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  ***

  Rose

  48 Hours Earlier

  I stood in my sister Ruth’s salon an hour after closing. She held her infant son, Caleb, in her arms, the adorable little guy gawking and pawing at everything around him with the innocent curiosity encouraged in the young but inevitably beaten out of everyone over twenty-three. We were the only ones there amidst the row of mirror-facing salon chairs and hair dryers and washing basins, the hair swept off the floor and the white lights on high.

  Ruth and I looked a lot alike, hair-color notwithstanding. We were the same height, and I was only about ten pounds lighter now that she’d lost all her baby weight (seriously, how the fuck did she do that so fast?). Her hair was sandy blonde rather than my own dark red, and much longer, but other than that, we could’ve been twins. The fact that she was only a year older than me definitely helped on that one. “I’m sorry, you want me to do what?” she said, giving me that ft, skeptical look that all older sisters seemingly had on-lock.

  “I need a dress,” I said. “Something sexy, but not too sexy. First in-person-date sexy. And, uh, if you could help me make my wig look as good as possible-”

  “I think I need context.”

  “I’ve given you the context already,” I frowned. “Kyle-”

  “Why don’t you just buy your own girl clothes?” she said, sitting down in a salon chair and facing me with that Look still on her face.

  I flinched. “You know why.”

  “I know, I just don’t understand.”

  “I made a promise-”

  “You were fifteen,” she monotoned.

  “And I’ve been good to my word for fifteen more years since then,” I said firmly. “I haven’t bought a single article of female clothing with my own money.”

  “But you bought a wig-”

  “That doesn’t count.”

  “Splitting hairs, much?”

  I stared at her. “Was that a pun?”

  “It was a dad joke,” Ruth said, smiling at Caleb. “Nathan is rubbing off on me.”

  “Clearly,” I rolled my eyes.

  She sighed. “Do you want my help or not?”

  “That depends. Are you willing to give it?”

  She sighed again, louder and fuller. “Fine. I can pull something out of my closet. Swing by tomorrow to pick it up.”

  “And you won’t tell anyone?”

  “Other than my husband, sure.”

  “Ruth-”

  She cut me off with a single word that stopped me dead in my tracks: “Brian.” I grimaced, the knot in my chest stranguting. She blinked, and a stunned look on her face gave me pause. She continued, “Look, are you sure this isn’t about anything else?”

  “I’m sure,” I said as my stomach did a gold medal-worthy gymnastics routine.

  “Because if you do wanna go back to-”

  “I’m sure,” I said, louder, harsher. She bnched, which is impressive given how pasty she is already. Unfortunately, Caleb’s reaction was to start crying, at which point my heart shriveled up and my stomach acid dissolved the withered husk. “Oh, God,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry, I-”

  She gave me the Look one more time before extending the baby to me. “You made the mess. Clean it up.”

  “But-”

  “Please,” she said, eyes gentle.

  I gulped, and I took the baby in my arms. He was such a tiny, delicate little d, a bundle of potential and hope and love swaddled in blue sky bnkets with white puffy clouds lovingly hand-embroidered by his Aunt Juniper. It hurt me to see him cry, hurt me that I hurt him, so I held him against my chest and bounced up and down gently on the balls of my feet while humming an old showtune. The pained, fearful sobs quickly dissolved and turned to gentle sighs and gurgles of happiness. His precious little baby-smile made something stir inside me, in my heart and my mind. A hollow emotion, with bristling edges that slid through me and chafed at the lining of my body and soul. I shook my head. Wouldn’t do to get upset again: that would only aggravate this little angel. I thought about what Rose would do, what she would want. That was something a girl like her would be thinking about: thirty years old, past the point where ignoring questions about the future was viable or practical. Did she… Did I want this? Motherhood? The warm aura that overtook me when I let myself pretend, just for a moment, that I really was a woman and this really was my baby, said that yes, I did. Or at least, that Rose did.

  I kissed my index finger and then poked the little guy’s nose, then handed the happy bundle of baby back to his real mother. She looked at me with the most bizarre mixture of shock and resignation I’d ever seen in my life. “It’s scary how good you are at that.”

  “Oh, stop,” I said with an awkward ugh.

  “No, seriously, I have three kids and I somehow still haven’t gotten that thing you do yet,” she said.

  “If I could teach it, I would.”

