“So did you take the bus home tonight, or the Porsche?” Carly asks from the couch as soon as I open the door to the apartment.

“That’s not funny.” I push the door closed.

“Come on, it’s at least a little funny.” She cackles. “You’re just so glum these days, you can’t appreciate a good joke.”

“Have you thought about the possibility that maybe it’s just not a very good joke?” I plop down on the couch beside her.

“Nope,” she says. “You’re just being grumpy. Maybe it’s because you’re tired, but you could’ve been a lot less tired if you had taken the Porsche.”

“I heard you the first time.”

“How long are you going to make the poor guy wait? He’s been showing up at the mall entrance every time you get off work, right?”

“Yeah,” I say, exhausted.

“How long has it been?”

“One or two weeks.”

“Damn. You’re cold. You don’t even know how long it has been?”

“Yeah.” I actually know that he has shown up exactly nine times, but Carly doesn’t need to know that I’ve been counting.

“Do you think he waits for you there, even when you’re not working?”

“How am I supposed to know that?” To be honest, I’ve been wondering myself how he manages to be there at the right time. Does he just wait there every night? What a waste of time.

McClaw jumps up to join us on the couch. After looking around, he chooses to curl up on my canvas bag. Great. Now I’m going to have orange hairs all over it.

George usually comes home pretty late at night, so there’s just Carly, me, and McClaw at home right now, but the only couch in the living room is already full.

“God, it’s even more crowded here than it was at our place, and you moved out to get more space with George,” I say. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not like you want to stay here.”

“Yeah. It’s just, I haven’t been able to find another place that will rent to me. With my credit score, I’m apparently a big risk.”

“I’m sorry, Piper,” Carly says, rubbing my arm. “What your dad did was really shitty.”

“Yeah. I don’t know, he was in a difficult spot, too.”

Carly stays quiet for a few seconds, although she obviously still has some pretty harsh things to say about my dad. When she finally opens her mouth, she says, “You know, I don’t get why you’d forgive your dad so easily, when you’re being so hard on Raphael.”

“You don’t think he’s wrong for lying to me?”

“Well, yeah, but you were just starting to see each other. Every couple takes a while to learn how to deal with each other. It takes some effort to find the balance.”

“He lied to me, Carly. He told me his mom has cancer. Who does that? It’s like, tempting fate. Why would he say that about his own mom? And she’s such a nice person, too.”

“Yeah, Elise Holt is, like, one of my mom’s favorite people,” Carly says. “Still, that’s just superstition, Piper. He probably doesn’t see it that way. And, before you bring it up, you know he doesn’t know about your mom. He has no idea it’s a sensitive subject for you.”

“But he lied to his own family. If he could lie to his own family, how am I supposed to trust him?” I ask, half-hoping that Carly will give me a good answer, one I can use to justify getting back with Raphael.

Even though I’m furious at him, I don’t want to be. I want things to go back to the way they were. I simply don’t know how we can just rewind all the way back to the beginning, because he’s been lying to me from the start.

“So he told his family you guys are engaged. Big deal. It’s not this big, destructive, family-tearing lie that you seem to imagine, Piper,” Carly says.

“I don’t even know why he did it.”

“I can help you there,” Carly says.

“Really?” I stare at her in anticipation. I’ve been wondering why he needs his family to think he has a fiancée. I don’t know what good it would do him.

“Yeah. So, my mom says the Holt family is, like, super close. Apparently, since Raphael got out of prison, he hasn’t been given much responsibility at work. Maybe he wants to be taken more seriously, and having a fiancée could do that,” Piper says. “I know it sounds weird, but my mom says that’s just how their family is.”

“Did you talk to your mom about this?” I ask with a sigh.

“You already know that I tell my mom everything, so by telling me stuff, you automatically agree to let my mom know, too.”

“That’s not really how it works,” I protest.

“Okay. Sorry. I don’t really tell her everything, but I wanted to dig more information from her, and I had to tell her something to do that.”

“You make it sound like you’re some kind of government agents in a spy movie, exchanging secret information.”

