might call him on it.

“Do you want to take a picture so you can take it home with you?”

I pull my eyes away from his chest to look up at his smirking face. “That’d be great,” I say flatly. “Where’s your camera?”

He laughs and reaches behind me to shut the door. “If you’d like to go check the burgers I will go clothe for you.”

“Not a moment too soon,” I call after him and watch him retreat into the bedroom before going to the kitchen. I move through the kitchen and step out onto the patio where the smell of cooking meat is in the air.

I’ve got to admit, I’m pretty excited about this meal. Justin makes the best burgers and considering I was looking at the prospect of a frozen dinner by myself tonight, this is going to be a feast.

I’m so glad that Justin’s out here at the same time as me. I thought it would be good to get out of LA and come up here and have some time all to myself but within the first night of being here I was ready to shoot myself with all the thinking I was doing. I try and keep my life as uncomplicated as possible and all this shit with Wes right now is making my life way more difficult than it should be.

Maybe Justin was right this afternoon when he said I should just ditch him. It’s only been a couple months that we’ve been dating so it shouldn’t be that big of a deal but I know it’ll turn into one. Wes has always been more serious about our relationship than me and I know that he’s looking for a wife. That and getting partnership is all he needs to make his life perfect. And it won’t help that he doesn’t see anything wrong with our relationship. I really need to think this all through but I don’t want to ruin my weekend by obsessing over it.

Two arms encircle my waist and suddenly I’m crashing back against Justin’s body and in the air. A yelp escapes me but it’s quickly covered by his laugh.

“Justin!”

“Lainey,” he mocks, hoisting me further up his body and in the air.

I kick my legs back, hoping to make contact with his body but all I’m met with is air. “Put me down, you freak.”

He laughs again and sets me unceremoniously back on my feet. “Chill out.”

I reach out and flick his earlobe. “You’re such a creep.”

He bumps me out of the way with his hip and moves to stand in front of the barbeque. “You’re letting them burn, Lainey.”

“I was about to flip them before you went all caveman on me.”

He grins over at me and reaches his hand out to me. He grabs my hip and yanks me over to stand right beside him and then starts flipping the hamburgers. I glance over at him and then shake my head. He must have gotten a headstart on drinking because he’s being more touchy than usual. I guess he’s forgotten that I currently have a boyfriend. So maybe things aren’t great between Wes and I but he’s still in the picture.

I push his hand away from my hip and take a step away from him. “Are we eating out here?”

“It’s nice enough to. Are you going to set the table?”

“Yeah.”

“Nice little homemaking wife setting the table for her husband who’s bringing home the meat….well cooking the meat.”

He must be drunk because if not he’s a complete idiot for saying something like that. I shoot him a look over my shoulder before going back into the house to grab the dishes. He needs to calm himself down before he does something really stupid.

Justin keeps himself under control for dinner and once he’s back to his normal self, I begin to have a really fun time with him. It’s been a while since we’ve hung out and I’d forgotten how much fun I have around him. He’s one of the few people I know who I don’t have to censor what I say and I can really just be myself around. He’s the least judgmental person I know and I think he may be one of the few who actually gets me.

Things get interesting once he breaks out the Malibu. The drinking game only lasts for thirty minutes before I’m more than tipsy and he’s not far behind. It’s been a while since I’ve just let loose and gotten drunk and it’s a nice change.

“Justin! Hold still!” I say through laughter as I grab his foot and yank it back towards me.

He groans and lays his back down on the carpet. “You’re tickling my foot.”

“Just hold still,” I instruct, trying as best I can to keep my hand steady as I paint his toenails.

“I can’t believe I’m letting you do this,” he says, propping himself up on his elbows and staring down at his feet. “This comes off, right?”

I roll my eyes and laugh at him. “No, Sherlock, it’s permanent.”

He kicks my leg with his free foot. “You gotta take this off before we go back to LA. If anyone sees this…”

I break into laughter again simply because I cannot believe I’m actually sitting on the floor with Justin Timberlake painting his toenails a particularly bright pink. Another drink in him and I bet he’ll let me do his fingernails. I so want to be here tomorrow morning when he wakes up and sees his feet.

“Pink’s a good color on you though. You really should consider wearing it more often.”

“Not on my damn toes.”

