A deal was one thing. The ability to make it come to life turned out to be a totally different idea.

The real estate listings in River Glen were slim pickings. There wasn’t much available at all, especially when you factored in our lack of transportation. Beckett had a car, but I didn’t. Which ruled out any major distances from campus. And considering it was an old, gated institution with a long winding walk from the nearest parking area, that really cut down on what we could realistically look at.

It seemed like the listings were aimed in two distinct directions: whole house rentals for professors with families that were so far out of our price range it was laughable, and single rooms for rent in boarding houses. Of which there were two. One had a shared bathroom and was only available until mid-October. The other was for women only and included the caveat that there were multiple cats on the property. No one with allergies need apply.

That meant me.

“What are we going to do?” I asked Beckett, throwing up my hands in resignation.

He shook his head. “Maybe they’ve got one of those roommate matching sites for grad students…” he muttered, clicking through screen after screen on the Student Services website.

“Maybe it would have been helpful if we’d had more than a few days’ notice to start this search.” Collapsing back on the couch, I muttered, “Fucking Craigslist. Fucking Emily.”

Beckett only sighed.

“Besides, this entire thing is going to be pointless if I can’t get my money back. I can’t even pay tuition for the fall!” I covered my face with my hands. “Maybe I should just defer. Stay here and get a job for now. You know there are always people looking for roommates around here.”

One thing was for sure, I couldn’t go home. I didn’t really have a home these days. Ever since my mom died, my dad had been living out his dream of driving cross-country on his Harley. He’d sold our house in San Jose. Sold everything. He’d probably welcome me joining him on the road, but that was not the life I was looking for. Sitting bitch or hunkered down in a sidecar? No thanks.

I hadn’t even had the courage to call my dad yet and tell him about getting all my money stolen. I didn’t think he’d blame me or anything, but the reality was, there wasn’t a whole lot he could do for me, except tell me how sorry he was. He’d probably have a little bit of money he could give me to tide me over, and it might come to that if the bank said I was screwed, but I hated to ask.

Beckett turned slowly to look at me. “Wait—you’re Emily.”

“Yeah. Hi. We’ve met.” No one called me Emily anyway. I was always Emmy, or Em.

“You’re Emily,” he repeated. “Like Emily.”

It wasn’t like it was an unusual name. Hell, you could throw a rock and hit a girl named Emily around campus. I couldn’t see his point. “Beck, what are you talking about?”

“I have a place to live,” he said. “With Emily. You could be Emily. You are Emily.”

“What?”

“I’ve still got a place. On campus. All I need to keep it is an Emily. And you happen to be an Emily.”

I shook my head. “That would never work. Don’t they know her name? Her real name, I mean? Emily Wilson? They must know she decided not to come to school there. They’ve got to cancel her housing, too, don’t they?”

“Let me check something…” He set back to work on the computer, tapping his way through screens until he found what he was looking for. “Married student housing is available to students with dependents, with preference given to those families with children,” he read aloud. “Just because Emily withdrew from the university doesn’t mean she couldn’t live with me.”

“Beck, that’s crazy. We’d never get away with it.”

He opened his mouth like he wanted to protest, but nothing came out. His shoulders drooped. “You’re probably right.”

“We’ll just—“ I spread my hands out in a calming gesture. “We’ll figure something out.”

* * *

The bank was both good news and bad news. The good news was that they were willing to believe that I hadn’t authorized the three checks that Bonnie had written out of my account, effectively bankrupting me. The bad news was, it was going to take some time to go through their fraud review process and get me back my money.

I lost several hours of my life in the bank branch, changing my account numbers, filling out forms, and getting new cards issued on everything. There were calls to the police who had taken my statement, and affidavits to be obtained.

In the end, I wasn’t going to lose any more money—which would have been pretty hard anyway, considering my balance was negative $1,739.58—and eventually I’d have all my lost funds returned. But it would be at least six weeks. And considering I’d given notice at my lab job, there wasn’t going to be any money coming in any time soon.

There was no way I could avoid getting my father involved.

Damn it. I was not good at admitting I needed help.

I decided to head home and focus on packing. Because when your life is full of question marks, sometimes it’s just easier to sink your teeth into something that you can completely control. And no matter what else happened, at the end of the week I was going to move out of the apartment I’d called home for two years. Nothing would slow that change. I’d just have to roll with it.

Ashley had the same idea, apparently, because I found her folding clothes into a black garbage bag on the floor between our beds.

“Hey sweetie, how’d it go?” she asked when I tossed my stuff on the bed.

“Okay, I guess.” I told her the story of the bank.

“There’s nothing else they can do?”

“Nope.”

“Didn’t you give them some of this?” She pouted her lips and opened her eyes cartoonishly wide in imitation of me. “Nobody can resist your big green peepers, don’t they know that?”

I laughed. “Apparently not.”

“So you’re stuck with that negative balance for six weeks?” she demanded.

“No, they brought me back up to zero and then they credited my paycheck from yesterday.” Depositing my last check was how I found out about the whole fiasco in the first place. I’d fed the check into a nearby ATM for deposit and was horrified to see the four-digit number in red on the receipt.

“Oh, well, that’s better than nothing, anyway.”

“Better than less than nothing, you mean.”

“Seriously.”

“I can’t believe we’re not going to be roommates anymore.” She made a sad face, but it wasn’t supposed to be an impression of me this time.

“I know.”

Letting the sweater in her hands drop to the bed, she closed the space between us and gave me a quick hug. “God, I’m going to miss everyone so much!”