  She gave me a new Look, one I couldn’t decipher. If I had to guess, I’d say it looked… Positive? I think? “I bet you would. Tell you what: if you don’t mind doing a little babysitting soon, keeping the kids entertained so Nathan and I can have a date night, I’ll let you have two dresses.”

  Joy and excitement swelled inside me, threatening to burst off my top like a geyser. “I- I can’t possibly-”

  “Hey, it’s what sisters do, and we are the same size, after all,” Ruth shrugged. “I’m just allowed to ask for them back whenever I want, capiche?”

  “Capiche,” I said, giving an impish little salute.

  “And I’ll help you with your wig and makeup on Friday. What time is your weird little mindgame date?”

  “8 PM.”

  “Cool. Salon closes at 6 on Fridays, so swing by at 6:30 and I’ll give you the VIP treatment. That all work for you?”

  I resumed bouncing on the balls of my feet, repressing the urge to hum the song again, to let it explode into a full on improvised musical number. Barely. “You’re the best sister ever!”

  “That’s very sweet, but don’t let Juniper or Mia or Veronica or Sarah hear you say that, yeah?”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said, still bouncing.

  “Cool. I’ll see you Friday, then.”

  NOW

  Friday arrived, and I stood before my roommate and drank in the stunned expression he bore as he stood up from his shamrock seat at the bar. I’d been practicing my voice nonstop inside my hotel room for the past two days, and I think I’d gotten it into a good working condition. Not as high as I would have liked, but still vastly better than the surly bass monotone that usually came out of my stupid face. “Hey,” I said, extending my hand for a shake.

  Kyle, without missing a beat, took my hand in his and kissed my knuckles. I had to stop myself from retracting immediately as a shiver went down my spine and heat pooled on my cheeks. I gulped. This guy, this fucking guy, this fucking cornball motherfucker-

  “You’re even more beautiful in person, Rose,” he said, his eyes locked onto mine.

  The heat around my cheeks tripled, but I leaned into it as I felt a smile starting to form with my big red lips. Ruth had done a spectacur job with my wig and makeup: it was impossible to tell it wasn’t real hair, and my lips looked- if I do say so myself- incredibly kissable. Helped that I knew this was a guy who could appreciate the craft even beyond that, but still. He kept looking at my mouth.

  Good.

  “Fttery will get you everywhere, handsome,” I said, then threw in a wink for good measure.

  He chuckled, and that Look, that hungry look he’d given to a million girls, the one that made it clear what was on his mind, was pin to see on his perfectly sculpted face. “Good to know. Can I buy you a drink?”

  “Thought you’d never ask,” I said, sitting down at the vacant bar stool next to him and giving his tricep a pyful squeeze. I suppressed a wince at the state of the stool, and of the bar itself. Everything was greasy and dusty and generally filthy, concealed only by the low lighting and the assumed filter offered by cheap booze. The whole pce stank of tobacco and stale beer, but Rose didn’t mind that. Rose came from humbler beginnings than Brian did; she worked at a convenience store and lived somewhere small and affordable and probably didn’t even have a college degree. She was used to shit like this. Just hoped my face didn’t give me away.

  “Sorry about the state of the pce,” Kyle said with a sheepish expression and a nervous ugh. God, his ugh was infectious. No matter the tone or the variant, I just wanted to ugh with him. So I did. “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “Just… Surprised you think you have anything to apologize for,” I said.

  “Heh. Fair enough,” he said.

  He held up a hand, and the bartender slid me an old fashioned. Kyle held his own drink up; I clinked his gss and then did what I thought Rose would do and downed the whole thing in one gulp. Figured it would make this easier anyway.

  “Girl with an appetite,” Kyle said, putting away half of his own drink. “I like that.”

  “I bet you do,” I said in my breathiest, sexiest voice. It was all working perfectly. He didn’t suspect a thing.

  “Just try not to spoil it- I got a whole night pnned for us. A whole route.”

  I blinked, the sensation heavier thanks to my thick mascara. “How do you mean?”

  “Bar crawl,” Kyle said, his smile turning downright rakish. “Hope you like whacky misadventures with lots of booze, because that’s what we’re in for tonight. Also hope you can hold your liquor, because I have every intention of going ham tonight.”

  “Sounds awesome,” I said over the deafening sound of my internal screaming. Obviously, I’d known he was pnning to escate this into a bar crawl, but it was dawning on me what he was actually trying to do.

