The sun streaming through the window was bright, illuminating the room to the point where I woke. Blinking. Head throbbing. Waves of nausea crashing about recklessly on the shores of my stomach.

And someone was next to me.

One night stand?

No, my brain thought, chugging along at a preposterously slow pace. This looked like Winston's house. Not just his house, his bedroom.

Oh shit.

Winston was lying in the bed next to me, the stubble on his face golden from the morning sunlight. He was snoring lightly, his head tilted back on the pillow as he slept with complete commitment to the action.

Suddenly, my queasiness doubled. Had I slept with Winston? Well, ok, I'd obviously slept in his bed. But did we...

Memories of Gilmore Girls and humiliating sob-fest self pity came back to me. The warm rush of comfort from having Winston hug me, Winston boost me up with his trademark charm. Winston next to me in the bed seemed so jarringly present that it boggled my mind I'd thought it was a good idea to join him.

But the Kaycee of last night was me, sans confidence. A shadow version of myself that surfaced only after landmark defeats in love and career.

At least that's what I told myself.

Then, without warning, Winston mumbled in his sleep and rolled over, tossing an arm around me and pulling me closer, the muscles in his limbs strengthened from the healthy lifestyle he'd been living here in L.A.

It felt good, to be honest. He was warm, and strong, and embracing me without any of the neediness Greg had. It felt like comfort, a little like home. I needed to get up, but I didn't want to wake him. I could wait a few minutes until he turned over again.

And then I noticed it.

He was hard.

My mouth went a thousand times more dry, pulse in my neck rapidly escalating to the point where I thought I might have a heart attack from embarrassment. Perhaps even worse, I could feel myself responding to the situation, my body warming to the sexual tension in kind.

I wasn’t getting turned on because of Winston, was I?

The fact was, despite my initial horror, it might have been so long since Greg and I actually had sex that the nearness of any erection, no matter how attached it was to my best friend, wasn't awful. Was welcome, to be honest.

The thought made me shiver in both shock and enjoyment.

Nope, nope, nope.

I jumped out of the bed, flinging the covers open and stepping away from the mattress before I could let my train of thoughts get any farther down the line it was going. Unfortunately for me, without the blankets overtop of Winston, I could see his chest, broadly drawn and smattered with tattoos. I could see the way a light dusting of hair converged at his belly button to trace downwards, making way to the line of his underwear and beyond.

And I could see his morning wood. As Winston breathed in and out, sleeping through my internal turmoil as if he were the most oblivious person in the world, I stood there transfixed by his languid, attractive body.

When he stirred gently, blinking in the light, I jumped into action. He couldn't see me staring at him like this, a hungry, predatory kind of gaze lingering over someone literally unconscious. I felt creepy enough as it was for having snuck into his room at night, longing for the physical comfort of not sleeping alone.

I glanced at my phone, hoping against logic to see a remorseful message from Greg. There was nothing except the time staring me down, accusatory in its stark white font.

Shit, I was late.

With a gasp, I hurried out of Winston’s bedroom and tried to find my bag in the main hall.

“Kaycee?” said a sleep-drenched voice a few minutes later. Winston was now wearing a dark gray t-shirt and rumpled pyjama pants as he peered around the corner at me. “You all right?”

I nodded, still flushed from the experience of being tightly pressed against Winston again. And of liking it.

“Fine, but late. I’ve got a big meeting. Work. Things.”

I was blabbering. Realizing the fact did nothing to stop it, and I kept rambling as I fished out my blue suit to get dressed.

“Oh, I forgot to mention,” said Winston. “The band’s practicing tonight, I hope that’s ok.”

“Totally,” I said. “It’s your house!”

The bright, cheerful nature of my voice belied the strange feeling of betrayal that lay underneath it.

Was I angry that Winston was having people over, as if it were my house? No, that would be preposterous. However, I couldn’t accept the alternate theory in my head, which was that I was jealous that he and I wouldn’t be alone together.

Apparently being cheated on had thrown my brain back into high school mode or something.

Within fifteen minutes, I’d showered, dressed, and called a cab to come get me at the front gate. Though Winston offered to drive me, I couldn’t accept. Not while my emotions and body were so…volatile.

So I left him standing at the front door, still clad in the casual loungewear I suspected he’d wear all day while writing songs. Winston was leaning against the doorframe as I left, looking every inch my boyfriend to the cab driver. I made some lame comment about how I’d been staying at my friend’s place while Winston waved to me, my mind racing to figure out why I was being so strange to a cab driver who’d likely never see me or Winston ever again.

Why couldn’t I shake the unsettled feeling of being around Winston? It was like we were young again.

