“So, bad news…”

Sighing, I drop the small crate onto the floor of the store’s back stockroom and shove it along the wall. I shake my head, refusing to look at Marcus, who stands in the doorway, the bearer of bad news. “Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“That whole bad news thing,” I say, waving toward him. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“It’s just a bit of a problem.”

“Whatever it is, it’s not my problem.”

“But it is.”

Groaning, I run my hands down my face. “Don’t do this to me, Marcus.”

“Bethany’s feeling sick, so I’m going to send her home.”

“I’m begging you,” I grumble. “Don’t do it.”

“I need you to stay and run her register.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“I opened this morning. I’ve been here since eight o’clock.”

“You got off at three,” he points out.

“And I was back here by five,” I say. “I’ll be back again at eight in the morning. Now you want me to stay until midnight?”

“I wouldn’t ask you if I had another choice,” he says before walking away, just like that, not waiting on a response. He didn’t even actually ask. He assumed I’d stay, because that’s who I am. It’s what I always do.

“Look at me, woo-hoo, assistant manager of the Piggly Q,” I grumble to myself, shoving more crates around before locking up the stockroom. “Doing amazing things with my life.”

I head to the front of the store in just enough time to see Bethany scurry out, looking quite the opposite of sick, but hey, what do I know? The little dance she does, though, as she meets her friends out in the parking lot, is a pretty good indicator that I’m being screwed over.

Awesome.

I’m in a bad mood. I’ve been in one all day. I’m not sure what started it, but I’m on edge. My little quiet life of monotony is feeling more and more like some prank the universe is playing. The fact that LeAnne Rimes' How Do I Live is playing on the store radio pretty much proves that point, I think.

I run the register until the store closes, which means I stand around all night long, my feet angrily screaming from me being on them.

It’s a quarter after midnight when I get to the apartment, slipping inside and locking up.

The lights are off, but the TV is on, playing quietly, the glow of it illuminating the couch, where Jonathan lays with Maddie snuggled up against him. He’s fast asleep, while she’s barely dozing, eyes open but zoned out so much that she hasn’t even noticed me. She was supposed to be in bed hours ago, but I’m too exhausted to be upset about it. Colorful marker covers the white plaster on Jonathan’s wrist. He let her draw on his cast.

Strolling over, I scoop her up in my arms, and she doesn’t resist, already snoring by the time I tuck her in bed.

When I make it back to the living room, Jonathan is sitting up. He runs a hand over his face, groggy, as he asks, “What time is it?”

“After midnight.”

“Jesus Christ,” he grumbles, looking me over as I plop down on the couch beside him and kick off my shoes. “Did you just get home?”

“A minute ago,” I say. “Cashier was sick, left early, so I had to close. Got home in just enough time to get some sleep so I can get up tomorrow and do it all over again.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what it’s like in the real world.”

“You don’t think I live in the real world?”

“I think you live in your own world, Jonathan.”

“You could quit,” he suggests.

“And do what? Get a job somewhere else, making minimum wage again?”

“You could stay home,” he says. “Maybe even write, whatever you want to do.”

“That’s not going to pay the bills.”

“But I can.”

I glare at him when he says that.

He stares back at me defiantly.

He looks like he doesn’t even understand what’s wrong with what he’s suggesting.

“I’m not going down this road with you,” I tell him. “Not again.”

“But I should be supporting my daughter. I should be contributing.”

“You should be doing a lot of things.”

“Yeah, so, let me.”

I shake my head. “What happens when I quit my job and you decide to stop contributing?”

He laughs at that question. He laughs, like I’m being funny, the sound getting under my skin. Ugh. I go to stand up, to walk away, but he stops me, pulling me back onto the couch. “Look, I get it. I’ve let you down, but just give it some thought.”

“There’s nothing to think about. I don’t need you. I never did.”

As soon as those words come from my lips, I almost choke on the flood of regret that flows through me. It might be true. I might mean it. I might not need him. But there’s cruelty in every word of that, and that’s not who I am. No matter what happened to us, I never wanted to be just another person who did things to hurt him.

“I’m sorry,” I say, putting my head down as I rest my elbows on my knees. “I don’t know why I said that. I’m all over the place right now. My emotions are a mess.”

Before he has the chance to respond, there’s a knock on the apartment door. I force myself to my feet to see who it is, brow furrowing when I look through the peephole and see Bethany. Weird. Jonathan mumbles something about saying goodnight to Maddie as he gets up, disappearing down the hallway.

Sighing, I unlock the door when there's another knock. Bethany tenses, her wide-eyes meeting mine when I open it.

