After a full morning of classes, I haul my exhausted ass into my tiny apartment, toss my backpack onto my couch, and drag myself into my kitchenette to make some scrambled eggs before heading off to bed. As exhausted as I am, though, I’m not holding out hope sleep will come quickly for me. I’m just too wound up with a thousand thoughts about what’s going to happen later tonight. As willing as I am to have sex with Camden once to turn Lucas on and seduce him to seduce me—and, yes, admittedly also to experience a bit of kinky fun—I certainly don’t want to make a career out of screwing Camden. This is a zero-sum game, after all. The more time I spend having sex with Camden, the less time will remain for my “relationship” with Lucas. And that’s the realization that makes me ask myself on a running loop: What sneaky something can I do to light a fire under Lucas’s ass to ensure he makes a move on me after only one go-around with Camden?

Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer to that question yet, despite how obsessively I’ve been pondering it all day. But I’m sure as hell planning to have one before I walk into Lucas’s penthouse tonight.

I finish scrambling my eggs and settle myself onto my couch to eat and unwind. First things first, I partake in my guilty pleasure. I grab my laptop and check the numbers on my secret blog—Penelope Pleasure, Miss Pleasure to You!—and I’m thrilled to see my latest entry has attracted my best numbers yet. I started my anonymous weekly blog of musings about life and sex with a humorous bent almost two years ago as a means of blowing off steam during law school, and I’ve been blown away at how it’s steadily gained an army of loyal readers during that time.

I quickly write a short stream-of-consciousness post about the human emotion of coveting and how, it seems to me, it pretty much never ends well for either party—the coveter or the coveted. And when I’m done writing, I read my entry and feel almost high with pride about the finished product. There’s literally no other place in this world where I can be unrelentingly honest about who I am and what I think than when I’m Penelope Pleasure. Truly, it’s a lifeline for me.

Next on the agenda? Well, Lucas Ford, of course.

I head to YouTube and run a search for his name, and, of course, that brings up eighty gazillion video links, the first of which is, not surprisingly, Lucas’s now-iconic music video for “Shattered Hearts.” I personally adore it but haters always slam it as an extended Abercrombie & Fitch ad.

Even though probably one million of the over two billion views of the video were racked up by yours truly, I watch the thing again. And as I watch, my heart melts and flutters and leaps the way it always does when I behold the breathtaking beauty of an eighteen-year-old Lucas Ford pouring his shattered heart out for the entire world to witness.

When the video ends, I scroll through several more “Lucas Ford” links and wind up watching a clip posted by someone in the front row of Lucas’s concert in Denver a few days ago. At the start of the clip, Lucas is playing his electric guitar and singing a song I don’t recognize while his full band—including Camden on drums—rocks out behind him. The song is really good, whatever it is, and by the passionate way Lucas is singing it, it’s clear it means something special to him.

The song ends, and much to my dismay the audience applauds only tepidly.

Lucas wipes his sweaty brow, thanks the audience politely, and says, “So I’ve got one more song off my last album that I want to—”

But he’s cut off by the person behind the recording device shouting, “‘Shattered Hearts!’”

Darkness overtakes Lucas’s beautiful features. He tries to smile but fails. “I’ll get to that one,” he assures the crowd. “But first I want to play something special to me I don’t usually play off my third album—”

“‘Shattered Hearts!’” the voice behind the camera commands again from the front row, and the sentiment is quickly seconded by another nearby audience member. And then another.

All of a sudden, a chant of “Shattered Hearts!” sweeps through the audience like a forest fire as Lucas stands frozen at his mic, clearly bewildered at how quickly the audience has rallied around their shared cause.

As the audience’s chanting quickly gains momentum, Lucas’s jaw noticeably tightens. “You want ‘Shattered Hearts’?” he bellows into his microphone.

The audience roars at their victory, clearly missing the subtext of Lucas’s booming query.

“You don’t want me to play any song but ‘Shattered Hearts’?” Lucas asks the crowd, his features hardening even further.

An avalanche of cheers and shouts of “Shattered Hearts!” slams into Lucas, making him visibly flinch.

The tortured look in Lucas’s eyes is breaking my heart. How the hell does this audience not see the torment they’re causing their supposed idol? I want to reach through my computer screen and hug him and say, “Play your song for me, Lucas.”

“This sucks,” Lucas mutters into his microphone, looking at his bass player, but the audience doesn’t seem to hear him. Or maybe they just don’t care. In a flash, rage ignites across Lucas’s face. “Fuck you!” he shouts, flipping the audience off with both hands. He rips his guitar strap off, thrusts his instrument at his bass player, leans into his bass player’s microphone, and shouts, “If you want to hear ‘Shattered Hearts,’ then listen to it on the goddamned radio. I’m done playing that fucking song forever.” And off he goes, exiting the stage as the crowd unleashes a tsunami of boos and taunts at him.

After Lucas has disappeared, his band members remain awkwardly onstage, apparently not sure if their fearless leader is planning to return. The crowd absolutely explodes with fury and indignation. Whoever’s behind the device that’s recording yells, “Fuck you, Lucas Ford! You’re washed up, anyway!” and then the video abruptly ends.

I touch my fingertip against my screen, right against the spot Lucas’s tortured face occupied a moment ago. “Lucas,” I whisper, my heart panging. That’s what Lucas endured mere hours before he dragged himself into the lobby of The Rockford, slumped into an armchair, and got berated by a haughty hotel clerk about the Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act of 2006?

With a heavy sigh, I grab my phone, open iTunes, and download Lucas’s third album. The album I never bothered to purchase three years ago because I’d heard someone say it was a “sharp departure” from Lucas’s previous music and “not nearly as catchy.”

I grab my earbuds, intending to listen to Lucas’s album from top to bottom, but an incoming call on my phone interrupts my agenda. Mom.