I was having trouble following the plot of this reality TV show—there was something about someone cheating on somebody who had maybe cheated on them before, and also something about a car that somebody was supposed to have bought for someone else, and also some sort of competition based on putting together a ridiculously expensive birthday—but it was okay that the plots were labyrinthine and endlessly embroiled, because the more energy I expended trying to trace complicated plotlines and digest my rubbery General Tso’s chicken, the less time I was spending wallowing in the spectacular blow up of my relationship with Hunter, and the subsequent slow, painful disintegration of my career.

Well, in theory, anyway.

My phone shrilled on the coffee table, and I jumped up, simultaneously muting the TV as I check the caller ID, cruel hope twisting my heart into pieces.

It wasn’t Hunter.

But it wasn’t my boss, either, which I tried to feel grateful for.

It was Paige.

I wasn’t exactly up for a feelings share with my big sister—my feelings felt too big and spiky and painfully sharp for sharing, or for anything that wasn’t locking them up tight inside me where I could be the only one who was hurt by them. I still answered the phone, though, because the last time I didn’t answer she showed up on my doorstep with a dozen cupcakes and a first aid kit.

“Hey, Paigey, how’s it hanging?”

I sounded horribly fake even to me. There was no way I would ever have phrased things like that if I were doing half as well as I wanted to be. And there was no way that Paige would be fooled, either.

And she wasn’t; I could tell by the cheerfully brittle tone of her voice. It made her sound frighteningly like our mother. “Oh, nothing. Just missed you, thought we could chat.”

I sighed. “I’m fine, Paige.”

A pause. “Are you, though?”

I blinked back my tears. Damn that woman for knowing me so well. Damn her for loving me. Damn her for not letting things lie, for not letting me lie to myself.

“People get broken up with every day. It sucks and it sucks and it sucks and then it starts to suck a little less and eventually it doesn’t suck at all anymore. I can’t skip the initial suckage, though.”

Paige gave a half-hearted little laugh. “I wish I could help you skip it, though.”

“Dream on, dreamer.” There was a lump in my throat; I tried to talk past it like it wasn’t there. “And don’t worry so much about me.”

“I’m your big sister. It’s in the contract.”

“Well, thanks.”

“Of course. And if you ever do want to talk about anything, absolutely anything, you know I’m right here…”

Oh, I wanted to talk to her so badly it hurt. I wanted to open up my mouth and spill out every toxic, horrible thing I was feeling until they were all gone and I felt scraped clean of my betrayal of Hunter—and it had been a betrayal, even if it hadn’t been on purpose, even if I had felt terrible afterward.

Even if I still felt terrible.

But I couldn’t do that to my big sister. I’d already vented so much to her; I couldn’t pile more things up on her shoulders. Not when she was already working so hard getting out from under the weight of my mother’s neuroticism.

I couldn’t let Paige take on even part of my burden.

Instead I asked, “Have you seen him?”

It was the exact wrong thing to say to keep Paige from worrying about me, and still it slipped out of my mouth.

Paige was reluctant. “Ally, I don’t know if this is the best—”

I couldn’t let it go now. “Come on, Paige, I’m not stalking him or anything. I’m not going to show up naked declaring my undying love. I just…I just want to know how he’s doing.”

I must have sounded really pathetic, because Paige admitted, “Well, I did run into him at a charity auction. It was the one for the victims of hurricanes, to raise money for housing.”

“He looked—” My voice nearly cracked. “He looked okay?”

“He looked fine,” Paige said quickly. Too quickly.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing!” Too quickly again. Then, “Almost nothing. It’s not important, honestly it’s not. Can you just trust me on that, Ally?”

Visions of Hunter looking lost, his clothes worn, his frame wasted, dashed through my head. What if he was drinking? What if he wasn’t eating? What if he was—

“Paige,” I warned.

“It’s nothing.” She sighed. “It’s just—he had a date with him.”

Had I felt crushed before? I felt now like all the air had been forced out of my lungs in a single punch. I felt smashed as flat as a sheet of paper.

I was going through hell, but apparently losing me wasn’t even a blip on Hunter’s radar, not if he was carousing around town with a beauty on his arm. “Oh.”