“Just think of the fashion trend you could start,” I say. I paint his last nail and let go of his foot. “Every man in North America would have pink toenails within a week.”

He sits up completely and leans over to examine his feet. “That’s so gay, Lainey.”

I twist the lid of the nail polish shut and smirk over at him. “You don’t have to pretend to be upset. I read those homosexual rumors about you in the National Enquirer last week. I won’t tell anyone you asked me to paint your toenails pink.”

The words are barely out of my mouth before he’s tackled me onto the carpet and is trying to get me into a headlock.

“You’re going to smear the nailpolish!” I yell out in between laughter. “It’s not dry yet!”

“You’re such a little shit, Lainey,” he laughs, successfully getting his arm around my neck. “You’re taking that shit off.”

My laughter fades as I begin to get dizzy from the combination of alcohol and trying to pull myself out of Justin’s grasps. “I’m gonna throw up all over the carpet if you don’t let me go,” I threaten but he only responds with a loud laugh.

“Not my carpet,” he says, twisting me further under him.

“Jessica’s going to hate you! First you steal her nail polish to put on then you-”

My words are cut off suddenly by his hand clamping over my mouth. “There,” he comments, rubbing his knuckles over the top of my head. “Quiet.”

I push my feet against his knees futilely, trying to get him off of me. When I’m met with no results, I do the next best option and lick his palm. He pauses at that and winks at me.

“Don’t tempt me, Lainey.”

I roll my eyes and gather all my strength and push him away from me. “You messed up my hair,” I say, collapsing on my back on the carpet, tired from his little wrestling session.

He sits back on his heels. “Like you really care.”

I smile and drape my arm over my eyes. I really don’t care at all but it was worth a try to get him to feel bad for tackling me. “I spent so much time on it and now it’s all ruined.”

He grins and raises an eyebrow at me. “You didn’t seem to concerned about it when you were squawking about me smearing the nail polish on the carpet.”

I can’t help but laugh at that. “I worked so hard on your toes though.”

It’s quiet for a minute and I lift my arm to see him staring down at his feet. “I’ve come up with a suitable punishment for you doing this to me,” he finally says, lifting his eyes to look at me.

Is he kidding me? I’m pretty sure I wasn’t holding him down. He actually seemed a little too excited for me to paint his toes. “Oh you have, have you?”

A smile slowly forms over his lips. “You have to do a shot for every toe.”

My mouth drops a bit. “Ten shots would kill me at this point,” I state.

“Okay so you do half, I do half,” he reasons, already on his feet and going over to the counter where all the alcohol is laid out. “You can handle five.”

I groan a bit but don’t protest. I have a feeling he’ll all but force the alcohol down my throat and it’ll be easier just to go along with him.

I sit up from my laying position and shake my head a bit, trying to clear it. There’s still enough rational thought left in me to know that I should be calling it a night and go back to my cabin while I can still walk. But the amount of carefree fun I’m having with him keeps me glued to my spot until he comes over and drops to the floor across from me, setting two shot glasses and the half empty bottle of tequila in between us. I watch him pour alcohol in both glasses and take the one he hands to me.

“To having a kickass weekend,” he says, clinking his shot glass to mine.

I smile and go along with him, throwing it back. I’m past the point of the tequila burning and it slides down my throat pretty easy. As soon as the glass is away from my mouth, Justin is filling it again.

“To you finally being free of Janice,” I toast and he lets out a ‘Whoot!’ before taking his shot. I follow suit.

“How about…” he trails off as he hands me the refilled shot glass. “To you showing Wes what’s up and coming out here without him to hang with me!”

I toast with him even though I didn’t exactly come up to the cabin to spend time with him. Reasoning at this point seems a little pointless.

“Ugh, I don’t think I can do two more,” I say after swallowing my third shot. “I swear you’re trying to kill me.” He laughs and takes my shot glass from me and as soon as it’s out of my hand, I lay down on the carpet again, rolling onto my side. Only a second passes before Justin lays down as well, facing me.

“Okay, I’ll be nice and let you skip the last two shots,” he says, reaching out his finger to tap my nose. “Next time we got out though you owe me two shots.”

I close my eyes and groan. I know he’s going to hold me to that. “Fine.”

It’s quiet for a brief moment before he speaks again. “I’m really glad we both came up here this weekend. I would have been lonely if I was up here all by myself.”