“Kennedy?” Her voice is laced with confusion. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here,” I say, brow furrowing as I glance around. She’s with some friends, the girl who picked her up from work and a guy, maybe mid-twenties. “Did you need something?”

“Oh, uh, no,” Bethany says, forcing a smile as her cheeks flush. “Sorry. We just thought, I mean… we were looking for someone else. Must’ve gotten the wrong apartment.”

She elbows the guy beside her pretty hard, making him wince as he mutters under his breath, “I swear, this is where he was.”

Those words make my stomach drop.

“Who are you looking for?” I ask. “Maybe I can help you find him.”

“It’s nobody,” Bethany says. “It’s stupid, forget about it.”

She bolts away from the apartment, dragging her friends along, berating the guy as they walk. I make out a bit of their conversation as they flee, hearing that dreaded name.

Johnny Cunning.

Carefully, I close the door, making sure to lock it again, and turn off the TV in the living room before making my way down the hall. Jonathan stalls when I stop in front of him.

“You, uh… you might wanna consider staying,” I tell him.

He raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Yep.” I step toward him, flush against him, and rise up on my tiptoes as I whisper, “I think you’ve been made.”

I head to my bedroom, and he hesitates before following, stopping in the doorway. “What are you talking about?”

“The knock on the door,” I tell him as I strip, getting out of this uniform. “Seems they were looking for a certain someone they heard might be around here somewhere.”

“Fuck.”

“I didn’t tell them anything,” I say, tossing my clothes in the hamper. “It was the cashier from the store—you know, the one that went home sick tonight—and her friends. Guess someone thought they spotted you and word got back to her at work that you were in town for some reason.”

I turn to him, expecting a reaction, maybe an explanation, but he doesn’t even look at my face. No, his eyes are drifting, scanning my body, as I stand in front of him in plain white cotton, a simple bra and underwear.

I wave my hand in the direction of his face. “Are you even listening to me?”

He meets my gaze, eyebrows raised. “What?”

I shake my head, walking over to the closet to pull out a t-shirt, putting it on. When I turn back to him, he’s not looking at me again. No, this time his attention is on the top of the dresser right beside him, on the old notebook sitting there.

After a moment, he attempts to focus. “So I’ve been made, huh?”

“Seems so.”

“Pity,” he says, strolling over and sitting down on the edge of my bed. “I was enjoying anonymity.”

“Yeah, well, real world, remember? You had to know it wouldn’t last.”

“Yeah,” he mumbles, though he doesn’t seem to like that fact, his attention now on the drawings covering his cast. He traces the colorful lines with his fingertips.

Grabbing a black permanent marker from the drawer in my bedside stand, I push Jonathan back onto the mattress before climbing onto his lap, straddling him. I yank the cap off the marker with my teeth. Pinning him down, I find a spot on the cast that still has some white and carefully write the words, ‘love doesn’t know titles.’

He watches me, reading it, and smiles.

“That line is in the movie,” he says as I sign beneath it simply with a ‘K’ and put the cap back on the marker. “It wasn’t when I got the Ghosted script, but I threw a fit so they wrote it in.”

“They let you have input?”

“Of course,” he says. “It’s in my contract.”

“Well, in that case,” I say, “you ought to have them fix the ending for your daughter.”

He laughs. “I’ll see what I can do.”

I kiss him. I shouldn’t. We shouldn’t be doing any of this stuff we keep doing, but I’m having a hard time stopping myself when it comes to this man. He makes me reckless again.

He kisses me back, hands roaming, pulling at clothes, touching, caressing. I moan against his lips when he starts rubbing. Even constrained by a broken wrist, he easily works his magic.

Breaking the kiss, I gasp as his mouth finds my neck. He’s fumbling with his pants but hesitating for some reason. “You are on birth control, right?”

I pull back from him, enough to meet his gaze.

“We haven’t talked about it,” he says. “I wasn’t sure, you know, and we should be careful.”

He’s trying to have a serious conversation. A legitimate one. One we need to have. One that would probably make my father proud. But he’s still rubbing, he hasn’t yet stopped, and everything is going hazy, because I’m getting closer and closer, pleasure tingling my body.

I force words out between breaths as orgasm tears through me. “I’ve got... uh... implant... in my... uh... arm.” Oh god. “It's good… for another… year… uhhhh…”

He yanks me onto the bed beneath him, startling me, not hesitating anymore as he says, “Well, in that case…”

* * *

“No, no, no…”

The screeching of the alarm startles me awake. The bedroom is still dim and my eyes are burning as I force them open, slapping at the bedside stand to silence the noise.

