Stop dreaming about the guy you’ll never see again, and get your ass out of bed. If I screwed up this job and couldn't find another, I’d have to live in my stepfather’s house forever. I’d already been here eight months longer than I’d wanted to. I could still feel the sticky humiliation of having to let go of my apartment and crawl back to my mom and Timothy to keep a roof over my head. Still, better they witness my humiliation than my two best and oldest friends.

Emilia and Andi both had guest rooms they’d have let me use for as long as I needed, but there had to be a limit as to how much of my patheticness they’d put up with. And, even though they’d never said anything, I was fairly sure I’d used up all my allowance already. Not to mention they had actual lives with the men they loved. Basically, they were happy, and that fact alone made them extraordinarily unpleasant to be around sometimes.

Plus, I already owed them so much. Emilia had been right to demote me from virtual assistant to chick who answers the phone and emails contracts to new clients. Occasionally, she still tossed the overflow work to me, but times were tough and we’d lost a lot of our small business clients. Fewer clients meant less overflow to give me and fewer opportunities I had to make up for what I’d done.

All hell had broken loose after my ex-client’s wife—who he’d forgotten to mention—called Emilia to scream about the harlot who’d seduced her husband. And, yes, she’d used the word harlot, and yes, she either didn’t know or pretended not to know that this harlot was probably one of a hundred that her poor, too-weak-to-keep-his-dick-in-his-pants husband had seduced.

I didn’t know if the asshole—who should’ve been a much better lay considering all the time he spent lying, in all meanings of the word—was ever punished, but it didn’t matter. I’d broken Emilia’s number-one rule: Don’t get laid where you get paid.

And more importantly, my mistake could’ve cost the company a lot of business. Luckily, I’d been able to explain to the asshole how to tell his wife that the “corruption” of her practically-virginal, thirty-seven-year-old husband wasn’t the kind people got arrested for. At least he’d felt bad enough to agree that he and his wife were better off working on their marriage instead of wasting time on a frivolous lawsuit against the harlot—aka me—or Emilia’s company. Only a lawyer who was crazy would’ve taken the case anyway, especially once they found out Emilia’s husband, Rob, had just made partner at his firm. But sadly, crazier things happened every day.

Accepting the new job title and a seriously hefty pay cut was the least I could do. Unfortunately, the lower salary left me unable to pay for my overpriced apartment in San Francisco’s South of Market district, so I’d had to move back into my mom and stepdad’s place. Not that Emilia knew that, of course. Knowing the real reason I’d moved back in with my parents would just make her feel bad, and she wasn’t the one who’d screwed up. Silly me, I’d thought I was smart enough not to let my terrible judgment and overactive hormones affect my work life and an incredible friend’s business.

It had been tough to keep her and Andi from figuring out why I’d moved back into a place I so desperately hated, but I’d done it. Unfortunately, putting up the front of not having a care in the world was taking a toll on our friendship, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be able to keep up the lie.

What kept me going was knowing how lucky I was. If I’d been working for anyone other than Emilia, I wouldn’t have a paycheck at all right now. I’d probably be spending all day calling my stepdad at work and asking if he could lend me money for all the aspirin it took to deal with my mother.

Aside from having passed down some evil DNA to his son, Cal, my stepdad was a flawed-but-mostly-decent man. Although, even imagining him introducing himself to prospective business partners as “Timothy” made me cringe a little. Not as much as I’d be cringing if I had to beg him for a job, but close.

Timothy played by so many of the traditional rules I sometimes wondered if he was actually a very well-preserved eighty-year-old. If my mom and their occasional screaming matches were accurate, he was even sleeping with his secretary. But every other day, he’d come home, have a martini with my mom, and then change out of his suit into a much more comfortable pair of slacks, button-down shirt, and casual blazer.

Since he’d started out with nothing and had earned everything he had now, he didn’t believe in handouts. So, if I asked him for a job, I knew he’d give me the shittiest job for the shittiest pay in the shittiest closet of his real estate development company. Then I’d have to take the bus back to his house every day at six thirty-two because, obviously, I would never learn my lesson if he gave me a ride in his town car.