  This…

  THIS…

  THIS. MOTHER. FUCKER. He was trying to loosen my tongue with booze and get me to fess up. He knew! He knew and he was trying to use my own freaking strategy against me! This was how I did business! This was how I closed deals! I’d bragged about this exact thing to him a million times and he thought he could do the same on me without me catching on! Unbelievable- he must think I’m an idiot!

  Well I’d show him!

  I batted my eyeshes and said, “I just hope you can keep up.”

  “Is that so?” he said, polishing off his old fashioned.

  “This tight little bod of mine can pack ‘em away,” I said. Not a single lie there: the past five years of wining and dining had given me an alcohol tolerance of damn near superhuman heights.

  “Wonder what else it can do,” he said, eyeing me up and down (which in no way gave me goosebumps, definitely not, no-siree).

  “Maybe if you’re good I’ll let you find out,” I said. Heh. Sucker.

  “Fingers crossed.”

  “Indeed,” I said. Then I held up a hand and said, “Barkeep! Another!”

  We watched hockey while we worked on our old fashioneds, and I peppered him with questions about his job, his hobbies, his friends while my eyes darted back and forth with the puck flying over frozen water. He told me about Rachel and her wife, as well as his coaching and substituting jobs, and his pns to own a gym one day. I already knew most of the stuff, but I pretended like I didn’t and feigned surprise. Honestly, it wasn’t too hard: the big lug got so enthusiastic whenever he talked about sports or business, and owning a gym was the most obvious way to combine those two loves. He’d been like this back in grad school as well: even though he went to a worse school than me, he put his all into the program and came out damn near the top of his css because of it. There were no half measures with the guy; I really admired that about him. Even when he was using that same grit to try to get me to out myself to him. The handsome bastard didn’t know what he was getting himself into- OOOOHHHH HOCKEY FIGHTING!

  A brawl had broken out on the ice, Boston’s enforcer cshing fists with Montreal’s. And by some miracle, the refs weren’t trying to stop it. Maybe it was because our teams were archrivals: they knew the people in the stands and at home wanted to see blows exchanged, and opted to accommodate. Regardless, amidst the slight tingle of buzz the double old fashioneds were affording me, I threw up my own dukes and started shadow boxing in time with Boston’s guy. Honestly, it was how I knew the booze was working and hadn’t been watered down too much: I’d rgely trained myself out of this habit a while ago, after my mom told me for the thousandth time how much it made me look like white trash.

  Kyle, however, bore no such qualms. He simply said, “Oh hell yeah!” and started doing the same thing. When the fight was over and Montreal’s guy was practically crawling away with his tail between his legs, we both just looked at each other and ughed.

  “Oh, that was good,” Kyle said, rubbing his eyes. “Haven’t done that in forever.”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “I, uh… I mean it’s been a while since I got to enjoy a good hockey fight,” he said.

  “Hm,” I said. Now that just made no sense: maybe he meant since he and I had done that, but I couldn’t recall a specific time where he and I had…

  A vague echo of a memory sounded inside my hollow mind: a drunken haze filtered over a scene of us together, years ago. I couldn’t make out the location through the noise, but… This had happened before. I think.

  Either way, tho, I had him on the ropes.

  “Let’s get going,” Kyle said suddenly. “Our next watering hole awaits!”

  Hm. I bet it does.

  We hobbled through the cold night for two blocks before arriving at Margerie’s, a higher-end pce with antiseptically clean tables and stools lit up by bright lights that didn’t let anything hide in the dark. Purple pleather cushioned every seat, while a truly spectacur menagerie of beautiful women stood within. Both patrons and employees, every girl there was dressed to kill. And a lot of them were making out with each other.

  “D-did you b-bring me to a l-l-lesbian bar?” I sputtered.

  “I wanted at least one pce I wouldn’t get hit on,” he ughed. “My friend Rachel turned me onto this spot: she and her wife come here a lot. Apparently they have great cocktails.”

  “And great cock-nothing else,” I muttered.

  “I dunno, I’d say there’s still some great cock present,” Kyle said as we sat down at the bar between two different lesbian couples in the middle of their respective make out sessions.

  I rolled my eyes. “Awfully bold of you to cim that.”

  “Only if I can’t back it up.”

  “Well? Can you?”

  “Is that your way of saying you wanna find out?”