* * *

At work, Brad came by my cubicle ten minutes after I arrived.

“Rough night, huh?” he said to me, the knowing smile on his face begging to be punched. As if I were the college binge-drinking type still. Just cause he loved beer pong as much in his late twenties as he did at eighteen didn’t mean I did.

Instead, I smiled brightly and tried to clear my throat surreptitiously enough for him not to hear it before I spoke. “My boyfriend broke up with me by cheating on me last night, thanks!”

Brad clearly hadn’t been prepared for that comment. His slick smile faltered, a wisp of concern sprouting between his eyebrows. “Seriously?”

I nodded. “I don’t want to talk about it. Just saying so you know.”

“Ok then,” he said. “So you up to meet about the Carmichael divorce?”

Like I wouldn’t be, just because my love life had just crumbled into a heap at my feet. Brad didn’t know me very well. I could use the distraction of someone else’s problems.

“Of course,” I said. I gestured to the chair across from mine. Brad took a seat, unbuttoning his suit jacket as he did so.

“I thought it would be straightforward,” he said, “but turns out Grandma’s getting involved.”

“Brother,” I said, the word like a substitute curse. I refused to swear at work, no matter how heated things got. Had to have some standards, right?

“Yeah.”

“Which grandmother?”

“Ex-husband Richard’s mother, Gwendolyn.”

“And?”

“She’s apparently started attending meetings with him and his lawyer.”

“F-” I started to say. “Fantastic.”

Brad could tell the smile on my face was strained, matching his own tense expression. Maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as I’d thought. Maybe we would both do well and the partners would choose who to hire based on entire track record, not just one specific case.

“I say we settle,” said Brad.

Or not.

“We haven’t even gotten started yet,” I said. “Mrs. Carmichael’s one of the most trusted lifestyle brands in the world. Surely she can afford a bit more legwork before we decide whether or not she has access to her children.”

“I don’t know,” said Brad. “Based on my reading, it doesn’t sound like she had that much time with them to begin with. Might be our smartest way out, settling.”

I leaned forward on my elbows at my desk, counting as I exhaled to try to diffuse my frustration. Brad just sat there, assuming that I was conflicted with the gravity of his statements.

Really, I was just annoyed that I was on a huge case with someone impatient to settle. Short-changing our client, one with extremely deep pockets, would be short sighted to say the least. If not outright disastrous.

There were no other lawyers on the case, no higher-ups I could appeal to who could outrank Brad. It was just the two of us.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

I was lying.

I knew already that I didn’t want our client to have to give up any shot at custody, to be relegated to holiday visits only with her eight-year-old boy and ten-year-old girl. We could and would do better. I just had to figure out my strategy against Brad, as well as my plan for dealing with Mr. Ex-Carmichael and his meddling mother.

For now, that strategy consisted of saying yes and buying time for my head to stop pounding and for my mind to stop being filled with memories of Winston hard against my thigh.

“Let’s meet to discuss further later in the week, ok?” I said.

Brad nodded, smiling with the confidence of someone who feels he’s gotten his way.

On his way out, I waved at him vaguely, promising to put something on the calendar for further discussion of the case. It was going to take everything I had to navigate this to a solution that was good for our client and that showed I deserved to be working here. Deserved a full-time associate's position. I just needed to get my head in the game.

If my head wasn’t going to be filled with images of Winston, asleep and half naked, for the rest of the week.

* * *

After work, I taxied to the old apartment to pick up my car. I knew going by would upset me, but I was still surprised by the rage that filled my chest at the sight of the window where Greg and I had stared out to the city, talking about plans for our life together.

Jerk couldn't even handle a year in the trenches, what on Earth had I been thinking to assume he could be the one?

So much for that.

My car was a beaten-up old Honda Civic, the kind that teenagers often drove around Minneapolis with gaudy neon lights underneath. Mine had no such lights, just rust and a few 90s decals I couldn't scrape off properly from the previous owner. Once my student loans were gone, I might spring for something nicer, but I was strangely attached to the car. I'd driven it out here from Minnesota, stopping along the way to see the Grand Canyon before I went to grad school.

Emotional attachments often made it hard to let go of things like that for me. I wasn't sure why. In every other aspect of my life, I could be calm, rational, and logical in my approach to the world. But give me some strong emotional experiences with an object and I want to hold onto it forever.

Driving back to Winston's place, I felt a creeping anxiety that he'd be angry with me for getting drunk last night. I mean, he was already kind enough to let me crash at his place while I sorted out whether I'd even have a job in a few months or not. The least I could do was behave myself like a reasonable adult, not consume all his beer and mope over Gilmore Girls. Or worse, he probably didn't want his friends sneaking into his bed in the middle of the night like a goddamn creeper.