I’d meant it to come out noncommittal or even disinterested, but apparently my cracked and bleeding heart showed right through, because Paige backpedaled quicker than a cyclist coming across an alligator dozing on a bike trail.

“Maybe it was a work friend,” she offered quickly, in a voice so bright and chipper she might have stolen it from a Stepford wife. “Or he might have been putting on a brave face. You know how guys are. They can’t admit when they’re hurt. Especially when they’re business hotshots, they think the tiniest scratch will have the sharks circling.”

“Yeah, sure.” It sounded reasonable. But I knew it wasn’t the truth. “Thanks anyway.”

Then we shared an awkward silence just long enough for me to look around my apartment and reflect on how quickly and effortlessly my entire life had gone to shit.

“Mom finally broke the news to Dad that both daughters ruined their chance with the most eligible bachelor below the Mason-Dixon Line,” Paige said finally. I could tell by her voice she was trying to lighten the mood. “I think he was mostly disappointed that he wasn’t going to be getting a discount on bourbon anytime soon.”

Great. Now I was disappointing even more people. Just perfect.

I changed the subject. “So, how’s Sergei? Is he still in the picture?”

Paige hesitated just long enough for me to intuit that she was debating letting me switch the focus of our conversation, but eventually the bait of being able to talk about her own life pulled her in.

“No, not really. We’ve been chatting, meeting up for coffee, that kind of thing. And we kissed a few times. But, well—” I heard the rustle of her long blonde locks as she shook her head, and I could just see that pensive sad expression I knew she’d be wearing. “I’ve realized that Sergei is what I really wanted when I was twenty-four, but now that I’m older I feel like…like I just can’t be looking back at the past like that. I want something real. Something that’s going to last.”

That was Paige, smart and sensible even in her rebellion.

“So, what’s the future hold?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” she admitted, “but I’ve been getting awfully restless lately. New York, maybe. The art scene there has always been amazing. And if my party planning ever gets off the ground, who knows? I might have to city-hop for a while, go where the work is.”

“Well, if you need a stepping stone, there’s always room on my couch.”

Paige made grateful noises, but I knew she wouldn’t be taking me up on my offer.

Paige had seen my couch, and she knew that there was only room on it for me and my self-pity.

* * *

The reality show had ended hours ago and there was never anything remotely interesting on at this time of night, but I knew that turning the TV off would only fill the apartment with a terrible silence that I couldn’t face. So I was flipping through channels, trying to find something that wasn’t a congressional hearing or an infomercial for a food processor that sliced, diced, and also organized your socks or some shit.

And then the Douchebros’ ad came on.

“Oh, baby, oh—” Creaking springs and lustful moans gave way to the sight of a barely clad, barely legal blonde sucking eagerly at the neck of a Knox bourbon bottle, held directly at the crotch line of a smirking male model.

I wasn’t sure what I was more disgusted with: the objectification, or how insultingly unsubtle it was.

“Yeah, swallow it,” the man urged. “You know you like the taste.”

She murmured happy agreement, but then there came a whimper of pure need from the floor beside the bed, where multiple near-nude supermodels lay entwined. “When’s my turn?”

The man looked straight into the camera and winked.

KNOX BOURBON, said the letters slapped up over his face as the audio cut to a poorly sampled hip hop track. EVEN GOOD GIRLS SWALLOW IT.

I let the remote fall out of my hands, horrified. Distantly, I heard the sound as it hit the floor.

This was how Chuck wanted the company represented to the world?

Hunter had to be tearing out his hair right now.

Hunter—

I grabbed for my cell phone and punched in his number. I had to hear his voice, had to know he was okay, had to let him know that this wasn’t me, I had never wanted this—

“This is Hunter Knox.”

“Hunter, I—” I began.

“Leave a message after the beep, and don’t forget your number if it’s blocked.”

Frustrated tears filled my eyes. Damn. Voicemail again, and I’d let it fool me. I’d heard it over and over these past few weeks until I had every cadence of every syllable memorized, and I still let it fool me because I was so desperate for his forgiveness.

“I—Hunter, I, I just saw the ad, and—” When I’d picked up the phone, I’d been so certain I’d know what to say, that the words would just come. But now that the moment was there, they were all so out of reach. Just like Hunter. “I’m so sorry.”

That was all I had left. That was all I could say.

“God, Hunter, I am so, so sorry.”