  I gulped, mouth hanging open, making unblinking eye contact with his stupid, smug, stupid, handsome, stupid face. That was handsome. I searched the crevices of my mind, desperately trying to find something to say, something clever, something cool, something sexy, literally anything.

  Nothing.

  I waved to the bartender, a busty, bubbly blonde in a tight pink t-shirt and a matching bck miniskirt, pucker painted with only the most scarlet of lipstick, green eyes made enormous by her expertly applied mascara. Her thighs were tan and toned, her arms muscur, her chest most accurately described as a pair of watermelons. She sashayed over, looked me up and down, and then gave me a look so hungry it put the one Kyle had worn earlier to shame. “What can I get for you, pretty dy?” she asked. “And what can I exchange for your phone number?”

  A massive spike of confusion and dread and shame nced my chest, all my confidence and Rose’s entire sense of self exploding out like a geyser of blood in a schlocky horror movie. I’d never known what to do with myself when girls hit on me as Brian (not that it happened too often to my ugly ass), and apparently Rose didn’t know how to handle it any better.

  It didn’t help that three more bartenders, all equally gorgeous young women in skimpy outfits, crowded around their coworker and leaned towards me all while vocalizing the same exact offer. One had even pulled out an acoustic guitar from seemingly nowhere and was attempting to serenade me with a Spanish bald… Badly. Very badly. I’m talking next level tone deafness. I simply sat there in wide-eyed confusion, terrified about what would happen when any of these women found out what I really was…

  Only for a massive, calloused hand to settle over mine, a reassuring and steady presence that gently brought me back down to earth. “My date and I will start with two cosmopolitans, if that’s alright.”

  Four of the five bartenders said, “Dammit!” all in perfect harmony. Did they practice this routine? Holy shit. Lesbians took no prisoners. The first bartender, the busty blonde, however, simply shrugged and said, “Coming right up.”

  “Cosmos?” I said.

  He shrugged. “I contain multitudes. Also, sorry about that.”

  “It’s… It’s fine.”

  “I just wasn’t expecting-”

  “Wasn’t expecting what?” I said, stiffening. “Didn’t think I’m the type of girl who gets hit on?”

  “I didn’t mean-”

  “Then what did you mean?”

  “I kinda thought me being here would act as a deterrent,” Kyle said.

  “Oh,” I replied, feeling like a complete ass. “That makes sense.”

  The blonde arrived with two cosmos in those tall gsses with the wide basins and the thin stems. Thank God. “Never had one of these before,” I said.

  “Well hey, first time for everything.”

  “You can say that again,” I said with a nervous ugh.

  The sweet concoction tricked more alcohol still into my system, and the light buzz grew heavier and warmer and much more pleasant. The drawling tones of the ambient noise music pying from the speakers turned more and more blissful to my slowly inebriating senses. “Well goodness gracious, this is alright,” I said, holding up the now empty gss as if it were a crown jewel.

  And Kyle ughed again, and because his ugh was the way it was, I ughed with him.

  ***

  The third drinking establishment of the evening was a lot more hardcore than I was expecting. Strobe lights fshed over the darkened interior, the wide, rectangur dance floor serving as a mosh-pit, paintings of fming skeletons and gardens of gore decorating the obsidian walls. A live death metal band pyed covers of songs I’d heard Ruth’s husband Nathan pying at dinner parties, their frontwoman screaming her lungs out while rocking a bck thigh-skirt and corset combo, a dreadlocked drummer headbanging while pounding away rapid-fire, and an identical twin duo of a guitarist and a bassist dancing about while shredding epically. They unleashed an endless flood of sound, all rage and passion and bravado, while patrons headbanged and grinded on each other in the blinking overhead lights. Well, the guys did, anyway. The girls, meanwhile, started running up to Kyle as we walked to the bar. An endless parade of gorgeous goth girls and heavily-pierced punks threw themselves at him, barely able to make out his words of ‘sorry I’m with someone.’

  When we sat down, the girls weren’t going away, several of them determined to get as close as possible. As our Moscow Mules were slid down to us, my anger and irritation started sparking. Goddammit, girls, I get it, he’s super hot and you’re down to pound, but he’s with me and I can’t have you getting in the way of my genius pn!

  I doused the fire in my belly with a delicious sting of vodka and ginger beer, then turned around and grabbed Kyle’s arm and started nuzzling his shoulder. Less than half of the girls took this as the deterrent it was meant to be. Dammit! C’mon, think- what can I do to make it clear I’ve staked out my cim here!

