Absolutely none of my attention should be on Wes Sullivan.

Almost all of it is.

It’s stupid. It’s really fucking stupid, because I have a life to lead. A wonderful, glorious life, full of auditions that will almost certainly lead to me getting rejected and sales calls that, thirty percent of the time, result in no benefit for either party involved.

I have no idea what happened yesterday. It was Thursday. We’ve lived together for two Thursdays, and at first, when he turned his back on me and walked out, I thought he was lying about meeting with someone.

Once my heart stopped pounding, I smoothed out the audition script and forced myself to think clearly. He left last Tuesday after work too, for about an hour and a half. Never said where he was going. He doesn’t have to say where he’s going, obviously, but clearly, he has some kind of standing obligation.

I turn it over in my mind while I walk down to Vino, the noontime sun warm on my shoulders. It’s warm enough to get away with a light jacket or a sweater. I love the sun.

But I hate this time of year. The way the light angles down onto the sidewalks, sweet and fresh, makes my heart ache. It weighs heavy inside my chest.

As much as I don’t want to spend time praising Eva Lipton for her success as a writer when I, Whitney Coalport, haven’t so much as landed a callback this month, it’ll be a good distraction.

Hopefully.

I stop outside Vino and put a smile on that doesn’t match how heavy and down I feel, then pull open the door and rush inside. Fake it ‘til you make it. That’s acting. That’s life.

When Eva and I were in high school together, she was as dramatic as I was, only about books. She was obsessed with books. She couldn’t get enough of them. She made friends with the school librarian the instant she stepped foot in the high school. Eva had an enormous mane of curly red hair, braces, and freckles for days.

I almost don’t recognize her when she stands up from the table she’s snagged at Vino, beaming at me.

“Oh, my God,” she says, her voice a lower, more mature version of the chipmunk-like chatter she used to spout all day long about what she was reading. I didn’t mind it back then because I talked just as much about what we were doing in theater. Theater made my soul sing. Thankfully, most of the tapes I had from our old shows are long gone, because the actual singing could reasonably be described as atrocious. “Whitney! I can’t believe it. You’re so glamorous.”

Eva holds her arms out for a hug, and as I go in for it, I look her up and down as surreptitiously as possible. She’s taller than I remembered, about my height, and all the baby fat that clung to her face as a teenager is gone. She’s tamed her frizzy red curls into a magnificent auburn waterfall spilling over her shoulders, the pieces at her face held back with an elegant clip. We hug, and it’s warm and natural, and then I push her back so I can look at her again.

“Me? Are you kidding?” I’m not going to mention that I spent twenty minutes on my makeup before this lunch date. Anything to compete with her unbelievable success. “You’re the glamor girl! Your hair is so—”

She fluffs it with her hands. “Not shitty anymore?” Then she laughs, and it takes me all the way back to high school, to our corner in the library, to her stack of books next to my stack of scripts. Her laugh is still exactly the same. “I know. It took years, but I finally figured out how not to look like a complete crazy moron.”

That makes me laugh. “You never looked like a crazy moron.”

“You’re awfully kind, Whit, but I’ve seen pictures.” Whoa, she mouths, eyes huge, and laughs again. “Is this table okay?”

“This table’s perfect.” What’s even more perfect is the open bottle of white already there. We slide into seats across from one another and Eva lets out a huge breath. I pour myself a glass and settle in, the sparkling sweetness dancing on my tongue. “You look a little overwhelmed,” I tell her with a grin.

“Oh, I am. I am. New York City is nothing like the old Grove.”

It’s what we used to call Buffalo Grove, the suburb of Chicago we grew up in, and at the mention of the town, my chest constricts. I smile bigger to cover it up. “No. They’re not kidding when they say the city never sleeps.”

Eva groans. “Never. There’s always something going on, and the light pollution is unbelievable.”

I giggle at that. “It can’t be that much worse than at home.”

“It is. Well—” She looks sheepish. “At home, my bedroom overlooked our backyard pool. My parents kept it pitch dark out there for optimal sleeping conditions.”

“My bedroom was up front,” I say. “I liked the way the streetlight came through the curtain.”

She nods and sips at her wine. “You must be used to it, then.”

“The light? Yeah. Other things, not so much.”

Eva’s eyes light up and she leans in. “That sounds cryptic. Tell me everything immediately.”

“Oh, there’s nothing to tell. Just roommate drama.”

“Now you have to tell me. I love drama. Writing about it, anyway.”

A lowkey excitement threads its way through my veins. It’s like my entire brain is glowing from the opportunity to talk to an old friend. We’ve slipped back into those patterns, like college never happened, like moving to opposite sides of the country never happened. With a pang, I realize how much I’ve been missing Summer since she moved in with Dayton...and how I can’t get this kind of connection from Wes.

“It’s kind of a long story.”

“I don’t have any other plans,” Eva coaxes. “Tell me!”