I open my eyes to look at him. He’s a bit blurry and I blink a couple times to clear my vision. “Me too. Even though you ruined my plans to be intellectual and read my book tonight.”

He laughs and I watch him through half closed eyes as he moves a bit closer to me. “You would have been so bored.”

“I know.” I bite on my lower lip and let my eyes examine his. The large amount of alcohol in my system makes me bold enough to ask my next question. “Did you really mean it when you said you were still in love with me?”

He blinks and doesn’t pull his eyes from mine. It only takes him a couple seconds to answer. “Yeah. I meant it.”

I should have expected an honest answer out of him but now I don’t know what to follow it up with. “Oh.”

“You were like the best girlfriend ever,” he says after my pitiful response. “And we only broke up because of that stupid condo thing. Why wouldn’t I still be in love with you?”

“I guess.” I blink a couple times and suddenly realize just how close his face is to mine. He licks his lips and his eyes connect to mine again and…oh man, I know those eyes. I dated the guy for almost a year. I know what those eyes mean. And I may be drunk off my ass but not drunk enough to forget that I have a boyfriend waiting for me in LA. “Justin,” I say, stopping him before he can get his mouth any closer to mine. “Wes.”

A slightly sour look comes over his face and he backs his head away. “Wes,” he repeats as if the name gives him a bad taste in his mouth.

I roll onto my back and rub my eyes. I feel like I’m about to pass out. I need to get back to my own cabin. I take a deep breath and pull myself up. Instantly a wave of blackness passes over me and I stumble forward. Justin’s arms go around me and catch me before I fall over.

“You can’t even make it back to your cabin,” he says. “Stay here tonight.”

That is SUCH a bad idea but he’s right about me not being able to get back to my own cabin. I’d probably trip and end up sleeping on the deck all night. “Where do I sleep?”

He looks towards the hall. “My bed’s pretty big.” He glances back at me and then quickly goes on. “I think there’s a guest room across the hall too.”

“Help me get there,” I say, putting my arm around his neck for support.

“I can’t help still being in love with you,” he mumbles as we stumble down the hallway.

“We’re both drunk and we both need to stop talking,” I reply, letting myself sit down on the bed when I reach it. I stare up at him and he stares down at me.

“You’re sure you don’t want to crash in my room?” he asks. “It’s not so stuffy in there.”

Like stuffiness is his real concern. I’m so tempted but I’m going to tell myself that’s because I’m drunk. “Another time, J-star.”

He gives me a half smile and nudges my foot with his. “I’m gonna hold you to that.”

“I bet you will,” I say, pulling my legs onto the bed and laying down. My eyes almost shut, I watch him lean over and kiss the top of my head and then straighten.

“Bathroom’s down the hall,” he says. “Night.”

“Night,” I mumble back and then roll onto my side, my eyes already shut before he even exits the room.

“Lainey?”

There’s no answer on the door of the guest room when I knock on it and I stand there, leaning against the frame for a minute before trying again.

“Lainey, you alive in there?”

When there’s still no response a minute later, I push open the door and glance into the room, finding it empty. I must have been really out of it this morning because I didn’t hear her leave. She can be pretty quiet when she wants to be but usually someone with a nasty hangover, as I’m sure she has after last night, isn’t too concerned with how quiet they’re being.

I made a complete fool out of myself last night and I wasn’t even completely drunk so I can’t blame it on the alcohol. I made a move on Laina even though I know she’s dating someone else and that’s so wrong. Of all people I should know how wrong that is but I still tried. It really says something about her that as drunk off her ass as she was, her values were still there and she pulled away before anything happened.

I’ve let my renewed feelings for Laina get out of hand and I need to get them back in check. My relationship with her was one of the best, if not the best, that I ever had but that doesn’t mean I need to revisit it. I need to take a step back from having any part in discussion about Wes with her because my biased opinion shouldn’t be affecting her relationship with him.

Trace is probably right when he says that I should forget dating for now. I haven’t really been fully single for a while. After Laina and I broke up I was only really single for a couple weeks before I met Janice and that whole thing started. And then even before I broke it off with Janice I was having these feelings for Laina. Maybe I just need to forget about all these feelings and just enjoy being single. It’s not the most horrible thing in the world.

