Present Day

I had no idea what to do. Kaycee was standing in my entryway, still shivering with the remnants of her sobs, looking as if she'd never be the same. Maybe she wouldn't be. All I knew was that I had to help.

We hadn't known each other for ten years, dated and then become best friends, only for me to stand there helplessly in the face of her pain.

"Want a beer?" I said, gesturing to the fridge as if she didn't know where I kept my drinks. She nodded, so I took one out for her, and then grabbed another for myself after a second's pause.

So we found ourselves on the couch, beers in hand as we sat and Kaycee tried not to look at the bag of stuff she'd put in the corner. From what I gathered, that was the extent of her life in L.A. It made me sad to look at it, too.

Was she really so busy she only had that much?

I could have sworn that she had this full, incredibly vibrant life here. But maybe Greg wasn't the only thing that seemed better on the surface than it really was. Not that Greg seemed all that great to begin with. Then again, I shouldn't have been thinking 'I told you so' about someone who'd just been confronted with ugly truths like that. My friend needed me.

"I can't believe it," said Kaycee, her voice hushed and a little hoarse. She took a large swig of beer. "Fucking Greg."

"Utter asswipe," I said. And that was keeping it relatively tame. The things running through my mind about that jerk were probably too harsh for Kaycee to have to hear right now. I didn't want to make her feel any worse.

Then she started laughing, a hollow chuckle that chilled me. Kaycee tossed her head back so that it leaned against the back of the couch and laughed like a harsh howl. After a couple minutes and a few tears streaming down her face, either from sadness or laughter, she sighed and stopped.

"Win," she said, sipping her beer again, "when did I become such an idiot?"

"Easy," I said to her, leaning in as if about to impart a greatly treasured secret. "You've always been."

"Hey!" she said, blinking in surprise. "What the hell, man? Just been dumped in the most catastrophically ego-busting way here."

"I'm just saying, you dated Greg. Obviously an utter failure. That Taylor guy, also a chump. Don't know about your law school days cause hey—I was crazy busy then too—but then before that you also dated me. Your record is far from stellar."

This time, Kaycee's laugh had some of its characteristic warmth. A tiny light of hope sprung up within me that I could, in fact, help her. Wasn't just indulging my need to see her more and spend more time with her, whatever the cost.

She drained the beer and cradled the empty bottle in her hands, toying with the label. She was trying to peel it off, an action I’d seen her do countless times before.

“That help at all?” I asked, meaning the picking at the label. She must have interpreted my comment differently.

“Yeah, but I could use another,” she said.

I shrugged and went to get her a new beer, no need to clarify my statement. It hurt to see her in pain like this, the normally bubbly side to her personality completely submerged in feelings.

When I got back to the couch, I deposited several beers on the coffee table.

“There, saved myself a few trips. The fridge has plenty more where that came from, if your hurt’s in need of a good drowning.”

“Sorrows do appreciate being dunked in beer, I’m thinking,” she said.

“It helps, sometimes,” I said. My plan for the evening had been to work on a new song I was writing, something I could show to Jack and Kyle later in the week and maybe have the band record for our next album. I’d been feeling nervous about it so I welcomed the distraction.

Kaycee inhaled a ragged breath, her chest rising and falling with the motion. “I just can’t believe it.”

“So what happened?”

I had wisps of information so far, just enough to piece together into a ‘fuck Greg’ tapestry. But if Kaycee needed to talk, I was there.

She took another swig of beer, on pace to rapidly drain her second. After stifling a small burp, she smiled at me. Despite the sadness in her eyes, she was still so beautiful. I tried to ignore the leap in my heart, my stomach, in other places I couldn’t bear to think about right now or I might ruin everything.

It was difficult.

But being her friend was worth it. If you care about someone, you want them in your life, right? No matter how. Plus, we were better as friends than we ever were as lovers. Just too different in our paths.

“According to me or to Greg?” she said, sighing. “I mean, yes, I’ve been busy. That’s the way it goes for a lawyer, you know? It’s not like I went into law school under any illusions about how much time it would take to practice. Not like I thought I’d be zipping to court in the mornings and then having a leisurely 2-hour lunch every day with my boyfriend afterwards.”

“And Greg had other ideas?”

“You know, I have no clue. All I know is that the spark fizzled at some point, to be completely honest with myself, and then next thing I know I guess he’s lit a new one with someone else. And I stumbled and tripped face-first into the fire.”

“Nice metaphor.”

“I try,” she said. And she cracked open a third beer. It was probably a bit much for a weeknight, but I wasn’t going to be judge-y. Not my place. I’d been in worse shape on a morning before; occupational hazard.