  A memory rammed me in the gut like a baseball bat, something I’d seen Ruth do once at a party back in high school. I looked at Kyle, his expression somewhere between nervous and annoyed at the female attention he was receiving. Well, the other female attention he was… Whatever, you know what I mean. I looked at his perfect face, his perfect lips, and I asked myself, ‘am I really doing this?’

  I finished pounding back my liquid courage, then grabbed him by the pel and pulled him towards me and kissed him on the mouth. I made a ‘go away, shoo’ gesture with my hands towards the girls, then slipped Kyle a bit of tongue to reinforce the weight of my actions. His stubble brushed against my skin, scratchy but not unpleasant in its sensation, and the inside of his mouth was very easy to get lost in amidst my drunken haze. I ran my delicate fingers through his short hair, locking my hands together at the back of his head while I leaned into him more and more. He was surprised at first, but he didn’t object too much once I was pressed against his broad, muscur chest. He pushed back, his tongue eagerly investigating the interior of my mouth. Finally, the st of the girls left, and even in the increasingly drunk fog of my mind I saw through the bliss my victory and managed to pull myself away.

  It was harder than I thought. Much harder than actually initiating this had been.

  Kyle looked at me, shocked and awestruck in equal measure. Going by the tent in his jeans, that had been a great experience for him. I smirked. Mwahahahaha.

  “Whoa,” Kyle said, eyes wide and unblinking, his legs nervously shifting around in a not-so-discreet effort to conceal his boner without using his hands. He looked so surprised and nervous and yet totally happy at the same time… It was honestly kind of adorable. Never thought I’d use that word to describe the big meathead, but… Well, he was.

  I giggled, putting my hand over my mouth and batting my eyeshes rapidly. “Was that okay?”

  “That was- that was more than okay, that was… A really good first kiss!” Kyle excimed. “Just took me by surprise is all.”

  “I just figured, since you’d already mentioned how you didn’t want to spend the whole night getting hit on by girls other than your date-”

  “It was a good pn, I’m happy to have been a part of it,” Kyle said. He raised his gss. “To the first of many.”

  I clinked back with my empty gss and gulped as my dumb drunk ass realized what I’d just done, the precedent I’d just set. Rose was now the kind of girl who did things like that with guys she liked, who funted public dispys of affection and even weaponized them when she had to. Oh, fuck. “Can I get a refill?” I screamed over the heavy metal death wail.

  ***

  The fourth bar of the evening was a little different, and by that I mean we had to leave quickly when somebody set themselves on fire. I think someone made a bet with them over whether or not they’d actually do it. Apparently they shouldn’t have called their friend’s bluff.

  Kyle and I looked at the burning man as someone dumped a bucket of ice water on them. The fire was out, but the mood was killed.

  We looked at each other, then downed the tequi shots we’d ordered and headed out.

  ***

  We clung to each other as we woozily wobbled to the fifth and final bar of the evening, a completely normal, nondescript dive bar that didn’t even have a name. The sign just said ‘Bar Here.’ Or was that the name? It was getting hard to tell. I just knew that it was freezing, and as warm as the giant hunk of white meat I was clinging to was, we’d probably both prefer to be inside with the actual heating.

  It was quiet and rgely empty within, the clock having struck twelve over an hour erstwhile and most of the patrons already gone for the evening. Only an elderly couple sat in one of the green-seated booths, while a forty-something bck man with a shaved head and glorious beard tended the bar itself.

  He looked up at us as we entered and waved us over to the bar with a smile. “Late night patrons! How fares thee?”

  “Goooooddddd, an’ youuuu?” I slurred, kicking off my heels and ambling over with my arm around Kyle’s Herculean torso.

  “Havin’ a naaaiissseee one muhself,” Kyle intoned.

  “I can see that,” the barkeep said. “Lemme guess: pub crawl.”

  “You betcha!” I said, pumping my fists into the air.

  “Well you’re just in time for Last Call,” the barkeep said. “Good to see you both again, by the way.”

  “Whatcha’ mean?” I said, his words stirring the mushy mixture of my mind inside the boiling pot of my skull. This pce did seem familiar, especially with the television on above the bar pying hockey highlights.

  “Oh, nothing,” the barkeep said.

  “Got any beer?” Kyle said, putting his arm around me and holding me close. “Been a long night of cocktails… Could ushe somethin’ simple to wind us down.”

