I’m spoon-deep in my Ben & Jerry’s with Casablanca on when there’s a knock on my door.

“Go away, Jagger!” I yell. He’s the only person besides my father who’s been to my house and my father is in Florida with his girlfriend.

“It’s not Jagger,” a woman’s voice says, and I shrug the blanket off my lap to answer the door.

I look through the peephole but don’t open the door.

“If he’s sent you because he wants you to butter me up, it’s not going to work. He’s dead to me.”

“We’re here because we know you have no friends in this city and when break-ups happen us girls have to stick together.”

I roll my eyes, but my five-hour conversation on the phone with my friend, Shannon, back in Ohio wasn’t as therapeutic as if she was right here.

I twist the doorknob and I open it, finding Layla holding two bottles of wine, Teegan with a brown paper bag filled with chips, and a blonde with an ice cream cake.

“We weren’t sure which one was your ritual,” Layla says.

The blonde holds up her ice cream cake. “I win.” And she points to my Ben & Jerry’s.

“This is Sophie. She’s my friend,” Teegan says, nodding to the blonde.

“I’ve only met Jagger a few times, but I think you may have dodged a bullet,” Sophie says.

Layla and Teegan walk through my living room right into my kitchen, Layla opening cabinets, Teegan unpacking her salty snacks.

“Um, thanks for the gesture, but…”

“Jagger’s at Layla’s right now commiserating with Vance. She got wind of what happened, and we may have stolen his car,” Teegan says with a grin.

“You what?” I ask.

Teegan smiles at Layla. “Borrowed,” Layla says. “We needed to know where you lived, and he wasn’t going to tell us, so I figured it would show in his GPS. Plus, he’s drinking so much, he’ll probably crash in my spare room and won’t be the wiser anyway.” She shrugs, but I guess when you’re an A-list actress maybe you don’t need to worry about something like grand theft auto.

“Do you want a piece, or the whole thing, or are you full from that?” Sophie stares at my carton of ice cream and I place it on the counter.

“I’m good.”

She opens my freezer and shoves the cake in.

“FYI, she’s watching Casablanca,” Teegan calls out from the living room and I hear her surf through a few channels before a sporting game of some kind comes on. “No romantic movies after break-up.”

“I’m really good, ladies, you can go.”

The two still in the kitchen stop what they’re doing and stare blankly.

“Do you not want us?” Layla asks, her voice that of a small child.

“Layla is kind of clingy. She has no real friends because of that whole actress staring opposite Chris Pratt thing,” Teegan says from the doorway to the living room.

“Uh…” Layla’s mouth opens.

“That true?” Sophie asks and Layla rolls her eyes, but nods reluctantly.

“It’s hard, you know. I mean some of the actresses are hard to get to know well, but forget going out in public. Real people are so funny about talking to me.”

“Us ‘real people.’” Sophie puts her phrase in air quotes, her head on my shoulder.

Seriously, who are these women, the Welcome Wagon edition of break-up brigade?

“That’s not what I meant.” Layla finishes opening the bottle of wine, pouring out four glasses. “We all know Jagger’s an ass, but you two seemed like you were hitting it off,” Layla says, passing me a glass.

“Not at dinner.” Teegan’s eyes narrow on me. “He’s controlling, right?”

“Um.”

“Do you even have to ask? I mean the guy thinks the sun rises and sets for him.” Sophie shakes her head. Clearly not a fan of the man I love.

And I do love him. As big a jerk and as difficult as he can be sometimes, I still love him because it always comes from a good place.

“He didn’t want me to donate a kidney,” I say, not really feeling like getting into it.

“See!” Sophie points her finger at Layla and Teegan, although they never denied her accusations against Jagger. “How can he argue with you wanting to do something so selfless?”

Each woman has their wine glass now, leaning in closer as though I’m going to reveal some secret they don’t know about.

“Yeah, um, he said that he just got me back and he didn’t want to lose me again,” I say in a quiet voice.

“What?” Sophie asks, a crease between her eyes. “He said that?”

My gaze veers to the chair where I stripteased for him only days ago right after he told me.

“Man, what a line,” Teegan says. “Leo’s got lines, too.”

“Same with Vance,” Layla says.

“The man in my imagination does, too,” Sophie chimes in and we all laugh.

“Do you think they practice them? Like they all get together and say, ‘I told Layla this,’ ‘I told Tee this.’” Layla’s moving her head back and forth and beatboxing like she’s a rapper.

We laugh again. “They’re not that smart,” I say, and they nod in agreement.

“So, is that what the fight was over?” Teegan asks.

I walk through the kitchen into the living room and to one of my bookshelves, plucking my own novel out from all the other romance books I’ve read. Maybe I secretly hoped he’d find it one day. I hand it over as Teegan reaches for it.

