“Just a sec. Let me get the curtains,” Eden said as she unlocked the door to her tiny apartment. If you wanted to call it that. Her parents had prepared the space over their garage for her—their idea of letting her get her own place.

“Are those new?” asked Naj.

“Yeah. They’re blackout curtains. My lights have been out all night. If I turn them on now, they’ll know I just came home.” She’d gotten them two weeks ago, and since she went into the house at mealtimes, they hadn’t ventured up into her space.

Naj winced in sympathy. “It must suck, being watched all the time.”

“You have no idea.” But some of Eden’s usual resentment had faded. They’d been traumatized. At sixteen she’d developed AML, a fast-moving form of leukemia that should have killed her. She’d been so sick, especially after she started chemotherapy. She fingered the blunt ends of her hair. It used to fall all the way to her waist in soft, thick waves. Thankfully, it’d grown long enough that she could now wear a normal hairstyle.

Naj kicked off her heels and hopped onto Eden’s bed. “So tell me everything.”

Call her a coward, but she wasn’t ready to tell her friend that she’d given it up in the back of some random guy’s car. “There’s not much to tell. What about Thomas?”

“Huh-ah. No way. Did you kiss him?”

Eden plopped down on the bed beside her friend. She started to hug her knees, then realized she’d lost her panties. Her face fired hot as she clutched a pillow to her lap.

Naj squealed. “I knew it! Did you leave with him? Was that why you were outside?”

“I told you, it was too hot in there. I started feeling sick.”

“You are okay, right?”

Eden waved her hand. She’d gone through her quarterly rounds of testing just last week. “I’m fine. Trust me.”

Naj leaned forward. “So what was he like?”

He was perfect, until he started acting like a jerk. “It was nice.”

“Nice? The man was gorgeous. Don’t tell me nice!”

“Fine.” Eden scrunched her shoulders and smiled shyly. She’d heard horror stories of agonizing pain and oceans of blood, and all she’d felt was a moment of burn. That was it. Seriously, girls made way too big a deal about losing their v-cards. “It was absolutely amazing.”

Squealing again, Naj kicked her feet. “I knew it!”

“He’s kind of a dick, though,” Eden said with a sigh, “and he’s not from around here. He’s just in town for a meeting.”

“Did he know you’re too young to be in Moonies?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

Grinning, Naj wiggled like a cat about to pounce.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Eden said as Naj opened her mouth.

Naj shot her a blank look. “What question?”

“Did you kiss Thomas?”

Naj made a duck-faced frown. “No, but he stared at my boobs all night. And he talked to me for like an hour, so…”

“You have your Associate’s. He can’t see you as a little girl anymore. Maybe now—”

“I don’t think so,” Naj said miserably. “He was just being nice.”

Thomas was shy when it came to girls. He was a looker, not a toucher. If he talked to her friend for a whole hour, then he clearly liked her. As a friend, at least.

“I guess I’ll change and go home,” Naj muttered. Getting to her feet, she grabbed her jeans and T-shirt off the floor and headed for the bathroom.

The second she closed the door, Eden grabbed a pair of undies from her drawer and stepped into them. The muscles in her shoulders relaxed, all evidence of her hookup gone.

It was for the best, really, Darak turning out to be an ass. She’d never see him again, and now she wouldn’t be sad. She’d felt such a connection, though.

After propping her camera on its stand, Eden sat down in front of her Eiffel Tower poster and hit the record button. “Hey there, YouTubers! Eden here on Mad Living, and the winner of last week’s giveaway is Shaneeka Michaels. Message me privately to get your ten-dollar Amazon gift card. Now, for this week’s adventure…I did it! I got into Moonies and didn’t get carded! And wait until you hear what else I did!”

What happened outside, stayed outside.