The door swung open and Rylee waited, holding her breath.

“Rlyes?”

“Hey Trace, can I come in?”

Trace stood back from the door way and Rylee entered into his living room.

“I’m guessing that you’re not here to throw back some beers and hang out.”  He watched her shake her head ‘no’.  “What’s up, Ryles?”

Her face scrunched up and she covered her mouth with her hand to stifle the sobs that were threatening to come out.  She waved him off when he attempted to take her into a hug.

“I’m sorry…it’s just been a really stressful afternoon and I didn’t know where else to go.”

“Is it about Justin?”

“No.  Yes.  I don’t know, not really.”  She laughed a little, but it wasn’t a very nice sound.  “How’s that for decisive?”

Trace moved her over to the couch and made her sit down before grabbing her a bottle of water from the kitchen and sitting next to her.

“Why don’t you just start from the beginning, OK?”

Rylee took a deep breath, sipping from the bottle.  “I got an e-mail from my university today, and then one from my land lord.  None of them had anything good to tell me, and then I freaked out on Justin for trying to help.”

“What did the e-mails have to say?”  He watched her drag her hands through her hair roughly.  If this were any other moment, he would’ve laughed at how disheveled she looked.

“Well, I don’t have enough credits to graduate and I owe the school for this last semester because my loan didn’t go through.”  She took a large gulp of the water and hiccupped eliciting a small smile from Trace.  “And the last e-mail from my land lord told me that I owe for the last two months rent because Christina won’t pay.”

Trace sat back against the couch in shock.

“Well, shit Ryles, no wonder you’re upset.  That’s a lot to take in.” 

“Justin offered to give me money and I bit his head off.  I’m not sure that was the best thing I could’ve done.”

She got up from the couch and started to pace the living room. 

“I just…I don’t want him to start paying for something, I mean…I already live with him and I work for him…” 

“…and he loves you.”  Rylee stopped her movements at Trace’s words.  She turned to stare at him for a moment and he smiled.  “He just wants to help you, Ryles.  I totally understand why you don’t want him giving you money, but I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it.”

He stood up from his spot and made his way across the room to stand next to Rylee.  They both stared out the window.

“He’s in love with you.  The only thing he knows to do when someone he loves is hurting…is smother the shit out of them.”  He smiled at Rylee’s chuckle.  “He’s never known how to deal with these kinds of things, so he tries as hard as he can to fix things for everyone else.”

“I shouldn’t have snapped at him, Trace, but I can’t have him throwing money at me on this one.”

“I’m sure he knows that, Rylee.  But he probably didn’t know what else to do.”  He grabbed her around the shoulders and pulled her into a tight hug.

“I freaked out pretty badly.”

“And then you brought it over to my apartment.  You’re totally messing up my chi, or whatever that shit is.”

Rylee’s head fell back with the hearty laughter that spilled from her mouth.  She felt better now that she’d visited with Trace, but her guilt about what happed with Justin wasn’t letting her completely relax.

“I think it’s feng shui, or something like that.”  She glanced around the room and then added, “and your apartment is completely void of any friendly, calming vibes.”

Trace managed to look offended before laughing along with Rylee.

“Hey, Ryles,”  He waited until she turned to look at him, “Go back to your man and make it up to him.  I’m sure you can think of something he’ll like.”

“You’re such a pervert,”

“I was thinking you could bake him a cake or something!  You dirty girl,” they both laughed, and Rylee leaned over to give Trace a hug before heading toward the door.

“Thanks, Trace.  I’ll give you a call sometime tomorrow, you can come help me apartment shop.”

“Sure thing.  I’ll make sure to study up on my fungi-shit….or whatever the hell you called it.”

~*~

“Ry!”  Justin called up the stair case and waited for a response.  He couldn’t imagine that Rylee was still sleeping, but they had stayed up pretty late last night.  She came back and apologized for snapping at him, and then they spent a few hours trying to come up with solutions to her problems…and then the spent a couple more hours coming…

He grinned.

“Rylee Jean!”  He heard a rustling and a second later she appeared at the top of the stairs.

“What?”  Her hair was tussled and her eyes weren’t fully open yet.  She looked adorable.

“I’m getting ready to head to the studio, I wanted to say goodbye.”  She shuffled her way down the stairs attempting not to trip on the blanket that was wrapped around her body.

“What time is it?”

“Almost 7.”  He tugged on the blanket and pulled her into his embrace.