Drinking last night caused the smallest of headaches to form behind my eyes so after taking a couple Aspirin, I get into the shower. It turns out to be the exact remedy I need and by time I’m getting dressed, I fell better. Better enough to risk going over to Laina’s cabin and find out what exactly she remembers from last night. If I’m lucky she won’t remember me trying to get her into bed. That could make things awkward.

As I put on my sandals, I’m suddenly aware of my pink toenails and that causes a smile to come to my face. Last night may have been slightly embarrassing for me but it was fun. Sober Laina is fun enough but drunk Laina is hilarious and I can’t believe she managed to talk me into painting my toenails. I’m never going to hear the end of this.

The weather outside is shitty and I jog across the grass between the cabins so I don’t get too wet from the spitting rain. The door leading into Laina’s cabin isn’t locked and I let myself in after a brief knock.

“Lainey?” I call, shaking the rain from me. “Where you at?”

I don’t get a response but that doesn’t surprise me because sometimes Laina just randomly ignores people when she doesn’t feel like raising her voice enough to let you know where she is.

It doesn’t take long to find her in the kitchen, standing by the stove. She’s wearing some old concert t-shirt and a huge pair of sweatpants that are barely hanging on her hips with her hair up in a messy ponytail. And somehow that brings an instant level of comfort to me.

“How’s the head?” I ask, dropping down to sit in a chair at the table.

She turns halfway to face me, leaning her hip against the counter. “Not as bad as I would expect,” she says, pushing a spatula around in her frying pan. “Do you want some eggs?”

“I don’t think I can handle any food,” I reply. I push my chair back and stretch my legs out in front of me. It’s quiet for a minute before I force out my next words. “So we both drank a lot last night.”

“And we need to forget about all that happened last night,” she finishes for me, not making eye contact. “Okay?”

I’m so glad she doesn’t want to analyze everything to death. Janice would make me sit here and talk about it for hours. But not Laina. One more reason why she’s amazing.

Okay I need to stop listing reasons why she’s amazing. That’s doing nothing to help the situation.

“Okay.”

She glances at my face and then her eyes move down my body. A smile slowly forms. “But let’s not forget about those fancy toes you have going on there.”

Smiling, I tilt my head back and stare at the ceiling. “Yes. They are pretty fancy,” I agree, shutting my eyes. “I have to find some nail polish remover before I leave.”

“After all my hard work?”

I scoff and lift my head as she sits down at the table across from me with a plate full of scrambled eggs. “It wasn’t THAT good of a job, Lainey.” I yawn and tilt my chair onto the back two legs. “When are you heading back to LA?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“Early.”

“Probably around six.” She turns to look out the window and sighs. “I wish it was nicer out today.”

“Yeah, it’s gross,” I say, staring outside as well. It’s quiet for a minute and my mind gets to thinking. As much as I don’t want to discuss anything about last night I do feel like I should apologize for my behavior. “Laina.”

“Hmm?” she murmurs, not looking away from the window.

“I know we’re not talking about it but I just need to say that I’m sorry for all I said last night. It’s not going to happen again.”

She turns from the window and her eyes connect with mine. She only stares at me for a few seconds before nodding. “Alright.”

It feels great to have that off my chest and I feel like now we can go completely back to normal. “So what are you going to do today?”

She shrugs and puts a forkful of eggs into her mouth. “Not sitting outside, I guess.”

“Jess has a lot of movies at the cabin. You can come over and we could watch some if you want.”

She shrugs again. “Sure.” She puts her fork down and stretches her arms over her head. I see the smallest sliver of her stomach appear and I force myself to look away.

“Do you want to shower or change before we watch anything?”

Her arms drop to her sides and she frowns at me. “What’s wrong with how I look now?”

“Nothing. I like you like this. You’re all comfortable looking.”

She stands up and picks up her empty plate. “I didn’t realize I had to get all dressed up to spend time with you.”

I roll my eyes and reach out my foot to lightly kick her leg. “Don’t be a bitch. You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

She gives me a wide smile and goes over to the sink. “Your momma would have your ass if she knew you just called me a bitch.”

The corner of my mouth turns up as I watch her put her dishes in the sink and run water over them. “Except my mom knows you and would probably agree with me.”

“Shut the hell up. Your mom loved me.”