“Shut that thing up,” a gruff voice grumbles, the words muffled, a pillow covering his head. I hit a button—some button, any button—to make it stop screeching, and try to sit up when arms wind around me, yanking me back down. “Hmm, stay.”

“I can’t,” I mumble. “I have to work.”

“Quit.”

“Maddie has school.”

“She can quit, too.”

Laughing, I try to break free from his grasp. “Seriously, Jonathan. I have to get up.”

“I’d rather you not.”

“Tough.”

Sighing dramatically, he loosens his grip, letting me slip out of bed. I pause and stretch, cringing, my entire body aching this morning. Even my bones seem to hurt. I’m much too young to feel so old, but real life, remember?

I glance behind me at the bed, at Jonathan, as he peeks out from beneath the pillow. It’s strange, so strange, him being here—exciting, yet terrifying. But just like his anonymity, I know this can’t last forever.

“Guess I have to get up, too,” he says, tossing the pillow onto the mattress beside him as he sits up. “Gotta go brave the public and get back to my grumpy ass landlady.”

“You could stay here,” I suggest right away—maybe too fast, based on the stunned look he gives me, but I’m just as shocked.

Did I seriously invite him to stay here?

“Are you sure?” he asks.

“No,” I say.

He laughs.

“But you could, if you wanted to,” I continue. “You know, stay and hide out. It would make it easier for you to see Maddie.”

“Okay.”

“Just don’t snoop through my underwear drawer when I’m not home.”

“Hasn’t even crossed my mind,” he says, grinning. “Does that mean I'm allowed to look when you're here?”

Rolling my eyes, I lean over the bed and kiss him—not dwelling, not lingering, and not answering that question—before leaving the bedroom. I shower and put on my uniform for work. Jonathan’s already asleep again before I even wake Maddie up.

I’m exhausted, and the morning drags on and on and on. Maddie eats Lucky Charms before I drop her off at school, getting to work at exactly eight o’clock. Marcus is already there, bright-eyed, rambling on about schedules and vacation days and overtime pay. I barely pay him attention as I clock in until I hear the words ‘Kennedy can cover the register this weekend’. Oh, whoa, whoa… “Excuse me? I can do what?”

“You don’t mind, do you?” he asks, not even looking at me, his attention fixed on some paperwork he’s sorting through. “Bethany wants the weekend off, and we don’t have anyone to cover for her.”

“Here’s a novel idea—hire somebody,” I say. “The cashiers have been short-staffed for a while, even before Bethany started requesting all this time off.”

“I could,” he said. “I just figured you’d want the extra hours, being a single mom and all.”

“Being a single mom and all, I’d like to have the chance to spend time with my kid, because I haven’t had much of that lately.”

“Fair enough,” he says, still not looking at me. “Do me a favor when you go out there? Tell Bethany I have to decline her request.”

Hello, guilt trip.

Shaking my head, I walk away, heading through the store to get my work done so I can get out of here on time. I busy myself in the stockroom, figuring out what needs to be ordered, when there’s a quiet knock and the door pops open, Bethany appearing. “Hey, Kennedy.”

“Hey,” I say, cutting right to it. “Marcus couldn’t approve your weekend off.”

She scowls but doesn’t complain, just standing there, leaning against the doorframe, watching me as I shove crates around and finish what I couldn’t last night because of covering for her.

“So, did you need something?” I ask after a few minutes, knowing she’s supposed to be up front, running a register, and not back here.

“No, I, uh… I wanted to say sorry about last night,” she says. “You know, about knocking on your door. Josh—that’s my boyfriend, he delivers pizza, and he swears he delivered pizza to that apartment and the guy there looked like… somebody.”

“Any somebody I might know?”

“Johnny Cunning.”

She laughs awkwardly, and I cast her a look, seeing her cheeks are flushed with embarrassment.

“So your boyfriend told you he delivered pizza to Johnny Cunning at my apartment.”

“Yeah,” she says. “I thought it might not be so crazy, him being in town, since he’s been here before, and nobody has seen him lately, but Josh must’ve been hallucinating or something. It must’ve been that Andrew guy you’re seeing, because there’s no way Johnny Cunning was hanging out at your apartment.”

I stop what I’m doing to look at her. “Why’s that?”

“Huh?”

“Why wouldn’t he be at my apartment?”

She laughs. “Why would he be?”

“I don’t know,” I say with a shrug. “Maybe we go way back, and he wanted to catch up on old times.”

“Yeah, okay,” she says, still laughing. “In that case, say hey to him for me.”

“I will,” I tell her, shaking my head as she walks away.

The afternoon drags just like the morning. Come lunchtime, I take my break locked up in the stockroom, wanting some peace and quiet. Sitting on a crate, I pull out my phone, seeing a message waiting from Drew.