“Who is Alisha Quinn?”

“Me.”

They all look up and stare at me with wide eyes. “You wrote this book?” Layla asks.

“I thought you said she was a blogger or something?” Sophie asks Tee. “Not that there’s anything wrong with blogging. I had a blog once—”

“Sophie, stay on topic.” Teegan nudges her with her elbow, flipping through the pages.

“Why would this make you guys break up? Is he like one of those guys who wants a woman who doesn’t have a career, so he can keep her chained to the stove?” Sophie asks, judgment clear in her voice.

“No.” I laugh. “That book is our story.” Like every other time I’ve thought about this, my eyes well up with tears.

“Your story?” Layla asks. “Like you guys knew each other before?”

I nod. “When we were teenagers.”

“Leo told me. You used to live next door to him, right?” Teegan asks.

I nod.

“Way to miss the boat, Vance,” Layla murmurs.

“My dad lived next to his parents and from the time I was thirteen to seventeen, I got shipped out there each summer.”

I see it in their faces. That wistful look as though we were destined to be. I believed that once upon a time too—twice now.

“You were together for that long?” Sophie asks, looking at me like I just sprouted another head.

“Just during the summer, but that last summer…” I shrug. “It changed. We were more serious.”

“You probably grew tits,” Sophie adds in, giving a nice break from the awed looks Teegan and Layla are wearing.

“Maybe. He had grown more too, but it was just…”

“Oh. My. God. Do not say magical.” Teegan elbows Sophie. “Ouch.” She grabs her side.

“In a way it was.”

Layla has now taken the book and found her way over to my chair, flipping to page one. “If only I was younger, I could play this part if they ever made it into a movie.”

Teegan shoots me a sympathetic look. “Why is he mad though?”

“‘He was as selfish as a two-year-old with a pack of cookies.’” Layla reads a sentence. “Is that why? There must’ve been a reason why you guys broke up back then. Maybe Jagger isn’t portrayed as the swoonworthy hero romance books are known for?”

I smile at her, not having to answer the question. “I lied.” Again, the tears surface. “I kept the topic of my first book from him when this whole time I’ve been working on book two.”

“Your happily ever after?” Teegan asks, her arm around my shoulders.

I nod, swiping at the tears rolling down my cheeks. Sophie grabs a tissue and hands it over to me.

“This is a bump in the road.” Layla shuts the book. “He loves you. He’ll get over it.”

“That’s the thing, I don’t know if I want him to. The way he reacted. The things he said…”

They all nod, having no defense for him. Each of them has probably seen his unfavorable side at some point.

“Do you love him?” Teegan asks me.

“My entire life. God, how pathetic am I?” I fall down onto my couch, bringing my legs up to my chest. “Only a moron falls in love with a guy like Jagger.”

“I can’t really argue that point.” Sophie looks between Layla and Teegan.

Layla slides up from the couch, positioning herself on the table in front of me, her hands easing my legs down.

“I think the problem is, neither one of you have really healed from what happened. You guys started this new relationship without closing the book, so to speak, on what happened back then.”

“When he stuck his tongue down another girl’s throat and told me I was his summer fuck toy in front of all his friends?”

“That sounds like him,” Sophie says.

Layla shoots Sophie a ‘stop it’ look and then her sympathetic gaze lands on me once again. “You have to forgive him for that and I’m not sure you have.”

She’s probably right. I took his apology, but in all my life no one has ever hurt me that much. I would have published that book with his real name if it wasn’t for the whole defamation of character lawsuit he would’ve slapped me with. What I told him was true…it was a way to work him out of my system, but on a subconscious level maybe I used the book as a way to hurt him just like he hurt me.

“Why don’t you call him?” Layla picks up my cell phone from the coffee table she’s sitting on and hands it to me.

The metal is cold in my hands and I run my thumb over the screen.

“No!” Sophie grabs it from me. “He has to come to her.” She smiles down at me.

“Soph, no offence, but you’re the only one here without someone, so maybe you’re not the best one to come up with a plan.” Teegan raises her eyebrows.

“I’m single by choice. There’s a line-up of men outside my apartment every Saturday night.”

“Yeah, okay,” Teegan says, snatching the phone from her grasp and placing it back in my hands.

“Don’t be too prideful,” Layla says. “If you still want him, fight.”

“I want him to fight,” I say, admitting the truth.

“Every girl does, but you have to be prepared for that not to happen, and let me tell you, when it comes to men like Jagger, most of the time they aren’t strong enough to fight. Fighting involves setting the ego aside and sometimes it’s easier to give up.” Layla gives me a dose of the truth.

He didn’t fight the first time, what’s to make me think the second time would be any different?