Tiffany stood in Gary’s doorway with her purse at her side. It must’ve looked to her as though I was living the life. At four in the afternoon, Gary and I were spread out in the living room, my arms and legs hanging off the couch, Gary slumped in a neon yellow beanbag while he strummed a guitar. On the coffee table sat a bong, an open pizza box, and a dozen empty beer bottles. Gary had muted the TV on The Ren & Stimpy Show, and Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill had been on repeat for two hours.

Tiffany crossed her arms and surveyed the scene. “So this is what you’ve been doing all day?” she asked. “Getting high and eating pizza?”

“I’m not high,” I said. “But I am eating pizza.”

Gary giggled. “I don’t know why I’m laughing,” he said. “He really didn’t smoke.”

“We made another sale today,” I told her. After moving our coffee table into its new owner’s house this afternoon, a neighbor of his had asked for an armoire. I hadn’t known what the fuck that was, but I’d said yes right away. I needed the money. “We’ve been working on it all afternoon.”

“Oh.”

“Can I get you something to drink, Tiff?” Gary asked.

“You’ve been smoking for an hour straight,” I told him. “I don’t think you could move if you tried.”

It was clear Gary wasn’t planning on doing even that. I got up from the couch. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

She shifted feet. “Sure. Can I see the new piece?”

“Not much to see, but sure.” I took Tiffany to Gary’s small backyard. The tarp he and I had laid out covered the whole patch of grass. “Don’t step on this,” I said, bending over to fold back the corners. “There are nails and shit.”

She looked over the large box we’d moved against the fence. “You already did all that?”

“It wasn’t too hard. The devil’s in the details.” I winked at her, piling wood off to one side of the lawn. When she didn’t smile, I asked, “How was work?”

“Fine.”

“You in a mood or what?”

“I don’t know.”

I topped a can of stain. “What’s wrong, babe?”

“They filled that assistant manager job I told you about.”

“Ah. Fuck.” I pulled Gary’s work bench up and sat, my elbows on my knees. “Come here. Sit.”

“It’s dirty.”

Tiffany hadn’t been born in makeup and heels. She’d built those things up around herself for a reason. She was, surprisingly, more fragile than Lake. When we went out to eat, she’d flirt with male waiters and bartenders. Not to upset me, but because it was the only way she knew how to communicate with men. This kind of stuff, this no-bullshit face to face, was harder for her.

I patted my lap. “Then sit on me.”

I was dirty, too, but she perched on my knee. I took her little black purse out of her hands to stop her from fidgeting with it and set it on the ground.

“That’s Prada,” she said.

“Don’t know what Prada is and don’t care. It’s a fucking purse.”

She rolled her eyes but smiled, put an arm around my neck, and kissed my cheek. She wasn’t ever afraid to just touch me. Sometimes it annoyed me, sometimes it was welcome, but if she felt it, she did it, and I liked that. She smelled like a field of flowers after I’d spent too much time around paint cans, pot, and freshly sawed wood.

“There’ll be other opportunities,” I said.

“I know, but . . . it just sucks to keep getting passed up.”

“So how about that community college application that’s been sitting on the counter for a month?”

“It might be too late for fall semester,” she said. “I think I missed the deadline.”

“I’ll help you,” I said. “We’ll get the application in somehow if that’s what you want. Is it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I should focus more on the modeling. I know it’s been a while since I got anything, but it’s because I’ve let Nordstrom get in the way.” She played with the collar of my t-shirt. “I mean, if I start school on top of work, I’ll barely have any free time. What if my agent wants me to run to a go-see and I miss the call because I’m in class?”

I rubbed my forehead. Sometimes, I was certain, she was sabotaging herself. She wanted to be the victim so her dad would come in and save her. No matter what success she found, it’d probably never be enough for him, so why not do the opposite? “If you want it, Tiff, you have to be the one to make it work.”

“I don’t know if I do.”

“That’s fine, but that goes for modeling, too. You can’t just sit back and hope. You have to do the work, or you have to be okay knowing it’s going to take you longer to work your way up at the store, or modeling, or whatever. There might be some positions you can’t get without a degree.”

She kept her eyes down. “Maybe I’m not cut out for school, though.”

“College isn’t like high school. You get to learn about stuff you actually care about. Hell, you could go to fashion school and make your own damn Prado bag if you want.”

That got me a smile. “It’s Prada.”

“Whatever.”

She made a face. “Crap. To top it all off, we have Lake’s birthday dinner tonight. I wanted to have good news to share, but I don’t.”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t have a good time,” I said, and I meant it. Oddly, I’d come to look forward to dinner with her parents, and not just because it meant I got to see Lake. I always loved Cathy’s cooking. I enjoyed Tiffany and Lake’s bickering-turned-giggling. I didn’t even mind Charles treating me like a stranger in his home. I was part of a family, and after years of feeling as if I’d go through this life alone, it surprised me that I actually wanted that.

“My dad will want to talk to you, by the way,” she said.

“How come?”

“His company has a big construction project in Irvine, and he knows some guy in charge. He thinks he can get you on the job. It’s all above board, and it pays well, so it’s competitive, but my dad has pull.”

I sat back a little. “Why would he do that?”

“Because I asked him to.”

I shook my head. “He’s given us enough. I don’t need him to find my work for me.”

“Yes, you do, Manning. After what happened . . .” She took a breath. “The odds are stacked against you, and it wasn’t even your fault. You deserve a chance.”

I rubbed my temples with one hand. I fucking hated this. I wanted to work, and I was a good employee. It shouldn’t be this hard for me. What kind of man did it make me to keep taking help from my girlfriend’s dad? What kind of man couldn’t provide for just the two of us? Then again, would a good man turn down an opportunity that could benefit both me and Tiffany out of pride?