I didn’t expect any special treatment and could handle a crappy job. But no matter how small my cubicle was, the idea of working in the same office as Cal was a non-starter. Living in the house he still had a key to was bad enough.

Unfortunately, Timothy’s guilt for not having a relationship with his kid for the first sixteen years of his life meant Cal could get away with pretty much anything he wanted to, including pretending to work at Timothy’s company all day. No way did he know what his son did after clocking out, though. Being married to an alcoholic was one thing. Being the father of a drug dealer was another. Selling cocaine, ecstasy, and who knew what else in the alleys behind local nightclubs was way too blue collar of a crime for Timothy to ever believe his heir would do.

That disbelief went double for what, if anything, my mom had told him about what Cal had done to me. Anyway, I couldn’t expect Timothy to believe something my own mother thought I’d made up.

Honestly, without the possibility of running into my stepbrother in the office lobby every morning, if it got me out of this house, I’d happily bring fresh coffee to Timothy’s office every morning and put a flowery Thank You note on his desk before leaving every night at six thirty-two.

That wasn’t a commitment I could make on an empty stomach, though, so I needed to move my ass, grab something to eat on the go, and get to my current no-stepbrother-in-sight job. Stat.

The one and only perk of living in a house as big as this one was the ease of avoiding anyone you didn’t want to see. Timothy would already be at work by now, and my mom was probably in the library finishing off her second Bloody Mary before starting to get ready to meet her friends for her third and fourth. Every day was the same—she pretended to use the library for reading, and everyone else pretended not to hear the clink of her glass every time we passed by the door. Co-dependency could be tough, but I’d earned my PhD in it.

I threw on some clothes and carefully crept down the stairs and to the front door. Timothy had once bragged the latch was imported from an eighteenth-century building in France. He hadn’t even cracked a smile when I’d asked if he’d bought it at the prison swap meet when they’d updated all the doors to the cells his ancestors had called home.

“Saaaarrrraaaa!”

Ugh. I liked my name, except at whatever decibel my mother screeched it. It actually took effort to ignore her, but it was energy well spent.

We’d never been as close as I wished we were, but our relationship had taken a nosedive into the abyss last year. It was funny how people react to tragedy. Some went into emotional hiding. Others got stronger. And then there were always a few who just didn’t care. Or, at least, chose not to believe there ever was a tragedy, even after you broke down and told them about it.

My mom fell into the latter group and still seemed confused as to why we didn’t talk like we used to.

“Saaaarrrraaaa! I know it’s you. Come here.”

“Can’t! Gotta go to work!” So I can keep my job and not end up buzzed and miserable every day, wondering how my life had ended up like this. If she’d ever asked, I could’ve told her why. But, of course, she’d never ask, and I doubt she’d believe me if she ever did.

The only thing my mom cared about was what other people thought of her. She’d forgotten all about the person underneath the makeup, polite smile, and couture clothing. So, when that stuff came off and no one was around to tell her who she was, everything left felt incomplete or lacking, like something she needed to hide. Or cover up with a few Bloody Mary’s.

“See you later!”

Hopefully, she’d have forgotten whatever she wanted to talk to me about by then. I jogged down the imported, prison-gray-colored stone stairs and down the driveway until I reached the sidewalk.

I checked the app on my phone to make sure the Honda stopped in the no-parking zone in front of the house was actually the car I’d ordered. No reason to make life too easy for serial killers, right?

“Hi. What’s your name?” I asked the driver through the open passenger window.

“John. You coming?” Without waiting for an answer, he pressed the button to raise the window.

“Nice to meet you, too, John.” And you’re lucky I didn’t leave online reviews or had enough money to potentially leave you a tip.

At least he didn’t look like a serial killer, but then again, from the outside, no one could tell what an emotional mess I was. As if I needed more proof that first impressions were absolutely worthless.