“Sometimes that’s how I feel, too.” Carly says.

“You just can’t admit that it’s only gossip.”

“That’s not gossip because it’s true. First-hand account. It’s only gossip when you don’t hear it straight from the source.”

“Okay,” I say.

“You know what’s gossip, though?”

“What?”

“Well, some of my friends know Raphael. Like, they used to party together. They say that he’s been missing lately.”

“He doesn’t seem to be missing to me.” I shrug.

“Well, that’s kind of the point. He’s been missing from the parties because he’s been spending all his time on you instead.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t feel like partying.”

“Eh, I don’t know. He’s been missing long enough that people are noticing. They’re already saying that he’s pulling a Cole Foster.”

“Huh? Who’s that?”

“Oh, right. I forget sometimes that you don’t know these people.”

“I’m sorry I don’t have rich friends.” I roll my eyes.

“You could have many rich friends if you didn’t work so much. It’s not like I hide them from you,” Carly says. “Okay, so anyway, Cole Foster used to be a party boy. Then, one day, he just disappeared. Now he’s married, with kids and everything. Doesn’t even run in the same circles anymore.”

“Okay.” I don’t see how this is relevant. I want to hear about Raphael, not some random guy whose name I’ve never even heard.

“What I’m trying to say is, I think he’s serious about you. I think he’s being honest about his feelings.”

“Okay.”

“And that maybe, just maybe—far be it from me to tell you what to do—but maybe you should give him a chance.”

“I don’t know, Carly.”

“Well, whatever you decide, you’ve done something pretty impressive. Many girls have tried to get Raphael to take them seriously, but he’s always been so slippery. He’s stuck around for you, though. That’s something, coming from a guy like him.”

I stare quietly at the wall.

I can’t deny that what Carly has just told me sounds like Raphael really does like me. And maybe… Maybe he even loves me, like he said.

But I need to think about this.

To be honest, this whole thing scares me. The stakes were low with Mark because I never felt that deeply about him in the first place.

But Raphael, I have real feelings for him. If this goes wrong, I can really get hurt. And if I let myself fall, I don’t know if I can trust him to be there to catch me.

My phone suddenly rings. I jump from the shock, my thoughts derailed.

I look at my bag, where the phone is. McClaw doesn’t have eyebrows, but I could swear he’s frowning. Glaring, even. He still has sleepy eyes, and he doesn’t understand why “his bed”—my bag—is vibrating and making noises.

I push him away, and he turns that feline anger toward me. He gets up and walks away, his tail whipping from side to side. He looks like he’s already looking for the perfect place to leave a hairball as revenge for sending him away.

I pull the phone out and check the screen. It’s Dad.

To my surprise, I’m disappointed. I guess I was hoping it was Raphael calling me.

I tap the green button. “Hello.”

“Sweetheart. We have good news!” Dad says. He sounds unusually cheerful.

“Let me guess. Discounts at the liquor store?” I ask sarcastically.

“No. They’re stopping the foreclosure,” he says, his cheerful mood unaffected by my comment.

“Are you serious?” My jaw drops. I widen my eyes at Carly, but she can only look back with confusion. I bet she won’t believe it either when I tell her later.

“Of course! I wouldn’t lie to you about that,” Dad says.

“Did you manage to pay the bank?”

“No. But I got a call from the bank, from someone called… Uh, Gabriel? Castiel?”

“Raphael?” I frown, which only gets Carly more curious. She leans forward and presses her ear to the back of the phone.

“That’s it!” Dad exclaims.

“What did he say?” I ask suspiciously.

“He said he’ll stop the foreclosure. I asked him, ‘what’s the catch?’ He said he just wants to have dinner with you.”

“What?”

“Yeah, that’s how I reacted, too. But, sweetheart, I don’t see the harm. It’s just dinner. He assured me he’s not asking for anything more than that. Don’t you think it’s worth considering? To get our home back?”

Carly grabs my thigh, apparently just as shocked as I am. This really came out of left field.

What do I do?