So I got myself another beer, not wanting Kaycee to be drowning her sorrows alone. Not that I’d been through anything as bad as her today. Just Jack saying that he didn’t think my song was working.

It was my fault that comments like that cut so deep: classic middle child, people pleaser, noncommittal dude. Back to the drawing board with that one.

Well, back to working on it tomorrow. For tonight, focusing on helping the person I’d known the longest in my life aside from my brothers.

“Are you listening?” said Kaycee.

“Sorry, just spaced out there,” I said to her. Gotta be honest. She’d see through me if I even tried to lie. She was sharp like that. “Some tensions in the band. But I swear, I am 100% here for you if you want to talk about how shitty Greg is, or if you want to build a small effigy and burn it in the backyard. Or even if you want to go by his place and egg the windows.”

“Nah, not fair to the landlord and other tenants. I don’t know if I have good enough aim to only egg his window.”

At that thought, Kaycee snorted. Her laughter was welcome, smile lines creasing the skin around her eyes in a way that I’d always found made my heart leap. Endearing.

I smiled at her, sipping my beer quietly and enjoying the moment.

“Well, my door’s always open,” I said. “Seriously. You can crash here as long as you need, K. Once we go on tour consider it your house for the rest of the year.”

“That’s really kind of you,” she said. There was a bleariness entering the edges of her words, some slight slurring from the alcohol starting to kick in.

“Wouldn’t want you to have to jeopardize that big case, right? Gotta focus.”

“Shit, I forgot about that,” she said. She sighed and sank further into the couch cushions before turning to me and blinking rapidly. “Winston, I am being tested by the universe right now.”

Then it was my turn to laugh, throwing my head back and feeling the humor through my entire body.

“As if there was any way you weren’t up to the challenge, K,” I said. I gave her a little punch on the arm, meant to be encouraging. “You’re the toughest person I know.”

But at that comment, she burst into tears again. This time, it was uglier than before. If I had to guess, I’d wager the alcohol had something to do with it. Lubricated the expulsion of more and more liquid from the face. Sadness radiated from her.

It pained me to see it, so I shuffled closer, keeping my voice low. “Hey, don’t cry,” I said.

Stupid, I know. Sometimes words just aren’t enough.

Kaycee, normally so tough and driven, melted into me, leaning against my shoulder and pressing her face into my shirt. I could feel the warmth of her against me and was struck by an urge to hug her, fiercely. Instead, I put my arm around her and patted her.

"Winston," she said, looking up at me with her eyes half full of tears, bloodshot but still astonishingly beautiful, "I don't know how I'm going to do it."

"Do what?"

"Keep going," she said. And then she sighed, this tiny, defeated sigh that was so uncharacteristic I nearly laughed. Luckily, I held my laughter in tactfully instead.

"K," I said, squeezing her tightly. "How many As did you get in law school?"

"Some," she murmured.

"No way," I said. "Don't sell yourself short. All of them. You got all the As."

"I guess," she said, a small smile burgeoning on her face despite herself.

"And didn't you get a summer job at the best firm in Minneapolis?"

"Technically they're the best family law firm, not best overall. That'd be..."

But I interrupted her. "Kayce! Just say yes, ok?"

"Ok," she said. "I mean, yes."

There were fewer tears gathering in her eyes now, though perhaps they were being replaced with annoyance at my attempts to cheer her up.

Hey, whatever works, right?

"And didn't you get an awesome master's degree or whatever from UCLA? Then convince a local firm to hire you despite their being famously exclusive?"

"'Or whatever'," Kaycee echoed, snorting at my lack of eloquence. Again, I'd do anything to calm her down and help her see some good in herself, even if that meant making a fool of myself in the process.

"I'm not a lawyer, man," I said. "Barely finished high school and then just toured the world with the dummies I happen to call my brothers."

"The school of life," she said, and I couldn't tell if it was sincere or a joke. I laughed either way.

"Exactly. So I have street smarts, right? And I can tell you're a high-powered lawyer badass who's just having a crap day. You can do this, one hundred percent."

Kaycee smiled at me, nestled in closer. "Thanks, Winston," she said. Another sigh escaped her. "It's just hard."

"Damn straight it is," I said. "If it wasn't hard, thousands more people would be lining up to do it and get paid the big bucks. But they're not you."

Saying it out loud made my chest constrict, a tingle that was both familiar and painful rising in my throat. She was special. She had to know it, and so I had to say it. But sometimes it hurt a bit to remind myself just how much I'd lost. Just what I'd put aside by becoming a rock star, and not a college boyfriend.