Dinner this weekend?

I stare at it before clearing the notification and sending a message to Jonathan. Bethany (your local fangirl) says hello.

He responds right away. Nice. Tell her I said hey.

Will do. ;)

I hesitate after sending that before typing another one.

Drew asked me out to dinner.

I feel like an idiot the moment I hit send, desperately wishing I could take it back. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I mutter. Why did I just tell him that?

His little reply bubble pops up and then disappears again, over and over, for at least a minute, maybe two, before a call comes through. Jonathan.

Panicked, I almost hit decline, my finger bouncing between the buttons, before I answer it. “Hello?”

“You tell Hastings he can suck my cock,” he says.

I laugh quietly. “Before or after dinner?”

“Either way,” he says. “Though, I prefer the dinner not happen.”

“Good to know,” I say. “I’ll be sure to pass on that message.”

“You do that,” he says, a gritty edge to his voice as there’s a rustling on the line, the sound of springs squeaking.

“Wait, are you still in bed?” I ask. “Seriously?”

“Hey, don’t judge me,” he says. “You could still be in bed, too, but you chose to go to work. You made your choice. Don’t hate on me for mine.”

I glance at the time—nearly one o’clock. “All I know is I get off work in two hours and you better be out of bed by then.”

“Or what?” he asks. “What are you going to do?”

“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”

He laughs and says something, but I don’t hear what it is, because the storage room door pops open again. This time, Marcus appears, holding the week’s schedule. He taps a pen against his lips in contemplation, and I know right away whatever he’s about to say isn’t going to be something pleasant.

“I have to go,” I say quietly. “Work crap.”

I don’t give Jonathan a chance to respond, hanging up as Marcus starts talking. “So I did some finagling, moved some others around to cover the weekend for Bethany…”

“Lucky her,” I say.

“Yeah, so I need you to work a double on Thursday, if you can manage that,” he says, cutting his eyes at me. “Unless that’s too much of a problem.”

I want to tell him it is, but I’m too nice. Besides, you know, money. “Not a problem at all.”

“Good, good,” he mutters, walking out as my phone vibrates with a message. I look at it, seeing a text from Jonathan.

Work? Too bad you can’t just… quit.

Shaking my head, I don't respond to that, instead going back to Drew's message. I need to reply while I have the nerve. I don't think it's a good idea for us to go out with everything else that's going on.

I send a string of frowny-faces, already wrecked with guilt, because hanging out with him is easy and he's been so nice, but I know it'll just cause problems, and the fact that my feelings for him haven't evolved past acquaintances is a sign that added complication isn't worth the trouble. I shove my phone into my pocket so I can get back to work, hoping the next few hours go faster, but no such luck. Every second seems to drag and drag and drag. By the time three o’clock comes, I feel like I’ve been at this place for days.

On my way out of the store, I run into Bethany, lingering by the register, face buried in the latest edition of Hollywood Chronicles. There’s nothing about Jonathan on the cover. “Anything interesting?”

She scowls, closing the tabloid. “Nothing.”

“I told him you said hey, by the way. He said hey back.”

She laughs. “Yeah, right.”

I give her a smile. Poor girl. She’s going to kick herself. “Anyway, heard you got your weekend off. Big plans?”

“Just the usual,” she says, shrugging.

“The usual, as in, knocking on apartment doors at one a.m. looking for Johnny Cunning?”

“Pretty much.” She’s blushing again. “Josh is such an idiot.”

“Well, good luck with that,” I say, leaving before I take pity on the girl and start spilling my secrets.

I get to my father’s house the same time as Maddie’s bus, meeting her in the front yard as my father rocks in his chair on the porch.

“Grandpa!” Maddie says, running right for him, digging through her backpack to pull out a drawing. “I made you a picture!”

“Well, look at that!” he says, grinning. “A dinosaur!”

She laughs. “No, it’s not, silly! It’s a alligator!”

“Ah, and it’s by far the greatest alligator I’ve ever seen,” he says. “Absolutely perfect!”

She runs inside to hang it up somewhere, like usual. I linger outside, waiting for her to resurface, as my father stares me down.

“So,” he says.

“So,” I repeat.

“So how’s it going?”

“Okay,” I say.

“Okay,” he repeats.

It’s silent for a moment as we stare at each other.

“You’ve got mail again,” he says. “It’s on the kitchen table.”

“Thanks.”

“Of course.”

I head inside, passing by Maddie as she runs back out. I grab my stack of mail, sorting through it. Mostly junk, as usual, that I toss right in the trash, but I pause as I reach the last envelope.