“I’m exhausted.”  Her sentence was punctuated with a yawn and he chuckled.  Pulling on the blanket, he pressed his lips into hers.  After a moment or two, he pulled back, brushing hair out of her face.

“Are you going to look for apartments today?”

“Yeah,” she nodded, “Trace said he’d come along.  He has a few places to check and I grabbed a paper.”  She pointed to the table and then quickly retracted her arm with a shiver.

“Are you…”  His eyes traveled down and he smirked as he tugged on the blanket again.  “You’re naked.”  His grin grew.

“You were yelling so loudly, I thought something was wrong.  I didn’t have time to put anything on.”  Her face grew red and she looked at the floor in embarrassment.  Justin put a finger under her chin and brought her face up to see his.

“You are the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.”  His sentence was broken by the soft kisses he kept placing on her mouth.  “Have fun apartment hunting today, and you and Trace should stop by the studio when you’re done.”

“K.”  Rylee stood on her toes and gave Justin another kiss before shoving him toward the door.  “Now go, I’ll see you later.”

He waved at her and then turned and headed out the door.  Rylee wrapped her blanket tighter around her and rushed back up the stairs as fast as she could without falling.

~*~

Justin sat back in his chair and nodded along with the music that was currently spilling from the speakers.  Brett sat next to him, fiddling with dials every now and then.

“I think we’ve got it.”  Justin spoke when the song stopped playing.

“Me too, now we’ve just got to master the last song.”  Brett turned to the computer that was behind him and started to bring up the last song they needed to work on for the day.

“Rylee is coming in at some point, she left me a message saying she would be here sometime around 3 or so, which is in about half an hour.  I think we should have her listen to these too, before we ship ‘em off to the lable.”

Brett turned to look at his boss for a minute before speaking.  “So, what’s up with you and our intern, anyway?  I’ve heard some rumors around the studio.”

“Rumors?  From who?”

“Eh, no one specific.  Just whispers here and there that the two of you are getting pretty cozy.”

Justin couldn’t help the grin that started on his face.

“She’s amazing, man.  I’ve never met anyone like her before, and…it’s just…I love being with her.”

“What happened to Christina?  I didn’t even realize that had ended.”  Brett played the track in the background and then sat back in his chair to continue talking with Justin.

“Oh, that was a huge shit show.  Christina flew back to the East Coast without telling anyone, and I later found out it was to get away from me.  But while she was gone, Rylee and I ended up…ah…sleeping together, and when Christina found out she threw a shit fit and got pissed at Rylee.”

“Ouch.  You sure know how to bring the drama, JT.”  The older man laughed at the slightly shameful look on Justin’s face.

“Not one of my finer moments, I’m sure.  But I wouldn’t change it, you know?  I love being with Rylee and it was the best decision I’ve made in a long time.”

“Isn’t that the cutest fucking thing?  It makes me want to kill myself.”  The voice sounded from the door way and both Brett and Justin jumped at the sound.

“What the…Christina?  What the fuck are you doing here?”  Justin could feel his blood start to boil at the sight of the girl standing in his studio.  He was hoping that he would never have to deal with her again.

“Speak of the devil, ay, JT?  I’m gonna take off for a bit man, take a lunch or something.  Call me when the coast is clear.”  Brett slipped out of the room, careful to make a wide berth around Christina. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?”  Justin said again.

“You’re repeating yourself, Justin.”  She leaned a hip against the counter and stared down at her nails.  “I came here to speak to the backstabbing bitch you call a girlfriend.”

“You and I aren’t dating anymore, Christina, you can stop referring to yourself as my girlfriend.”  He quipped.

Christina sent him an arresting glare.  “You’re so fucking funny.  I was talking about Rylee.”

“She’s not here.”  And Justin was extremely thankful that she wasn’t there, too.  She didn’t need to deal with this, not on top of everything else going on.

“She owes me for the rent; I came to collect my money.”

“Why are you so concerned with that shit?  She’s going to pay.”  He pushed back in his chair a little and rolled further away from Christina.  He was afraid what might happen if he got to pissed off at her.

“My name is on that lease too, and I don’t want my credit to start sucking because she hasn’t paid.”

“That’s bullshit.”  The surprised look on Christina’s face almost made Justin smile, but he refrained.  “You’re here to cause more drama and stir up more shit.  I’ll bet you’ve been sitting by yourself for the past few weeks realizing that you drove away the one person that gave a fuck about you and now you came to make her just as miserable.”

