It didn’t strike her as odd that she had no real urge to cry, and that her heart didn’t feel like it had been stabbed or ripped in two. The moment felt surreal, but it wasn’t particularly painful.

She just pushed open the door and simply said, “You’re in my bed.”

The blonde girl gasped, looked over her shoulder, and immediately tried to cover her breasts, which was funny, because her ass was much, much bigger and every bit as naked. She shrieked and clambered off Trent, staring at Eve like she expecting to be attacked. Eve shrugged. “I mean, it’s mine in the most classic sense of the word. I paid for it. I dragged it up the stairs all by myself. It’s my bed.”

“Look, Eve,” Trent began, stretching his open palm toward her. Why did everyone seem to think she was armed?

Eve didn’t look at him. She just stared at the blonde. She recognized this girl. Round cheeks, cherry lips, adorable nose. A platinum bob like Marilyn Monroe. It was her neighbor.

Eve’s shoulders sagged. This was so mundane, so obvious. The affair with a neighbor? Really? Was that all this was worth to him? After four years and about as many conversations about their future together. After all that, this was still Eve’s place. He had a key, and spent a lot of time there, but that was about it as far as his commitment went.

“I mean, Trent helped me put it together, but I had to basically beg, even though he had been my boyfriend for almost a year at that point.” Eve shrugged. She supposed it wasn’t that bad. If anything, she was depressed that she couldn’t even keep a loser like Trent. He wasn’t that great, and if he was going to cheat on her, what did that make her, a loser squared or something?

Trent slid from the bed and began to hurriedly dress himself. “Anyway, you’ll figure it out, Cheryl,” Eve told her. She didn’t hate the girl. She really didn’t. “It’s Cheryl, isn’t it?”

“Lake,” the blonde corrected her nervously. She gathered the fallen blanket from the floor and wrapped it around her waist.

“Lake. Not even close to Cheryl, huh. ‘Lake.’ Do you get lots of people taking a dip in you at this time of year?” Eve flicked a finger toward the quilt wrapped around Lake’s waist. “That’s my blanket, too by the way.”

“R-right.”

Lake dropped the blanket and hurried to collect a rumpled maxi dress that was clear across the room. It had been weeks since Trent had even felt her own pussy, but this woman’s dress was practically dangling from a lampshade. All right.

“Wait, Lake,” Trent called out to her, buttoning his pants next to the bed.

Eve gazed at Trent with cold eyes. “Don’t worry,” she reassured her cheating ex. “You will be leaving with her. You’ll have plenty of time to reassure her that you love her, and that everything will be all right. This can be a real turning point in your relationship, you know.” Eve turned to look at Lake. “Good luck with this one.”

Lake raced barefoot from the room. Eve watched her go, wondering why the other woman was so horrified, so quick. Eve felt about as ferocious as a cartoon bunny rabbit.

“This isn’t my fault, you know,” Trent snapped as he strode toward the door. “And don’t just burn all my stuff!”

Eve half-smiled. “You’re overestimating the emotional payoff I’d get from that,” she told him. Her demeanor sharpened as she added, “Oh, and how is your dick in that woman not your fault?” The contempt to her voice brought Trent to a quick boil. He yelled down at her in the doorway, waving one arm around.

“You never want to try new things, Eve! You’re totally fine with your life how it is, but I want something bigger! Something more! And so does Lake! She gets it! We’re exciting people!”

He was suddenly so alive, so dramatic, when he’d been half-dead all this past year. But the passion wasn’t for her. He was pumped full of adrenaline. It was all flash and bang, soon to dissolve into apathy again.

Eve lowered her eyelashes and decided to keep her own counsel. She had wanted more, too, but her desire for more was different. When she thought of more, she thought of more money, more security, more free time, even children and a marriage, but not more Trent. Just more of everything else. More life.

Trent just happened to be there.

He stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door so hard behind himself that a picture clattered down from the wall.

“You could have just gone to her place and this never would have happened!” Eve yelled after them. The idiots. “She lives right next door!”