  The barkeep ughed. “I got just the thing.”

  “This pce… I’ve been here buhfore… Uh think,” I said, rubbing my temples while keeping myself nestled in Kyle’s embrace.

  Kyle had a mischievous glint in his eyes as soon as I said that. “Ayuh? When?”

  “Years ago. I was still in school,” I said, the memory slowly coming into focus. “I was here with… With…”

  That was when it hit me: drunkenly shadow-boxing along with a hockey fight. Kyle at my side. A warm, gentle atmosphere in a mostly-empty bar. This had been the pce. And Kyle had brought me here on purpose.

  That was what clinched it for me. He knew. Fucking hell, he knew!

  Okay, don’t panic. Maybe it was nothing-

  “‘S good to be back here with you,” Kyle said.

  SON OF A FUCK! This was… This truly had all been an eborate ploy to get me to reveal myself to him. I was right, he’d known from the beginning and was trying to outmaneuver me, beat me at my own game and then no-doubt gloat about it ter. Leading me here had been the final step, and it’d nearly worked. I wanted to shove my finger in his face and call him out on it… Only for him to fall face-forward onto the bar, bcked out and beyond coherence.

  The barkeep brought our drinks over, but only put mine on the counter. “Think he’s perhaps had enough for one evening.”

  “Perhaps,” I nodded, my head swimming. Fuck, the lunkhead probably wouldn’t even remember half of this by tomorrow. Would he remember what he’d said to me just now? Would he remember our first kiss? I mean, I only cared because it would be inconvenient to my diabolical plot if I had to do our first kiss over again. It probably wouldn’t be nearly as spectacur on repeat. And I was proud of how good I’d made it for him! Dammit, I didn’t want all my efforts undone! He better fucking remember this!

  “Want me to call you two lovebirds a cab?” the barkeep said.

  “Yeahhhhh, that sounds goooood,” I sighed.

  “Everything alright?”

  “Nnnnot really.”

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  “Nnnnnnnot really.”

  “Fair enough,” the barkeep shrugged. “For what it’s worth, I never forget a patron. Ever. And even back then, I thought you two would make a cute couple. Gd you finally figured that shit out. Didn’t expect you to turn out quite like this, but-”

  “It’s not… It’s not what you think,” I said.

  “Then what is it?”

  “... Still figuring that out.”

  He smiled. “I get that. Now, why don’t you give me your address and I can call your car.”

  “Thanks,” I said with a sad smile of my own.

  The barkeep helped me get Kyle into the car once it arrived, and as I was climbing inside, he said, “The name’s Aaron, by the way. In case you forgot.”

  “Thanks, Aaron,” I said. “I think we’ll be back at some point. Dunno when, but-”

  “Take your time,” Aaron smiled as he waved good-bye.

  The drive home was silent, with my date/roommate passed out with his head on my shoulder. I didn’t hate it, but the drunken concoction of differing emotions was a lot to process. I roused the lunkhead just awake enough to get him back inside and deposited him on the couch, where he immediately started snoring.

  Having no desire to go back to my hotel, I took the opportunity to scrub off my makeup with wipes I’d stored in my purse, hid the wig and the dress in my closet, and stared at my… Brian’s… My reflection in the mirror while I brushed my teeth. Wasn’t nearly as nice to look at as Rose. Rose had much more fun than Brian did. Kyle seemed to have a better time with her than with him. But tonight had been an act, a ploy to get me to reveal myself. Or some of it had been, at least.

  I needed to know how much he knew, and what he thought this was, and why he was doing all this. Only then could I say whether or not tonight was a success. I’d rise to the challenge; it wouldn’t be hard, I was more than smart enough for it.

  Still, as I climbed into my boring Brian-bed in my boring Brian-room, I couldn’t help but be a little disappointed. I’d almost gotten to relive my first solid memory of hanging out with Kyle right after I’d gotten it back.

  I consoled myself with the knowledge that if I was gonna keep doing this, if I was gonna get what I wanted from Kyle, I’d have other opportunities. Rose would go back there, to that simple, special pce, with Kyle. The air would be clear and everything would be fine.

  I stole one st gnce at him asleep on our couch, bit my lower lip as I remembered our kiss, then shook my head. Best not to get caught up in the fantasy.

  I climbed into bed and let myself drift off before the spins could freak me out too much, Kyle’s name on my lips as consciousness finally slipped away into drunken slumber.