Although…

As I slid into the back of John’s car I thought of Declan. My first impression of him had been amazing. And, not that I wanted it to happen, but if I did see him again, I bet his second impression would be great, too. In fact, I couldn’t imagine him having a flaw bad enough to change that. The only negative I’d seen in him was how hard he’d made it to leave his place Sunday morning. And if I thought about it too much, I might start seeing that less as a negative and more of something to respect him for.

Crap. That made me wonder if there was a way to accidentally find out what kind of second impression he gave.

On the bright side, no one was that good all the time, especially not any man I’d ever known, so it would only be a matter of time before I got to know and be disappointed by the real him. I shook off all thoughts of Declan and focused on the traffic as John drove toward downtown.

Having a friend with a car, almost the same class schedule, and enough money to park it made my school life a lot easier. But getting to and from work was different. The car-share service wasn’t super expensive, but two rides a day, five half-days of work a week, kept my credit card company very, very happy.

Obviously, since I needed to be alive when I got to the office, biking wasn’t possible.

I could’ve figured out which, and at what times, buses ran between my parents’ house and work. But doing that would be proof that I’d accepted my unfortunate living arrangements long enough to commit to learning bus numbers and routes. And commitment was to be avoided at all cost, including knowing how many times I’d have to switch modes of transport to go five miles in the city.

Basically, I was screwed either way—I spent more money because I didn’t want to admit that I wouldn’t be able to move out anytime soon, but that meant I couldn’t save enough money to escape. Having a job was expensive. Having a massively screwed-up family was even more expensive.

At least cover charges at the clubs were always waived for the young and fuckable portion of the population, and drinks were always free for those with vaginas. It might not have seemed right to my feminist side, but since women were paid less and harassed more than men, it seemed only fair to use the few perks we had.

Plus, if a guy was stupid enough to believe that one drink was all he had to put out to get me to put out, that was his problem. Like my stepfather always said, “How someone chooses to spend his money is up to him.” I doubt that’s what Timothy was referring to, but he was right.

Although, it almost always cost the guy a minimum of one drink for me, and five more for my closest female friends—at least in proximity—before I let anyone into my pants.

I flinched when I heard my ringtone—a man’s voice saying, “This is not a text. I repeat, this is not a text. We interrupt your regularly scheduled day to tell you to pick up your damn phone!” and dug my phone out of my bag. But evidently, John shared my inability to accept that people actually still used phones to speak to each other because he cursed at the same moment I saw that no one was calling me.

He glanced into his rearview mirror at me, mumbled an apology, and held his phone up to his ear. “Can’t talk now. I’m driving.” Pause. “Because it’s illegal to hold my phone in my hand while I drive in California.” Another pause, but he used this one to curse under his breath. “Because that’s what I do, Lin. People give me money to drive them around. Good thing they do, too, because obviously someone has to pay for your new shoes.” Probably a woman. Possibly an angry one. “If I put you on speaker, the lady in the back seat could hear you, and I’d guess she—” He jerked the phone away from his ear when the yelling started and held the phone out to me. “Could you please tell my sister you don’t want to hear us fight?”

“I...um...” I hesitantly leaned closer to the phone. “John’s right—I’d prefer not to listen to anyone fighting.” I only leaned back a few inches before stopping myself. “Sorry.” Unfortunately, that’s when I heard her start to cry.

“Like I told you before, Lin,” John called out, “I gotta go.”

“You can’t!” Grabbing his arm so he couldn’t pull it away, I covered the phone with my other hand. “She’s crying, John. You can’t just hang up on her when she’s crying.”

Thankfully, we were at a light, so no one was in danger when he shifted around to look at me. Or stare at me, actually. Eventually he spoke. “Last weekend, she went on a two-thousand-dollar shopping spree. With my credit card.”

“Oh. That’s not good.” I let go of him and leaned back on the seat. “Didn’t mean to intrude.”