Eve stared through her empty apartment, feeling both lost and numb from it all. She sighed deeply and heaved herself toward the couch, certain that this day could only end with a marathon of some undemanding feel-good sit com. Friends, Cheers, Big Bang Theory, they’d all get the job done.

The channel on which the television was currently stuck invited her to enjoy this limited offer extended presentation of “Best Love Songs of All Time,” a five-disc set of deep, soulful ballads from the past fifty years. At least it was muted.

Eve groaned, burying her face into the couch cushions.

“Fuck,” she called into their foamy depths. “I need to go back to the pub.”

* * *

As the autumn sun sank over the horizon and the chill September night set in, Skye and Eve huddled together at Crown’s to regroup. Eve hadn’t been to Crown’s in months, and yet, in one day, she’d had both lunch and dinner there. Losing both her job and her boyfriend made this a very eventful day. She found herself poking at something called an Australian burger and idly wondering if it contained kangaroo or koala meat.

“I just…” Eve sighed heavily and rolled her big green eyes up toward the ceiling. The rhinestones in the corners of her glasses caught the light and sparkled. She had no clue just how sexy she was, the effect that she had on others. Of course, that was all part of the magic. She was a babe in the woods, completely unaware of the power she wielded. “It’s not just the career, and love life.” Her mouth tilted to the side as she gazed down at her ample curves. “And the diet,” she added. “It’s everything and more. It’s me. It’s how I feel inside. I feel stagnant. I feel old.” Eve’s head sagged on her neck.

“You’re twenty-seven,” Skye scoffed.

“Twenty-eight!” Eve corrected her. “Twenty-eight, and I went to college six years ago. I just threw away three years of my life on Keiser’s magazine, and I threw away another four years of my life with Trent! I’ve wasted a third of my life, Skye.”

“You dated Trent while you worked for Margaret. They weren’t on separate timelines.”

“And now I’m not going to have a date to my stupid brother’s wedding,” Eve moaned, feigning deafness to Skye’s annoyingly reassuring logic. Her head dipped down into her hands. “I’ll be his scatterbrained, jelly donut sister, single, unemployed, decrepit.”

“Jelly donut?”

Eve nodded soberly and closed her eyes. “Too sweet,” she explained. “Soft on the inside. And everyone takes advantage.”

“I hate jelly donuts, if that makes you feel any better.”

“Thanks, it does.”

“Can we just take a second to marvel at how wonderful the universe is? Like, what are the odds that two toxic people would exit your life on the exact same day?”

“Three, if you count Lake,” Eve added, sipping from her Aqua Velva delicately.

“Lake?”

“My neighbor, whom Trent was boning.”

“Lake.”

Eve glanced at her friend, who was grinning.

Eve couldn’t help but grin back. She supposed she was getting over this upset a little too quickly to have really been that much in love with Trent, or ready for a serious commitment from him, either. It was just a thing made from a snowball on a slippery slope.

“Your name is Skye,” she reminded her friend.

“That’s not true,” Skye argued. “My name is Jessica.”

Eve gaped and giggled.

“Look, sweetheart,” Skye went on, leaning forward and patting Eve’s hand, “what I’m trying to tell you is that you are ready for a big change. In fact, you’re past due, and that’s why you got fired from It. That’s why you found Trent screwing a large inland body of water today. Because the universe is pushing you to level up.”

Eve swallowed. “I thought the next level was getting married and pouring all my money into a house, a car, and two kids.”

Skye rolled her eyes. “Leveling up is different for everyone, sugar.”

Eve took her hand from Skye, not sure what the future might hold for her anymore. It was all so broad, so vast and shadowy.

“What would your perfect life be like?” Skye wondered. “For me, I would learn how to use sign language, because that’s awesome. And I’d own a motorcycle. Obviously. I’d be married to Madonna, but not Madonna now. Madonna in the early nineties.”

“I’d have a rockin’ muscular bod like yours,” Eve blurted, then blushed. “And I’d probably be more confident, I guess.”