That’s the total truth. My mom thought Laina was amazing. I think she just liked that Laina wasn’t caught up in the Hollywood glamour and that she kept me grounded. I can never get too much of a big head around Laina because whenever I do she always manages to find something to say to make me feel like a complete moron.

Before I can respond, the phone mounted on the wall above my head rings. Laina gives me a look over her shoulder.

“Be useful,” she says and then turns back to the dishes.

Smiling at her, I reach up and grab the phone from above my head. “Hello?”

There’s too long of pause before a male voice asks. “Is Laina there?”

Shit. That kind of sounds like Wes. “Yeah. Hang on.” I put my hand over the mouth piece and hold it out to her. “Lainey.”

She takes it from me and raises it to her ear. “Hello?” She’s quiet for a minute and then frowns. “He’s out here staying in the cabin next door.” She’s silent again and then a short laugh escapes her. “It was a bit of a coincidence. Oh, because you would have torn yourself away from your precious work for an entire weekend?”

The last thing I want is to sit here and listen to her and Wes fight so I get up and leave the kitchen. It’s starting to actually rain outside and by time I get back to Jess’ cabin, my clothes are drenched.

Taking Laina’s cue, I change into a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. The smell of Laina’s breakfast made my stomach start to growl and I’m feeling better enough to eat something. After preparing myself a large bowl of cereal, I plant myself in front of the TV and wait for Laina. Hopefully she’ll get rid of Wes quickly and come over here.

It only takes five minutes before I’m bored and by time Laina arrives at the cabin twenty minutes later, I’m ready to kill myself from just sitting here alone.

“Finally,” I state when she comes into the den. “I’m dying of boredom over here.”

She plops down on the couch. “It’s gross outside.”

Her neutral statement tells me she doesn’t want to discuss the phone call with Wes so I don’t push it at all. “I bet it’s gorgeous in LA.”

Her socked feet push against my stretched out legs, giving her a little more room on the couch. “Like you’d really rather be in LA.”

It only takes one glance over at her, seeing her curled onto the couch across from me, looking completely comfortable, that I know my answer. “You have a point.”

- - -

“Man, what the hell are you drinking?”

I look away from Bella running around the yard to Trace. “A strawberry and cream frappuccino.”

He snorts in laughter and crosses the yard to join me by the pool. “I didn’t know they sold drinks like that to guys.”

I ignore him and take another sip of my drink. He can make fun of me all he wants but this thing kicks ass.

“So how’s the thing with Laina going?”

Trace and my mom are the two people who get to ask me whatever they want and who I’ll always give an honest answer to. I told Trace about my feelings about Laina basically as soon as I figured them out not that he was really surprised about it. It doesn’t matter if I try and hide it, he usually figures it out pretty quick.

“I’m done with it,” I say. “I can’t waste my time going after someone who has a boyfriend.” I stretch out my legs on the grass in front of me. “I just want to be single.”

“I told you that.”

“You were right. It’s been too long since I’ve been single.”

“So you’re over the Laina thing?”

“I made myself get over it after I made a fool out of myself this weekend at the cabin.”

“So it’s over just like that.”

“It has to be. I don’t need to revisit me and Laina. There’s a reason we broke up in the first place,” I say, pretty proud of myself that I can say those words with actual conviction. Hardly any doubt in those words at all.

Trace nods and leans forward to pet Bella, who’s come over to sniff him. “So have you talked to her today?”

“Laina? No.”

“She and Wes broke up last night.”

This grabs my attention and I turn away from Bella to him. “Serious?”

“Yeah. I guess she finally got sick of him working all the time.”

“Not that much of a surprise,” I finally say after mulling over Trace’s words for a minute. “From what I knew it sounded like they were always fighting anyways.”

“Sounded like it.”

“Probably for the best,” I say vaguely.

“So does that change things?”

I look over at Trace. “Change what?”

“Your whole wanting to be single thing. She’s free game now.”

I shake my head. “No I’m serious about wanting to be single. It’s probably good that I realized that before they broke up.”

Trace looks like he doesn’t blame me and I don’t really blame him because I don’t know if I really completely believe myself. But I’m going to make myself be single for a while. I can easily force myself to do that, right? It won’t be that hard.

Before I can think about it anymore, I’m distracted by Trace giving me a disgusted look and getting up.

“Man, your damn toenails are pink. I’m getting out of here before you start growing tits.”