I'd apologize by making some tacos tonight.

But at the front door, I was greeted with the textured, rhythmic sounds of a band practicing their most rollicking hits.

Oh yeah, The Avowed was practicing here tonight.

Again, I was confused by the welling disappointment in my chest. Was my guilt about last night so vivid that I needed to apologize urgently? Or was it something else? Being broken up with in such an unceremonious way was really getting to me, it seemed. I'd make tacos anyway; I could use some comfort food.

Cheese was always the answer.

Inside, the noise was louder, thumping through my skeleton like I was an eighteen-year-old visiting the Sargents' garage during practice again. It was a strange sensation, both jarring and comforting. Nothing like sound rattling the bones to make you jolt out of your post-breakup funk.

I crept into the living room to see them. Kyle was nearest to me, his guitar slung around him in a casual fashion, as if he almost didn't mean to be playing, just found it and thought he might as well. He was playing a series of arpeggios, gaining speed as he went, fingers flying along the fret board. His blonde hair was carefully spiked and ruffled, offsetting his blue shirt as if he were a model in an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog. Even though he was the youngest, he had an immense amount of energy and drew the eye when the brothers were onstage.

Jack was hunched over his bass almost protectively, playing in the corner with a subtle head-bob along to the beat. His beard was still longer than I'd have liked to see, but it was clear that he was taking better care of himself now. There were signs of him trimming the facial hair. Though he might not have been over his grief yet, he was on the mend. That counted for something.

I wasn't sure how I'd have survived the pain he'd been through, losing his wife so shortly after they were married. I wondered if he'd made any progress in regaining custody of his daughter yet, then thought better of prying. Just cause I worked in family law didn't mean he wanted to discuss such personal things with me.

And in the center of it all, seated behind his drum kit, was Winston. Sweat had mussed his hair even further, giving him a radiant edge that sparked the nerves in my stomach again. He played like he wanted to punch the beat, not play it. So forceful and syncopated. His biceps were on display in the same gray t-shirt he'd been in when I left, only in this light, with the music blaring and infiltrating my senses, it flattered him.

I found myself bobbing my head, shuffling gently to the beat while I watched. Kyle spotted me, grinning but continuing with his solo, and Jack nodded to acknowledge my presence. Winston seemed oblivious, totally concentrated on the drum kit in front of him. The crease between his eyebrows was so prominent, I'd have thought he was concerned if there wasn't a spark in his eye. A certain lust for the music, I guessed.

I hadn't seen The Avowed so up close, so privately, in years. It was miles away from the band they'd been when I watched them play in their dad's garage. Now, they were rehearsed. In tune. Tightly connected as if they could sense each other's movements before they happened. It was engrossing.

I didn't realize I was staring at Winston until too late. He spotted me, finally, near the end of the song when he was hammering through a roll on the toms. Though he didn't stop, didn't even falter, there was an interesting expression on his face that renewed the slight trembling in my hands. It wasn't anger. No need for my guilt from before. I might have been mistaken, but I thought that Winston looked protective for a moment.

In the context of my pain, of the heartbreak I was still reeling from, the utter betrayal by Greg of everything I'd held dear in my personal life, that split second of Winston's unguarded protectiveness was surprisingly welcome. Though it was soon followed by a cheery smile and a wink, so characteristic of Winston's clownish nature, I saw the way he felt about my pain. And it was very much welcome.

After the song ended, I offered the tacos I was going to make to any and all who wanted some.

"No thanks, Kaycee," said Kyle. "I've got a hot date tonight with Adelaide, and not to insult your cooking or anything, but she’s going to make me something special."

"Not insulting, that girl can cook!" I said. It was endearing how much Kyle loved to bring up Adelaide's name whenever possible. They were so in love.

Great, now I needed to stop thinking about love, stat.

"Sure, tacos sound great," said Jack. Winston agreed, and we gathered in the kitchen to work on cutting tomatoes, grating cheese, and cooking the meat as Kyle packed up his guitar and headed out.

Though I tried not to notice it, there was a pang in my heart. A tightness in my chest that throbbed whenever I thought about how happy Kyle and Adelaide were together, and how my supposed happiness had melted, destroyed by Greg. Maybe a bit by me, too. I wanted that happiness, longed for it sometimes.

But I loved my job. I just needed to find someone who felt the same way. And when Winston asked what I was thinking about, my distraction causing me to blush when he spoke to me again, I realized something else: I needed to find someone to rebound with before my pent-up urges got in the way of my friendships, too.