“Well, I don’t know how much of that is true, but I certainly know that my former friend gave you a fuck.”  She smirked at him and he clenched his hands around the arm rest on the chair.  Justin wasn’t a very violent person, but Christina was pushing at his buttons today.  “You know, if I had actually had feelings for you when everything happened, I would probably be too hurt to even look at you.  To tell you the truth, I’m glad Rylee took you off of my hands.  Now she looks like the bitch and I’m just the victim.”  She gave him a nasty grin and Justin had to keep himself from jumping out of the chair.

“Get out of here, Christina.”  His words were tight as he ground them out through his clenched teeth.

“No, I came here to see Rylee.  Where is she, anyway?”

“She’s with Trace…”

“Ooh, you’re trusting.  She already fucked him once, Justin, what makes you think she wouldn’t do it again?”

The slamming of the door way caused both occupants in the room to stop and turn.  Rylee stood there with a very pissed off look on her face.

“He knows that I love him, that’s why he trusts me.”  She stayed in the door way, but it was impossible to miss the hatred and upset that was pouring off of her in waves.

“Well, isn’t that just peachy kee-” Christina started to speak, but Rylee cut her off.

“Shut the fuck up, Christina.”  She moved into the room with a purposeful stride, and both Justin and Christina sat back in fear.  Neither had ever seen Rylee this pissed off before.

“I came here for-”

“I thought I told you to shut the fuck up?  What, you’re too high and mighty to listen?”  Rylee stood close enough to Christina to touch, but she kept her arms folded across her chest.  “You know, I’ve done a lot of thinking about everything that went down between the two of us, and I’ve beat myself up for ever allowing things to happen because I thought losing my best friend was the worst thing that could ever happen to me.”

Christina tried to move away but Rylee shot her a look that froze her in place.

“I’ve done nothing but guilt myself over how I hurt you, about how I stole your boyfriend away from you.  I felt terrible for everything…”  She jabbed her index finger into Christina’s chest with such a force that the girl stumbled backwards into the counter.  “…but to walk in here and listen to you admit that you felt nothing for Justin and were just looking for a way out makes me realize something.  Do you want to know what that is?”

“What…what is it?”

“The fact that you’re nothing but a conniving, hateful, sneaky, little slut-of-an-ex-best-friend and I am so much better off without you.”

The look on Christina’s face was so priceless that Justin wished he had his camera handy.  This was a moment he would’ve loved to capture on film.

“You hated to see me happy, didn’t you?  Especially when you knew that you couldn’t make it work with Justin, you just hated to see him move on to me because you knew that we were perfect for each other.”  Rylee’s face was red and she was starting to feel a little dizzy from how tightly her body was wound, but she wasn’t about to stop now.

“I struggled for years, Tina, years to find someone that made me happy.  And I’ll bet you saw it too, I’ll bet you knew what was happening between me and Justin and you were just looking for a way to ruin it all.  Well, I hate to break it to ya, sweetheart, but I don’t give a flying fuck what you do, you’re not about to ruin anything!”

There was a thunderous silence in the room as each occupant tried to take in what had just happened.  Justin was so impressed at Rylee for standing up for herself, he was speechless.  Christina was so shocked that she had just been reamed a new one by someone that barely ever got upset, it was difficult for her to handle at the moment.  She started to walk toward the door, realizing that she was clearly unwanted, but Rylee’s arm stopped her movements.

“One more thing,”  She reached into her pocket and pulled out a check made out to Christina.  “Here is the money for the last two month’s rent.  Now get the fuck out of my sight and don’t bother coming back.  Ever.”

Christina resembled a dog with her tail between her legs so much that Justin couldn’t help but bust out laughing as she scrambled out the studio doors.

“Baby, that was the hottest thing I have ever witnessed.”  He crossed the room and pulled a still fuming Rylee into his arms.

“I can’t believe her, Justin.  She…she…I can’t believe that she would do something like that when she didn’t even want to be with you.”  The anger started to dissolve into tears and Justin pulled her tighter into his embrace.

“I know, Ry, I know.”  He kissed her forehead.  “But you said it, baby, you’re so much better off without her.” 

Pushing back a little, Justin grabbed Rylee’s face in his hands and wiped at her tears with his thumbs.  He gave her a small smile and placed a quick kiss on her lips.

“Was I wrong to yell like that?”  She looked so adorably sheepish that Justin couldn’t help but let out a laugh.

“Not at all, Ry, not at all.”