She cleared her throat and exhaled slowly. "Phew, ok, too much beer for me," she said. "Thanks again, Win. Now I have a really sad request to make."

"What is it?"

And she glanced downwards, unwilling to meet my eye. A slight flush grew on her cheeks, bright and rosy against her flaming hair. Even tear-stained and tipsy like this, her beauty was breathtaking.

Don't you dare think about that with her in your arms, Win.

Dangerous territory.

"Can we watch Gilmore Girls?" she said, cringing as she said it.

"Nooooo," I said, more a groan than a word. "I don't think I can take another saccharine speed-talking fest right now, K."

"Please?" she said.

And of course I couldn't resist. "Fine," I said, huffing as if it were the biggest imposition in the history of television. She knew me, though, and knew I would enjoy mocking the show as we watched it.

Fifteen minutes later, Kaycee was curled up next to me, a blanket over her legs and smile on her face. She was a little farther away but still closer than normal. I missed the feeling of my arm around her, tried not to breathe too loudly in reaction to the sensation of her being so near.

The manic mother character made some quippy remark and I rolled my eyes. Kaycee smacked my arm.

"Hey! Cool your judgy jets, mister," she said. "This is therapeutic for me."

"I cannot believe someone as smart and accomplished as you enjoys this," I said. "Wouldn't it be more fun to watch a show where they talked like actual humans?"

"Nope!" she proclaimed.

A few more minutes passed in comfortable silence. Then a brooding character in dark clothes came onscreen and engaged in half-witty half-mean banter with the main character, Rory.

Kaycee sighed. "Jess," she said.

"He seems like a tool," I said.

"No! He reminds me of you."

I wasn't sure how to take that. Part of me thought it was a compliment, the way Kaycee was looking at him on the screen. But he was saying things to Rory that seemed charged, flirtatious.

Then they kissed.

I knew that Kaycee identified with Rory, the way she was more interested in books than the social goings-on at her exclusive private school. Her fashion sense, too. But this made my insides squirm more than a little.

We watched the rest of the episode in silence, until I realized at the end credits that Kaycee was soundly asleep. Maybe she had been for the last half of the show, for all I knew. I didn't want to wake her, so I picked up the blanket from the floor where it had fallen and tucked it over her.

And then I tip toed to my bedroom, mind whirring with the worries of seeing my best friend in such a state. Gut whirling from something entirely more selfish, more primal. I guess I needed to get laid, find someone new in my life probably. Only, at this hour, after this kind of night, I didn't really want to.

I would never admit it, never let on to anyone but myself, and even then just barely. But I knew I was still attracted to Kaycee. I mean, who wouldn't have been?

I drifted asleep after some conflicted thinking about the new song I was working on, memories of Kaycee and I dating after high school resurfacing despite being unwelcome. That was a long time ago. Whole portions of our lives had been remodelled since then. We were just friends.

But then in the deep, dark hours of the night, I heard a faint creaking noise. Just enough of a sound that it roused me from a bizarre dream and left me confused about where the veil lay between night and dreams.

I turned over, blinking in the darkness as I tried to locate the sound. I heard nothing for a moment, though, so I started to drift back asleep. Then there was a definite noise of footsteps, soft but constant, padding towards my room. The door creaked open and Kaycee stepped towards me, the soft smell of her perfume wafting into the air before her.

Even though I was half awake already, I didn't greet her. I wasn't sure what was happening. And my breath was caught in my throat, words deserting me in the night-time moment.

She stopped at the foot of my bed, and then crawled in, slipping underneath the covers as if it were the most natural thing for her to do.

"Winston?" she said softly.

I turned over to face her, my heart hammering with the surreal vision of Kaycee in my bed. Right next to me.

"Kaycee," I said. "What's up?"

"Do you mind if I sleep here?" she said. Her voice was so quiet it almost seemed like I was dreaming. I was certain, however, that in any dream my brain concocted, Kaycee's feet wouldn't be so icy against my skin. She held them up to my shins for warmth and I was suddenly much more awake.

Despite being more lucid, I could see Kaycee was clearly still there. I wasn't dreaming.

"No, that's fine," I said. Despite the hammering in my chest. Despite the way my tongue felt clammy in my mouth, seeing her next to me like that. Feeling her presence as if it were ringed in neon lights.

I suddenly wasn't so confident I should have offered her the opportunity to stay at my place. What else could I have done, though? And I definitely couldn't kick her out now. She was devastated by a breakup and reeling from work complications.

No, I had to let her stay. Only I wasn't sure how I was going to survive this gut wrenching, tantalizing proximity.