Skye grinned. “I’m so sorry, I can never picture you having muscles,” she confessed. Eve was built like a Renaissance rendering of a river nymph. “But okay, then join the gym. Take karate, and work on that confidence. Everything you want in life, Eve, is a skill. It’s a muscle. Just work it.”

“Join the gym right now?” Eve wondered incredulously. “When I just lost my job?”

“Some memberships are only ten dollars a month,” Skye reminded her. “I’m telling you, this is your crossroads. I can feel it.”

Much later that night—after the alcohol had made its rounds through her system and been mostly filtered out—Eve sat at her laptop and nibbled on her lower lip. All was dark except for the pale light of the screen bathing her face.

Maybe Skye was right.

Eve had gotten into a rut, and now even the rut was collapsing, forcing her onward.

She clicked a button on the webpage: Start new blog post, and typed, “Eve At Crossroads.”

* * *

For the next few days, Eve gave in to her irrational desire to funnel money into creating a new persona. She signed up for a membership at Results, including a personal training session package. She went shopping for compression pants and sweatshirts, along with dresses she couldn’t afford. One dress was a clingy floral number with buttons running along her spine, up to the nape of her neck, and a slit running along her thigh, all the way to the floor. She posted selfies of herself in the new threads with the hashtag Crossroads and a link to her new blog.

At first she supposed, deep down, she was still struggling to win back Trent, even though she now knew that she didn’t love him. He was still on her Friends feed, and she was already seeing pictures of Lake cropping up. Then she realized that she didn’t want him. She just wanted to beat him.

When he exited, it was as if a weight and a shadow had left the apartment. Eve felt that she could breathe again. She didn’t feel criticized, or self-conscious, in fact she felt freer than she ever had before—but she still wanted Trent to run into her someday, someday soon, and gape at her transformation. She wanted that movie moment, where his eyes trailed over her body and his mouth hung down and he found himself unable to articulate a single sentence as he realized what a horrible mistake he’d made. Hopefully Lake would also be there to bear witness.

Maybe Eve just felt reckless. Things were changing in her life and she wanted to grab someone in all the upheaval. She hadn’t been truly alone in years, and now here she was, nubile and lusty. On the market and open for business.

Eve’s eyes shifted around the gym and she considered “the market.” First, there was herself in black yoga pants and a gray sweater, hair in a sloppy, tiny bun, no makeup and all thighs. All thighs and cat glasses. Dating world, get ready. Here comes Eve.

Around her, pudgy divorcees struggled with unfamiliar exercise equipment, huffing and sweating and as confused as she was. Eve’s mouth slanted. The only patrons of the gym even close to her age were pounding through the track, wearing headphones. She wished she had Skye with her. This world was alien, awkward.

You’re here to do this, bitch! Eve threw herself onto a random machine and straddled its leather bench. She clutched its bars and wrenched them upward. Raaar!

For a very brief moment, there was a swell of victory between her breasts as the bar was raised overhead. This sense of triumph waned quickly as a bright sting sliced up into her neck. She cried out, releasing the bar and sending the weights back down with a loud clank.

“You’re all right,” a smooth, light male voice commanded from behind her. Eve felt him before she saw him: warm, firm hands slid around her, one encompassing her shoulder, near the nape of her neck, and the other scooping around her hip, tugging her up from the bench of pulleys and bars and weights. Even without looking at this total stranger, she felt her pussy extending a very warm welcome. “Just got in there a little bit backwards.”

“Thanks,” she breathed, peering gratefully up at the stranger who was now tenderly kneading her neck. Her eyes widened further and her knees gave out, sending her back down onto the leather bench with a plop.

He was gorgeous—and not just any kind of gorgeous. There were a lot of gorgeous men in the world, but this one was specifically tailored to her.

He was massive, like a cartoon hero, all shoulders and chest and long, lean leg. Contrary to his size, and his apparent strength, his touch and his voice were as delicate as feathers and silk. His pants were loose, fuzzy fibers in dark blue and his sweater was thin and clinging, like the kind a ballet dancer would wear. It was all so unintimidating, she felt very safe and kind of wanted to just lay flat on her back and open her thighs up. Irrational.