“How long is the job?” I asked.

“All summer. Then maybe you can use that to get other jobs.”

In the career department, my parole officer helped where he could, but he was overloaded. He’d tell me to take the job. I looked up at the sky, exhaling through my nose. “I don’t need your dad to get it for me. I’ll go myself and talk to the foreman.”

“They’ve already hired everyone. You can’t just go and ask.” She ran her fingers along my hairline, behind my ear. “Just talk to him tonight. You don’t have to commit to anything.” She pulled fuzz or something from my stubble. “I mean, it kind of depends on what we’re doing. Obviously, I don’t think you should work for my dad if . . .”

“If?”

“If you and I decide to break up.”

“Break up?” I asked. “Why would we?”

“I love you, Manning, I’m just not sure . . . I mean, if you’re not interested in having more with me, then what are we doing?”

“More,” I repeated.

“Have you given it anymore thought since we talked last month? The whole marriage thing?”

I swallowed. “Yeah, I have.”

“And?”

And the more I thought about it, the more the idea grew on me. Tiffany and I were on a good path. The more comfortable she got around me, the more she opened up. The more she laughed and made me laugh. In the bedroom, I didn’t have to hold back with her. She and I didn’t have the explosive chemistry people wrote novels about, but I didn’t want that. Not even a little. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Tiffany or to her family. “I think we should do it,” I said. “I don’t mean right now or anything, but I want to be with you. I don’t want to break up.”

She pecked me on the lips, then wiped away the lip gloss she’d left behind. “Me neither, but if we’re talking marriage, there is one thing I think you should know.” Her shoulders curled forward a little. “The morning after Lake’s prom, you know how I brought up the night at camp when she got in your truck . . .”

I tensed instinctively but forced myself to relax, hoping she hadn’t noticed the pull of my muscles. “Yeah. What about it?”

“I never apologized for lashing out at you. It’s not your fault Lake has a crush on you. It bothered me that you even let her in, but it’s not because of her or even you.”

My mind worked to keep up. The way she said I’d let Lake get in the truck made me wonder how detailed Lake had gotten about that night. “I told you, it was innocent,” I said. “A drive, that’s all.”

“I know. It doesn’t—it’s not what I want to talk about. It’s more about my dad.”

I furrowed my brows. “Your dad?”

She took a slow, deep breath, as if working up her courage. “He had an affair.”

I blinked once at her. Charles had cheated on Cathy . . . it took a moment to sink in, but it didn’t shock me. I was more surprised Tiffany hadn’t mentioned it before. “Are you sure?”

“When I was in middle school. I missed the bus one afternoon, so I walked to my dad’s work. Sometimes he’d let me sit and do homework until he was finished and we’d drive home for dinner.” She picked at nothing on the hem of her dress. “Anyway, this time I walked in on him having sex with his secretary.”

I ducked my head to catch her gaze. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

She shook her head. “I hate thinking about it. I hate knowing it. I wish I’d never seen it.”

“What did he say?”

“He didn’t see me. I just left and found another way home.”

It explained so many of their issues. “You’ve kept it to yourself all this time?”

She looked away. “No. I was really confused. After a few days, I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I broke down in tears and told my mom.”

“And?”

“I thought she’d be shocked. She was, a little, but she covered it up quickly. She said men did that sometimes. That it took a lot to make a marriage work and that she and my dad had built a life over many years. Dad wouldn’t let some secretary destroy that.”

It didn’t take much for me to put the pieces together. I pretty much knew all Tiffany’s insecurities linked back to her dad, but I’d figured it was because he’d ignored her so long, pinning all his hopes and dreams on her sister. I hadn’t suspected there was more to it. “Not all men ‘do that sometimes,’” I told her.

“My mom just let him get away with it. All she did was start dressing in more expensive clothes, ask for a new car, and get her real estate license. He’d never let her get a job until then. She started taking me shopping a lot after that, like it was some kind of consolation. For me or for her, I don’t know.”

It sounded to me as if Cathy hadn’t let Charles get away with it at all. Instead of putting a stop to it, she’d used it as leverage against him. No wonder Tiffany had issues with her dad and with money. As a pre-teen, Tiffany had learned that material things meant more than a healthy marriage. More than love. It hit me suddenly that Lake would’ve been just as young, just as impressionable when this had happened. “What about Lake?”

“She doesn’t know. I thought about telling tell her so many times, just to have someone to talk to, but . . . I didn’t want her to feel as bad as I did.”

I put my arms around Tiffany’s waist and hugged her closer for her selflessness. She’d saved her sister in many ways, even though it hurt her to keep it inside. It reaffirmed the many things I’d known to be true about Tiffany—she cared about her sister, about her family, and wanted to be good to them. She didn’t always show it in the right ways, but maybe that was something I could help with. “Well, I’m not your dad . . . I think we’ve established that.”

She smiled a little. “I know. I’ve just been wanting to tell someone for a long time, and my friends would just treat it like gossip. I wanted you to know, because, well, if we’re getting married, it’s kind of important. Cheating, and stuff.”

“It’s very important,” I said, readjusting her on my thigh. “And it’s wrong. I know that, Tiffany.” There were enough ways to hurt people in the world, physically and emotionally. Some of it was intentional, like abuse. Some of it wasn’t, like how Charles pressured Lake or ignored Tiffany. “That’s not the man I am, and it’s not the man I want to be.”

I didn’t know exactly the kind of man I wanted to be, but I did know it was the opposite of my dad. And apparently, Tiffany’s, too.