I take a deep breath.

“It started with my roommate, Summer.”

“Very intriguing.” She leans back in her seat and listens intently while I tell her about meeting Summer in college, about reconnecting with her when she needed a place to live in the city, about the crazy love she and Day share. I do my best not to sound jealous. Eva nods in all the right places.

“Anyway, after she moved out, it’s been one weirdo after another in the apartment. I don’t have enough money to cover the rent by myself, so I had to find a roommate. The current one is...” I let my voice trail off. I don’t know if I want to get into this.

“Who?” Eva sounds breathless.

“It’s Summer’s older brother.”

“Oooooh,” she says, expression going hopeful. “Is he hot?”

“No,” I say instinctively, but then I give in. “Yes. He’s ridiculously hot.”

Eva puts her wine glass down on the table and looks me dead in the eye. “Whitney. First, show me a picture right now. Second, tell me you’re taking advantage of this sexy man meat living under your roof.”

The wine is already spreading warmth everywhere it touches, and I crack up. “Sexy man meat.” I laugh so hard I shed a tear over it. “I can’t believe you said that.”

“Photo evidence,” she demands.

“I don’t think I—” I take out my purse. “Wait. I do. You’re so lucky we were in a wedding together.”

“Your friend’s wedding?”

I scroll through the pictures Summer sent me, including one of me and Wes on the dance floor. It’s mostly of him, looking down at me, his face caught between a smirk and a laugh, and he looks fucking delicious. Even though he was being a total dick at the time. Eva holds her hand out for the phone and I give it.

“Sweet lord,” she says softly, giving it a good long look before she hands it back. “Jump on that. You have to.” She nods to back up her point. “Have to.”

I roll my eyes up toward the ceiling. “Been there, done that.”

“Oh, my God.” Eva slaps her hands down on the surface of the table. “You did?”

“I went after him at Summer’s wedding. Mimosas,” I say, as if this explains everything, and Eva accepts it as a legitimate excuse for why I kissed Wes in an effort to get him to attend. “It didn’t end super well.”

“Why? Is he a prick?”

“I’d say so,” I tell her, but a small part of me feels like this is a betrayal. Wes can be cold, but I have a nagging suspicion that there’s more to him than that. I know there is. I’ve seen flashes of it.

“Still,” says Eva.

“Still,” I tell her.

We sip our wine in silent agreement.

I’m on the drunk side of tipsy when I get back to the apartment.

Wes is cooking.

I’m hit with a spicy, fragrant stir-fry scent as soon as I walk in the door. It makes my stomach growl even though we ordered three appetizers between us, damn it. I kick off my shoes and saunter into the kitchen, bracing my hands against the doorframe.

Wes is standing at the stove, his back to me, hands moving easily over a chopping board. He doesn’t turn, doesn’t look. Maybe he didn’t hear me come in. He finishes dicing whatever he’s chopping up and tips it into the crackling pan on the stove. Jesus, it smells good.

“Why the hell were you trying to get me to kiss you again?”

The question isn’t nearly as eloquent as I would have liked, but at the sound of my voice, Wes whips his head around, eyebrows raised. One corner of his mouth lifts in a little smirk. “I see you had a good time.”

I stand up tall, hands on my hips. “Answer the question.”

He shrugs carelessly, and I don’t expect an honest answer. “You were there the first time. It was hot.”

My expectations are always off, aren’t they? “That wasn’t hot. That was desperate.” My tongue feels like a lead weight in my mouth. Maybe I’m a little more than tipsy.

“Does that matter?” He turns sideways, stirring at the pan with one hand so he can look at me.

“Yes.”

“Why?” His question sounds genuine enough.

“That was a special case. I was saving the day for Summer. It didn’t mean anything.”

“A kiss doesn’t need meaning to be sexy as hell.”

“If it was so sexy, why were you such an ass?”

The smirk disappears, and with a thud to my gut, I realize he’s being honest. Only I don’t know if I want him to be honest. I don’t know if I want to see the real Wes now, today. “I couldn’t let you get any closer.”

It hurts to hear him say that. It shouldn’t, but it does, a sting that ricochets across my ribs and dives down into my stomach. “I only wanted you to get close enough to come to the wedding.” I fling the words at him dismissively.

He clicks his tongue and turns back to the stove. “So harsh.”

“It’s the truth. And I’m not hungry.”

I am hungry. I’m starving. I want him to offer me a plate of whatever he’s cooking more than anything in the world in this moment, but I’m stewing in hurt and delayed-onset jealousy and the kind of angst I thought I’d left behind in my high-school locker. Fuck. I hate this.

“Good,” Wes says mildly, with one glance over his shoulder. “Because none of this is for you.”

I leave without another word, dragging one hand along the wall to keep myself upright. I brush my teeth in the bathroom and retreat to my bedroom, where I lay down, fully clothed.

None of this is for you.

It never is, is it?