His complexion was bronze, like he didn’t belong in New York, or in the month of September, for that matter. His hair was sandy blond with notes of cinnamon and chestnut, so thick that it stuck up at odd angles all around his head. It looked as soft as animal fur and Eve resisted the strong urge to reach her hand up there and just grab a fistful.

Looking up into his warm gray eyes, she breathed the words, “I’ve never done it before.”

The stranger grinned.

“Really?”

Eve’s cheeks burned. “I mean, I’ve done that before,” she blurted. “I mean! I’m an idiot! I just have never used this machine before,” she amended, feeling as if her IQ was dropping off a cliff. “I’ve never used a gym before.”

“Would it offend you if I said that I could tell?”

Eve cringed.

“Ah, wait, wait, wait,” Mr. Hunk pleaded with her, climbing off the machine and pulling her subtly with him. Their bodies worked together as if they were parts of one piece. She figured this meant that they’d probably be the bomb in bed together. “That’s not what I meant. Please let me start again.” As his hand left her hip—a tragedy—he brought it forward for her to shake. “I’m Cliff Bauer, and I’m a yoga instructor for Results. I just couldn’t help but notice that you seem a bit uncomfortable here, and I want you to know that taking one of my classes could probably help you feel much more confident—not just at the gym, but in everyday life.”

“That’s the nicest mean thing anyone has ever said to me,” Eve told him sweetly, her hand slipping from his. “Today, anyway.”

Cliff laughed and broke eye contact. “I didn’t mean for it to sound—I’m sorry,” he said, looking back up, sending another pleasant jolt through Eve’s body. His every gaze ran through her body like electricity, planting itself deep into her pussy. “Let me start again. First of all, you’re gorgeous. Don’t doubt yourself in that regard.” As he said the words, he reached forward and his fingers wound around her shoulder. Eve’s nipples tightened receptively and she wondered if he could see them spearing through her sports bra.

She imagined herself peeling off the sweatshirt and the bra, Cliff taking one puckered pink nipple into his mouth.

Eve quickly reprimanded herself for such a dirty thought. What was wrong with her? Where had that even come from?

“Second of all,” Cliff went on, oblivious, “there is nothing I love to see more than a woman regain her confidence. We see a lot like you in here,” he explained.

Eve frowned up at him. “We? You mean, it’s not just you?”

Cliff laughed, a deep, resonant, shuddering laugh from his abdomen. Eve’s face thundered with blush.

“I mean, we see a lot of people who aren’t regulars.”

“Irregulars,” Eve supplied helpfully.

Cliff laughed again, breathier and more thoughtful this time. “You’re skilled at insulting yourself.”

“My parents always wanted me to find what I was good at and work on it.”

Cliff’s soulful gray eyes held Eve’s, and he said, “I really think I could give you healthier strengths if you would give me a little of your time.” He clapped his hands together and offered her a small bow of respect. He looked up and made eye contact with her again. She wished he would stop doing that; she was already soaking wet now. “My next class is tonight, at nine,” Cliff invited. “Please come.”

Her clitoris perked right up.

“I’ll try,” she promised. And she meant it. “I’ll really, really try.”

“What’s your name?” Cliff asked.

Eve blinked. It always took her aback when anyone showed an interest in her. She was boring. Even her own ex, Trent—a man who had been with her for four years—thought so. “My name?” she peeped. “My name is Eve. Eve Mooney.”

“Well, Eve Mooney, you try,” Cliff instructed her. “And I’m going to hold you to it.”

And Eve was going to try.

It had been her plan to try.

“Try” had been at the top of her list.

But Cliff had said that yoga class was at nine, which was a big conflict with Eve’s work schedule. She had a business meeting with a bottle of Merlot and it looked like it was about to snowball into an all-nighter on the balcony.

But if Cliff needed to feel like a part of Eve’s journey, he could know that she had at least blogged about almost going, and that had been reblogged and favorited many times, which was very close to actually going. Wasn’t it?