“Two grand,” he repeated. “So, I think I’m allowed to hang up on her if I want to.”

“I agree.” Neither of us moved or looked away from the phone. “Why aren’t you hanging up then?”

As soon as the light changed, he tapped the screen with his thumb and tossed the phone onto the seat next to him. My heart broke a little when he turned frontward again. Because that’s when I looked in the rearview mirror and saw how watery his eyes were.

“Have you figured out what you’re going to do about it?” I asked before I thought about it. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m talking about. Just ignore me.”

“There’s nothing I can do.” Well, at least he got the ignore me part right. “Other than work myself into the ground to pay it off. She’s never going to do it.” If I hadn’t known why he was upset, his dry, dark chuckle would’ve set off every “Stranger Danger” alarm in a five-block radius. “I’m barely keeping my head above water for me and my kids as it is. Lin knew that, and she still went and pulled this shit.”

“It’s none of my business….” I straightened up in the seat and looked at the street outside to figure out how far we were from my office. Yep, I had enough time. “But as someone who’s witnessed many, many shopping sprees and a close-to-equal amount of the subsequent fights, I can tell you what I’d do.” Which happened to be the exact opposite of how I’d seen it happen between Timothy and my mother.

“At this point, I’m open to anything that ends without me going to jail.” He kept his eyes on the road, but no way could he hide the emotion in his voice. “And even then, I’d probably do it.”

I felt my chest tighten. “Nothing illegal, John. You have kids. And other options.”

“Yeah, like what?” he asked skeptically.

“First thing you do is call your credit card company and tell them to shut off your card so she can’t order anything else. But don’t tell them the card was stolen unless you’re okay with your sister potentially being tracked down and arrested.”

He paused long enough to let me know he’d need more time to contemplate it.

“Regardless…” I continued. “The card company will contact the retailers and stop any orders that haven’t shipped out already. Then you should bring a list of everything else Lin bought over to her house and help her repack and return everything returnable. Because the last thing you want her to learn is that she can do something really awful, apologize, and then still get to keep the good shit.”

“You can return that stuff?” Obviously, John didn’t shop online. And since he’d probably never done too much retail therapy and regretted it afterwards, I had to explain how online returns worked.

“Oh, and when you get your new card? Don’t give it to anyone with a shopping addiction, okay?”

“Got it.” My new friend John pulled up to the curb in front of the building where Emilia had set up the company’s main-and-only office.

“Good luck with everything,” I said, sliding out of the car.

He rolled his window down. “Thanks, Sara. You really helped me out.”

“Great. Then can we consider it your tip?” I grimaced. “I’m trying to save enough to move out of the house where you picked me up.”

“Why? That place was gorgeous.”

“From the outside, sure. But believe me, it’s an emotional hellhole inside.”

“Shouldn’t judge a book, right?” He smiled. “Take care of yourself, Sara. And thanks again.”

He grabbed his phone, speed-dialed someone, and gave me a quick wave. As he drove off, I heard a woman answer and John say, “Look, Lin, this is what’s going to happen…”

---

Considering that Emilia’s employees—other than me—didn’t need to be babysat and could work remotely from home, plus very, very few clients actually came into the office, the two-room space on the sixth floor did the job. Very professional, very well decorated, and deceptively small.

I sighed with relief when I tested the office door. It was still locked. That meant I’d gotten here before Emilia and could get a little extra work done. She was probably out jogging with Andi, my other best friend who didn’t know how to mind her own business.

That wasn’t fair. Both Emilia and Andi were great women and better friends than I deserved, especially lately. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate that they cared about me—I really did—but they wanted an explanation for everything I did, while I was trying hard to make sure that what I did defied explanation.

I was going to disappoint them regardless, so it was just easier to do it this way. Plus, it wasn’t as if I could tell them the truth. Even if they believed me, it would just create more questions and discussions about a word I could barely form inside my own head.

The only four-letter word I’d never been able to say, at least not since it happened to me.