“I know, me too.” My eyes stung with tears, but I didn’t want to get started down that path again. So I took a cleansing breath and refocused. “Got another one of those bags?”

“You bet.”

Ash and I worked together for a while, chatting about nothing, deciding who would get to keep certain items we’d accumulated together over the years. Nothing major—a DVD copy of Pitch Perfect, or the sign that hung on the door of our freshman year dorm room: Ashley and Emily Emmy. It had hung on every door that we’d had for four years. Eventually we decided we’d each keep a picture of it on our phones and leave it taped to the back of the closet so the next occupants of our room would know whose territory they were taking over.

“Are you and Beckett still driving to Iowa together on Friday?”

Of all the things we’d talked about, Beckett and I hadn’t addressed how our travel plans might change. Obviously, it made sense that we were going to drive to River Glen together from here. But we’d originally planned a stop in Phoenix. My dad was going to meet me there and we’d have the weekend together while Beckett and Emily did their quickie wedding.

Thinking about it now, it seemed utterly unromantic and robotic. Like getting married was just an item on a checklist instead of a lifelong commitment. I couldn’t help being glad that he wasn’t going through with it.

“I’m really not sure. Neither of us has anywhere to go until August 23^rd. I’m literally homeless.”

“Come home with me!” Ashley suggested. “You both can! It’ll be so fun!”

“My dad…” I hedged, but going to Ashley’s place in Nevada sounded like a lot more fun than hanging around in Phoenix for no reason.

“Come on! Let’s tell Beckett. You guys could use a little fun.” She grinned at me. “Plus…it’s a free place to stay and my mom will cook so much food you’ll probably get fat by the end of the week.”

It sounded good. It sounded like more of a plan than I’d had since I saw that damn ATM receipt.

“Maybe that would work…” I chewed my lip, wondering how mad my dad would be if I changed our plans.

“It’s a great idea!” Ashley waggled her eyebrows suggestively, then rushed out of the room shouting, “Beckett!”

Which is how I ended up sitting poolside with a margarita in a cactus-stemmed glass in Henderson, Nevada just a week after losing everything I had.

Life is very weird sometimes.

* * *

Ashley had been right, her parents were thrilled to have all of us stay with them. They had plenty of room—including an empty stall in their four-car garage where they let us pile all the stuff we’d had to strap to the roof of Beckett's RAV4. We’d lived in a furnished apartment for two years, but somehow we’d still managed to accumulate more crap than we could possibly fit in the trunk and backseat of his compact SUV.

The change in scenery didn’t come with solutions to our housing problem, unfortunately, but at least it was more comfortable to be screwed when you had a beautiful in-ground pool to soak away your troubles in.

My dad had been understanding. In fact, he was in Utah when I’d reached him, so he decided to swing through Nevada instead of beelining it to Arizona after all. He said he’d rather see Reno than Phoenix anyway. Not Las Vegas. Reno. My dad was such a weirdo sometimes.

The water droplets glinting off Ashley’s wet body as she emerged from the pool sent fractals of light into my eyes, and I guarded the top of my sunglasses with one hand. After a summer of working her ass off in dark catering halls, Ashley was soaking up sun like a hungry house plant. Her black hair was streaked with reddish highlights and her skin was deeply tanned. She squeezed the water out of her hair and settled next to me on a matching lounge chair.

“He’s still talking, huh?” she asked, nodding toward the far end of the deck where Beckett was standing with his phone pressed to his ear in a tiny patch of shade afforded by the setting sun.

“Yeah. It’s the first time she’s actually spoken to him since the email.”

“I hate to say it, but what a bitch.”

Emily had called Beckett out of the blue nearly an hour ago. Maybe it was the fact that tomorrow was originally supposed to be the day they got married? Maybe she was having second- second thoughts? I didn’t know, and he’d been staying out of earshot for the entire conversation, so we’d just have to wait.

His margarita was nothing but a cup of warm pink liquid in the bottom of his abandoned glass.

Behind us, Ashley’s dad was manning a grill full of kebabs, while her mom was still in the kitchen finishing up some side dishes.

Finally, we saw Beckett lower the phone from his ear and take a last, long glance at the screen before tucking it into the pocket of his swim trunks. He didn’t leave his secluded shady spot for a few more minutes, though, instead staring across the fence to the desert just beyond Ash’s neighborhood.

When he came toward us, I felt a moment of panic. Were we supposed to act like nothing had happened? Should we ask right away? I shot a glance at Ashley and thought I detected the same note of uncertainty in her eyes.

Beckett solved the quandary for us though, saying, “Well, that’s that,” as soon as he was within earshot.

“What happened?” Ashley asked.

“Honestly? Not a whole lot.”

“Seemed like it took a long time for not a whole lot,” I said.

“Yeah,” he agreed, dropping to sit on the lounger to my right. He picked up his forgotten margarita glass and swirled the liquid in it dubiously before putting it back on the ground. “Basically, she just doesn’t think this is the right decision.”

Ashley sucked air through her teeth. “I mean…is she wrong?”

“I guess not,” Beckett retrieved the sunglasses he’d left on the end of his chair and put them on, hiding his expression a bit. “I just wish she’d said something earlier.”

“Maybe she didn’t know?” I suggested, trying to give him a bit of hope.

He lowered his glasses to look at me for a moment. “She re-enrolled at Arizona in the spring.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Covering all her bases I guess.”

“Sorry,” I said.

He exhaled. “Whatever. I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

Ash and I exchanged glances, but agreed.