Cunningham c/o Caldwell Talents

I stare at it for a moment before folding it, shoving it in my back pocket and heading outside, where Maddie sits with my father, rambling on and on about the fun she’s been having with her daddy.

“Are you ready, sweetheart?” I ask. “We need to get home.”

“Okay, Mommy,” she says, snatching up her backpack to lug it off the porch.

“Thinking of having a cookout this weekend,” my father says. “Nothing big, but I hope you can come. Haven’t seen much of my girls lately.”

“Sure,” I say, hugging him. “We’ll be here, Dad.”

“Can my daddy come, too?” Maddie asks, swinging her backpack as she spins in circles.

“I don’t—” I start, because I don’t know about all that, but my father cuts me off.

“Of course,” he says. “If he’s up for a visit.”

Oh, boy.

We head home, and as soon as we reach the apartment, Maddie bursts inside, screeching, Daddy! You’re here!”

Jonathan is in the kitchen, wearing only a pair of pants. Food is cooking on the stove. I can hear it. I can smell it. He’s frying something, and it’s not currently burning, whatever it is. That’s a step up from what dinner is like when I make it.

“I am,” he says, waving the spatula toward Maddie when she heads right for him. “Figured you might be hungry.”

“What is it?” she asks, trying to look.

“Fried chicken,” he says. “Tater-tots. Mac & Cheese.”

I shut the front door, locking up, before strolling to the kitchen. The latter came from a box, but still, it’s impressive. Huh.

“Get started on your homework,” I say, steering Maddie away from the stove. “We’ll let you know when the food is ready.”

She leaves the kitchen, dragging her backpack along.

“So dinner, huh?” I look over his shoulder as he pokes at the chicken. “Have you ever fried chicken before?”

“Nope,” he says, “but I found a recipe and thought, what the hell? How hard could it be?”

Pretty hard, I think, but I let it go, pulling myself up onto the counter to sit on it.

I take out the envelope I got from my father’s house and fiddle with it, running my fingertips along the edges before tracing the writing on the return address.

“What’s that?” Jonathan asks, waving the spatula toward it.

I laugh dryly and hold it up for him to see.

It takes him a moment to recognize what it is. He plucks it right from my hand and tosses the spatula onto the counter, so he can open the envelope. Peeking inside, he lets out a low whistle, shoving his way between my legs and tapping the envelope against my chest as he says, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that’s more than enough to justify quitting.”

It is. I know it. I don’t even have to look.

“Well, if I didn’t know any better,” I say, “I’d say you were gloating about how much money you’re making now.”

“Who, me?” he says, feigning innocence.

“Nobody likes a braggart, Cunningham. It’s unattractive.”

“Is it?” He leans closer, tilting his head. “Does it turn you off, Garfield, hearing about my success?”

I dramatically roll my eyes as I shove his face away. “Ugh.”

Laughing, he grabs my hand and pulls it down, yanking me to him, snatching me right off of the counter, but his body pins me there, flush up against him. He kisses me, teasingly, again and again, whispering against my lips, “I think you’re in denial.”

“Am not,” I say, pulling my arm from his grasp.

“I think you like it. I think you’re proud.”

“And I think you’re full of yourself,” I say, wrapping my arms around his neck, kissing him back. Deep. Rough. Passionate. It doesn’t last long, though, just a few seconds, before a loud gasp rocks through the kitchen. Jonathan breaks the kiss, pushing away, leaving me breathless.

Maddie stands in the doorway, staring at us, her eyes wide and jaw slack. “Did you kiss my mommy?”

“Uh, yeah,” he says. “I did.”

“Are you gonna take her on dates now?” she asks.

“Sure, if she wants,” he says, cutting his eyes at me before turning back to her and saying, “I mean, if that’s okay?”

Maddie’s face splits with a wide grin. “Okay, but only if you see when she gets all pretty, ‘cuz sometimes people don’t see.”

“She’s always pretty,” he says.

“But you gotta tell her, and maybe pick her some flowers, too, ‘cuz it makes her happy when I do that,” she says, strutting over to him and grabbing his hand, trying to pull him with her out of the kitchen.

“Where are we going?” he asks, brow furrowing.

“To get ready, duh. You can’t date with no shirt.”

I laugh, hopping off the counter. “We’re not going tonight, sweetheart. Daddy’s a little busy right now. He’s cooking dinner.”

“Oh shit,” he says, pulling his hand from Maddie’s as he bolts for the stove, turning off burners and shifting pans around, groaning. “I hope you like your chicken extra crispy.”

“I do!” Maddie says. “That’s how Mommy makes it.”