“What’s the matter?” I ask. Is he really that upset that they’re here?

“No . . . I mean, it’s nothing,” he says, but he’s shifting his weight from foot to foot and he isn’t looking at me. Something’s wrong. “Just let me know if you want me to get out of your hair or anything.”

Wait. What?

“What are you talking about?” I ask. My palms are starting to sweat and my heart is inching up in my chest like it’s about to make a break for it. What the hell is going on?

And why is some traitorous part of me acting like he’s breaking up with me? We’re friends. Barely. Co-workers. I should not be feeling like this.

“No, I mean, your friends are here. If you want me to take a hike so you can spend some time with them, it’s okay. I get it. I mean . . . ” He sighs and looks at some far-off spot just over my shoulder, like he can’t quite bring himself to look me in the eye. “I don’t want them to think, you know, any less of you or anything.”

I wipe my sweating palms against my shorts and stare at him. It takes me a minute, but finally something clicks in my brain and I get it.

Jesus.

“This is about the prison thing again, isn’t it?” I ask, even though I already know the answer. “What the hell, Ash?”

Finally he meets my eye, but his face is confused, like I’m the one who’s saying things that don’t make sense. Idiot, I think, but the voice in my head is unmistakably fond, and I can’t help but smile. I shake my head at him. “You’re an ass,” I say, and reach out and snag his arm again. “You’re not going anywhere.”

He doesn’t say anything as I drag him back over to Autumn and Roth, but when we come to a stop, I look over my shoulder at him and catch the secret smile tugging at his lips, even as he tries to hide it. I turn back to my friends and find Autumn looking back and forth between us like there’s a puzzle she’s trying to figure out. Roth, on the other hand, is kind of staring off into space, something he tends to do whenever he’s affronted with too many emotions and needs to tune himself out. I look at Autumn. She’s stopped looking back and forth between us and has now pinned me with a look that I can only hope to translate as you okay?

I nod, and let her see my smile.

“Okay,” Autumn says, breaking the silence clapping her hands together like she’s the ringleader of this particular circus. “Where do we start?”

Chapter 11

Star

Ash is a traitor. He’s a dirty, rotten, no good traitor and I hate him.

And his dog.

“Really, you guys,” I say as the others hover around the pantry door in the kitchen. “We should work on the living room. It needs the most work.” I don’t know why everyone’s so focused on the sleeping-in-the-shed thing. I know for a fact that Autumn used to go camping with her family. It’s the exact same thing. Almost. In fact, it’s better, because it has an actual roof and a door to protect me from the elements. Besides, the pantry can pretty much just stay the way it is when I’m trying to sell it. It may be over-full, but at least it’s the one place in the house that’s full of the stuff it’s supposed to be filled with. I think getting the towering piles of shame out of the living room is a little more urgent then getting the canned goods out of the pantry.

Unfortunately, I’ve been out-voted.

“Can you hear something, Roth?” Autumn says as she rips open a box of garbage bags, her voice too loud in the small space we’re working in. “Because I can’t.”

I hate her, too.

“No,” Roth replies, climbing over a pile of what I’m hoping is laundry and not anything mysterious and disgusting because I would still like to have friends at the end of this. “Not unless you’re talking about an ungrateful girl who doesn’t care that we’re trying to help her not live like a derelict.”

I let out a groan. Yeah. I hate him, too. Everyone. I’m just going to live in the shed and hate everyone from now on. That’s the best plan.

“Come on, you guys,” I try, for what feels like the millionth time. “It’s not so bad. And I really do need to get the living room cleaned out.”

“What you need,” Autumn says, ripping off a garbage bag from the roll and holding it out to me to take, “is a safe place to sleep. Preferably one that’s indoors. Now—” she nods toward the path Roth is carving in the kitchen “—we’re going to get the kitchen and the pantry cleaned out as best we can, because let’s be honest, we’re awesome but we’re not miracle workers. The pantry is small enough that we actually stand a chance of clearing it out so that you can sleep in there. Your mattress will fit. And you need a kitchen, Star. That’s just nonnegotiable. I can’t imagine what you guys have been eating while you’re here.”

“Diner food, mostly,” Ash supplies from behind me, and smirks at me when I turn around to glare at him.

“Traitor,” I say, and turn back to see Autumn’s disappointed look.

“Diner food? Really?”

“What?” I say, kicking myself for being so defensive. I’m a grownup. I’m allowed to eat what I want. “It’s good.” Lies. So many lies. The diner food is mediocre on a good day.

“Nothing is good enough to eat it every day,” she says, and reaches out to push me toward Roth. “Now go help. Your bedroom awaits.”

“I feel like you’re trying to turn me into Cinderella,” I tell her. “Making me sleep in the pantry. It won’t work. I won’t suddenly turn into a princess.”

“You have a better chance than if you’re sleeping in the shed,” she replies. “Now mush!” She jabs a finger toward the kitchen, where Roth is waiting.

Something inside me jerks, and I sigh and go to follow her orders without further complaint. She has that way about her. I climb over a pile of plastic take-out containers and join Roth in the kitchen. “She’s going to make an excellent RA,” I tell him. “The frosh are going to be following her around like ducklings within a week.”

“She learned from the best,” Roth says sagely, and grins down at me. “Now get to work, little duckling.”

Yeah, I think, shooting him one last glare before I reach down and start loading empty plastic grocery bags into my garbage bag. I hate them all.

***

By the end of the day, though, things aren’t so bad anymore. With Roth and Autumn around, we actually manage to get not only a path through the living and dining rooms cleared out, but we also made pretty good headway on the kitchen, the one area of the house I’d been most worried about. It really is a load off my shoulders, having them here.

Especially when it came to the refrigerator. The thing stood there, huge and overbearing that first day, like a modern-day monolith, foretelling my doom. When I head outside for a water break I say as much to Autumn and she throws her back and laughs like a hyena, loud enough for the boys to hear and to turn at us, questions in their eyes.

“Star, sweetie, I think your brain is melting,” she says, reaching up and wiping the back of her hand along her damp forehead. The heat inside the house is slowly killing all of us. “It’s just a fridge. Nothing to be scared of.” She turns to Roth and shakes her head like I’m being ridiculous.

I take a sip of my water, grateful to the tiny droplets that escape the side of my mouth to go trickling cool and wet down my neck, and raise my eyebrows at her. I can’t help the smile that comes through as I recap my bottle and set it aside on the porch railing. She doesn’t get it, I realize. She has no idea.