“What are you doing here?” Cynthia asked. A phone call was one thing, but showing up at her door was another. Especially when that door was hours away.

“C’mon,” Janie said, gesturing her out of the room. “Your mother has made it abundantly clear that my type of person landed you in this mess in the first place.”

“How is that possible? She doesn’t even know what mess I’m in.”

Janie’s smile grew. “She didn’t say it in words, of course. I am fluent in judgment. Wow. You look like shit. C’mon, let’s go. There has to be some place in this town that doesn’t give me hives. Let’s go find it.”

Aunt Bessie was waiting for them in her wheelchair at the bottom of the stars. Cynthia stopped next to her. “Thanks for getting my mom off my case.”

“She wants the best for you. She just doesn’t realize that her best and your best might be different.” Aunt Bessie entwined her fingers in her lap. “I want the best for you, too, and sincerely hope that all our bests line up, because I need my ticket out of here. I don’t even need an attic, Charlotte. A shed out back would do just fine. I can cook, too. I’m not sure if I told you that. I can cook. I’m quite useful.”

“What is she talking about?” Janie muttered.

“She wants me to marry Noah and have kids so she can leave this house, where she is wrongfully imprisoned, and live a life of indentured servitude raising my kids and keeping up my home.”

Janie stepped closer to the wheelchair. “Bessie, listen. I don’t have the space right now, but as soon as I move into a bigger place, I’ll let you know, okay? You can just treat me like a kid. How would that do ya?”

Aunt Bessie’s eyes sparkled. “I can stand, you know.”

Janie looked down at the wheelchair. “Good to know.”

“And she has a love of butter,” Cynthia added.

“Don’t we all. I won’t hold it against ya, Bessie.” Janie squeezed her eyes strangely in what might’ve been an attempted wink.

“Where’s my mom?” Cynthia asked Aunt Bessie.

“I’d go out back, if I were you,” she replied.

“Your great-aunt is a hoot,” Janie said when they had snuck out the back and worked their way around the side of the house.

“She’s…something, all right.”

“She’s fun. Your mother, though…she’s almost like Colton’s mom, but a bit more…Stepford Wives.”

Janie pointed at her beat-up Honda, parked in front of Cynthia’s. “Let’s take mine. It’s slightly newer than yours. I feel like that gives us a better chance of not breaking down after the drive.” She pointed at the passenger door before getting into the driver’s seat. “It’s open. I didn’t figure anyone around here would want anything inside. Not with all the other options.” When they were both in, Janie put her key into the ignition and looked at Cynthia. “Is it Charlotte, or Cynthia?”

“Cynthia. I don’t know why my aunt calls me Charlotte. She may or may not have an onset of dementia. The doctors think so, but I’m not so sure. She has faked illnesses in the past. She has a doctorate in physics, so she’s no dummy. She researches the illnesses she plans to assume. Lou Gehrig’s disease suddenly went away not that long ago. No treatment. Amazing.”

“Why would she want people to think she has dementia?” Janie started up the car. “Or any other illness.”

“I have no idea. She was put in a home where they looked after her, paid for by her. The home was picked by her. My mom had a fit. Like her aunt had been abandoned. So she brought Aunt Bessie to live with her—she is incredible at talking people into doing what she wants—and they’ve had a very strange relationship ever since. Aunt Bessie is in the wheelchair to fool my mom into thinking she can’t help in the kitchen or clean up.”

“I like Aunt Bessie. I’m stealing her.” Janie stopped at a stop sign. “I’m sure there are ten thousand Starbucks in this town. Want to direct me to one of them?”

Cynthia pointed left. “So, once again, why did you drive all the way up here?”

“Because Colton and the boys have decreed that you are in. You’re in the group. The girls have agreed with their assessment, though it really isn’t up to us where the boys are concerned. Don’t ask. They have thick heads and explain things in grunts. Reasoning is futile. So that means that we all help each other. Right now, you’re in a fix. So I’m here to help you. Or light things on fire with you. Whatever you need. I also came to stop Noah from coming. I figured that if you’re anything like me, you’d cut a bitch. I like the guy. I’d rather not help bury him.”

Cynthia laughed despite the terrible pain in her heart. “Fair enough.” At the next stop sign, she pointed again.

“Dave’s mom lived in a trailer park, and his aunt lived in this fucking town,” Janie muttered. “Good gracious. No wonder the guy is used to straddling the line between poor and rich. One wonders why the aunt didn’t help the mom.”

“Have you ever asked?” Cynthia asked.

