“Feel better,” Fallon says to me, walking out the front door.

I wave from my spot on the couch as she leaves. I’m still so pissed at myself for getting so drunk. But after I talked to my dad and he was zero help, I couldn’t come back here. So the bar sounded like a good idea, but really . . . it never is.

My stomach is somewhere between starving and chucking up the rest of the alcohol that is eating a hole in the lining. I force myself to get up. I have to eat something; the Advil on an empty stomach was such a bad idea.

Fuck, why did I get so messed up last night? I need to learn to handle all this better and control myself.

I have to get over this shit and let go of the feelings I have for Fallon. She is my best friend, and that’s fucking it—end of story. Especially now that we are living together, I can’t be secretly liking her. I have to keep up the lie about my fake girlfriend, even though it’s wrong on so many levels. But I made the decision a long time ago to keep things between us just as friends, and it’s going to stay that way.

I stand and immediately feel light headed. Once the dizziness fades, I wander to the kitchen in a half-drunken daze, grab a jar of peanut butter from the pantry, and pull a spoon from the drawer. Leaning over the bar, I brace my weight on my elbows and try to stomach down a spoonful. The room is spinning, and I almost don’t manage it.

Fuuuuuuuuck!

I swallow some more peanut butter and then stagger into my bedroom falling face first on my mattress.

I’m pretty sure I still have peanut butter in my mouth when sleep takes me.

* * *

“Parks!” I hear my name yelled loudly and is causes me to sit up so fast I almost topple off my bed. The time on the clock reads ten fifteen—shit did I sleep the day away?

When Fallen walks in, she’s still in her work clothes, so maybe I did.

She stands in the doorway to my room, visibly upset, and . . . I have no clue what to do. So, I open my arms to her, and she crawls on my bed, laying her body along mine.

As I collect my bearings, I ask her, “What’s the matter?” She nuzzles her face in my neck without saying anything. If Leo did something to hurt her again, I’m going to kill him.

I’ll kill him; I swear I will.

“Talk to me,” I urge her, needing to know what has her so upset.

“I got fired.” That isn’t what I expected.

“What? No way!”

“Yeah, Marla called me in early today to fire me!”

“Shut up! How can she even do that?”

“I . . .” She trails off and then sits up, obviously angry as she recalls the events from the morning. “She had human recourses there when I got in. She’d been keeping track of my every move and claimed I falsified my timecard.”

“Did you?”

“I might’ve taken an extra five minutes on my lunch here and there or left a couple of minutes early. But there were more times that I skipped my lunch or stayed late and never reported that. They didn’t care, though.” Fallon bites her bottom lip, thinking about what she’s been through and I have to keep my eyes on hers, not her mouth. “She said what my previous manager let slide was not her problem; she couldn’t allow me to work there if she can’t trust me.”

“What a fucking bitch, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I haven’t gotten along with her since she started, so I guess it was inevitable.”

“Still, you didn’t deserve to get fired.”

“No, I didn’t. Talk about kicking me when I’m down.”

I chuckle at her analogy. The poor girl has been through so much shit lately and, somehow, she keeps going with a smile on her face. It’s one of the many reasons why I love her.

Fuck, don’t go there, man.

What is wrong with me? Thinking shit like that is the last thing I should be doing. “Are you even going to say anything?” she asks me, and I nod, feeling so fucked.

“I know it feels that way, but sometimes these things happen for a reason.”

“What reason in the world could you explain me getting fired two days after walking in on Leo cheating on me?”

“I don’t know; I guess what I mean is that one day you’ll look back and this will all make sense.” She looks at me with a frown on her face, my words not helping one bit. “Don’t look at me like that; I’m doing the best I can do, girl. You’re gonna get through all this shit.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re successful and . . . perfect!” she yells, taking a bit of her frustrations out on me. If only she knew. “I’m so fucked!“

I pull her down back into a tight hug and hold her close. Even though my body is alive and wants her more than anything else, she needs me right now.

“Don’t ever say shit like that. You’re successful, and you’re so perfect you really have no idea. You fuckin’ hear me?”