“This has got to be a fucking joke.”

I roll my eyes, trying to relax as the girl at my feet massages my heel. “That’s what I said.”

Heidi giggles as her pedicurist scrubs the bottom of her feet with a pumice stone. “I mean, this is some Hollywood movie kind of shit.”

I roll my neck as the massage chair digs its artificial hands into my back. “B, he kind of lives in a fairy-tale world if you think about it. This is probably normal.”

B stood for best friend, the position the blonde sitting next to me had held since the third grade. Ever since Heidi Jensen had spit on the boy who’d pantsed me on the playground and then told the lunch lady to shove it, I’d known she was my sister from another mister. She was the loud spitfire where I was the more reserved one. I helped her pass classes, while she taught me how to sneak out and straighten my hair. She had been so good at the hair part that she’d turned it into a career; it had only taken her four years, but she had a successful salon in town that kept her in her own apartment and paying all of her own bills. Although I always refused, she kept trying to convince me to move in with her and, “stop being a spinster who lives with her parents.”

Little did she know, I could barely afford this pedicure, let alone what it would take just to move out.

“He wants you to wear a ring, pretend to be engaged, take millions of dollars, and work in some of the most famous plastic surgery offices in the world? I don’t really get the downside here, B.”

She did get the downside, but Heidi was always one to jump headfirst into new situations … something I often envied. If it were her in this situation, would she have agreed on the spot?

And was it crazy that I was even contemplating this?

“Come on, Heidi. This is Dean we’re talking about. You remember what he did, right? And how for years, I couldn’t listen to the radio. You do remember the way I’d sat on your bedroom floor for months, crying until I couldn’t breathe?”

Those were dark, dark times. Some nights, I didn’t think I’d ever get out of the funk our breakup had put me in. My mom actually suggested going to a therapist at one point, and I knew I had to snap out of it.

She rolls her eyes, the nail tech slathering a coat of mint green polish on her toes. “Okay, yes, I admit, it wasn’t the greatest when you broke up. But it’s been seven years, I think you can bury the hatchet and listen to the guy. Honestly … you may kill me for saying this, but I always liked him. And his music rocks.”

I flip her the bird. “Thanks for choosing my side.”

“B, I’m always on your side. Which is why I’m trying to convince you that this might be the best thing. Could you fall in love with him again? Sure, anything is possible, especially when it comes to a tattooed rockstar. But you’re smarter now, and I have confidence in you.” She shrugs, acting like this is totally normal. “But … we both know you’re bigger than New Jersey. Bigger than living at home, in debt, working the shitty shifts at some bumfuck private office where they don’t know a pimple from a cyst.”

My heart twinges, because deep down I know she’s right. I always meant to make it out of here, but after my world imploded when Dean left, I kind of just …. stuck. I went to college in state, of course it was a top ranked private school, but in state nonetheless. I did my graduate schooling there as well, and rounded at the hospital near my parent’s house. For as well as I did in school, I had chosen the safe route. The easy one. A private family office where I’d be fast tracked to an associate doctor, meet some boring guy, settle and have two point five kids.

I yawned just at the prospect.

“But … Hollywood? The world will be up in my business. No doubt about that, if I’m linked to Dean, the entire universe is going to know … what toenail polish I like to wear and how I take my coffee.” I shiver, not liking how any of that sounded.

Heidi sighed as the girl began to massage her calves. “Necessary evil for getting hundreds of thousands in loans paid off, and helping a guy who really needs it. Do you think that Dean would have come to you if he wasn’t in a horrible situation? Think about it, B.”

We were silent as the sound of the trickle of the water in the pedicure bath filled my ears. She was right again. This was a torturous decision for me, but I hadn’t quite thought about how desperate he must be if this was his last resort. And it was … I’d gone home and read every article I could get my eyes on, and this Hannah Lockwood situation was not good. What she was accusing him of … if he didn’t get some sentence or worse, his name would at least be tarnished forever.

And I’d seen his face when he said the word rape. Pale, haunted, disgusted. I may not know him anymore, but I did know that Dean Jacobs was not a violent or abusive person. Growing up in a household like he did, you went one of two ways. And he’d chosen the path the furthest away from becoming his own father as he could.

But God knew I was just as desperate, and even as my best friend talked me over the ledge and onto the treacherous rocks below, I felt myself giving in to the free fall. I must be a masochist, and one fueled by money, but Heidi was right. I was in over my head with the amount of debt to my name … so severely that it would take me decades to get out.

One year, that’s all Dean was asking. One year to save both of us … just not together. I could fake anything for one year. If it meant starting the life I’d dreamed of, in the professional sense, I could muster. I think …

“If I do this, you have to be my sober companion.” The idea suddenly hits me.

“This is a rockstar lifestyle … not AA.” Heidi’s confused expression conveys that she doesn’t understand what I’m saying.

“No, B, I mean when it comes to Dean. He’s my one weakness in all of this. I don’t care about the fame, or the money beyond what it can do to clear my school loans. But living in a house with the man I find the most sexy in the world? The one who completely shattered my heart? I’m going to need a sponsor to talk me out of doing the stupidest thing imaginable.”

I see the moment it clicks for her. “You need me to be your cock block coach? Oh, I am in! I’ll keep you so far away from his dick, they’ll be calling you a nun. I’ll poison you if it means keeping your heart away from those swoony lyrics of his.”

I chuckle as the nail polish glides over my last toe. “That’s a bit extreme, but I like the enthusiasm.”