“No. His aunt died, leaving him nothing. His mom is in a good place right now. That’s enough. I’ve just never come up here. I didn’t have a rich aunt.” Janie glanced over. “Or a crazy one. I really missed out.”

“The thing is, if she is of sound mind, why is she eating butter?” Cynthia scratched her nose.

Janie started to laugh but didn’t comment.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Cynthia asked.

“Yes. It makes me like her more.”

At the closest Starbucks, they ordered coffee and sat in the leather chairs in the corner. Each looked out over the rest of the store, not at each other.

“So you didn’t know he was a hooker,” Janie said nonchalantly. An older man at a nearby table jerked and glanced over.

Heat infused Cynthia’s face. “Coming here to talk about this was probably a terrible idea.”

“Nonsense.” Janie sipped her coffee. Plain black. Because, she’d said, she considered anything else pretentious. “So you didn’t know, and that sucks. What’s the worst part about it?”

“That he was keeping it from me. He dropped some truth bombs, including about his various jobs, but that wasn’t one of them. He was deceiving me with all the half-truths.”

“Ah.” Janie nodded solemnly, and Cynthia was afraid she would make light of her concerns.

She needn’t have worried.

“I probably would’ve destroyed all his shit, then punched him in the face and run.” Janie crossed an ankle over her knee. “Do you want to hear his side of it? I asked about it after Dave called him a moron.”

“Sure.”

“At first he worried the truth would call his past into question. Then he didn’t have the courage. He didn’t think you’d stick around. Wait…” She tilted her head. “Those might be switched around, but you get the idea. I doubt it’s easy telling a girl that you’ve worked as a hooker.”

“True. But he should’ve done it before I moved in. He didn’t know I excel at leaving places at a moment’s notice. A normal girl would’ve been mortified to return home so soon after moving out.”

“Leaving places at a moment’s notice? What kind of places?”

“Name it. Jobs, parties, homes…”

“Man. That’s cool. Anyway, you’re right. Everyone knows you’re right. Noah knows you’re right. When you were at Colton’s last night, he asked us all for advice on how to tell you.” Janie held up a hand. “And just in case you think we betrayed you, we were surprised to find out he hadn’t told you. He was trying, but…”

“My sister told me about it.” Cynthia wiped away a tear. “She was gloating about it. Taunting and pitying me at the same time. It is the thing I’ve been dreading most since we got together.”

“The sister?”

“Yeah. The scorned one, though the scorning was her fault. If he can be believed.”

“He can. Noah is usually a strait-laced, honest guy. This is a large snafu.” Janie held her hand up again. “Which is easy for me to say.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket before working on the cracked screen. She handed it over to Cynthia.

Noah’s page was gone. The website said, Looking for more help. Come back later.

“He’s out,” Janie said. “He told the guys he was done when he was still up here. Probably after he met you. It was just the website that hadn’t been fixed. If that helps at all.”

“For some reason I can’t explain, I half don’t want you to talk me around.” Cynthia wiped away more tears.

“I know. Because then you’ll have to face the fact that you will someday marry a whore.” Janie started laughing as the man at the other table startled and looked around again. “I mean, I get it. Obviously. I totally paid Dave for sex, too. That shit was hot. I paid with a painting. He would’ve done it for free, but paying was hotter. I’m cracked, so don’t worry about me. At least our story about meeting the one didn’t stem from a paid date, am I right? What the hell are Madison and Kaylee going to tell their kids? Well, little Timmy, you see, your father was a prostitute, and I was his john. Love at first transaction.”

Cynthia spat out a laugh. Her frou-frou latte, which was compensating for something, or so Janie had said, sprayed over her jeans.

“So, we’ve established he should have told you…what’s next?” Janie asked.

Cynthia sighed. “I don’t even know. All of this doesn’t seem like such a big deal when you talk about it.”

“I don’t think it is, that’s why. I’ve had much bigger things to worry about than this type of stuff. But I get that I’m different.”

“If I forgave him, how could I trust him not to keep things like that from me again?”

“Trust me, he’ll be ready to tell you how many times in his life he’s picked his nose. The guy is…not doing well. I’ve never seen him like this. Which isn’t meant to affect you in any way. I’m just saying that he’ll think really hard before doing something like this again if you were to take him back. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, as they say. He learned the hard way.”

Cynthia dropped her head forward. “I love him. This has made me realize that. I just don’t know what the smart move is.”

“I don’t either. I’m just here to keep you from blowing something up.”

“I think we process grief differently.”

“Story of my life.”