He crinkles his nose. “Sorry. I probably shouldn’t have said that, right? Not one of my swifter comments.”

“Definitely, not one of your swifter comments. I didn’t feel like getting dressed today, but it’s nothing. Food poisoning.”

He grimaces and then asks, “Do you need me to get you anything? Do you want me to make you some tea? That might be good in your stomach if you have a touch of food poisoning.”

I shake my head, though Neil’s wanting to try to help me is unexpected and overwhelming. Even after everything that’s happened between us, he is still kind and caring Neil. How stupid I was to worry even for a minute that he would make this terrible for me.

“I’m OK, Neil. You don’t need to make me tea. It’s not that bad right now. I’ll be better by morning.”

He looks relieved and smiles. “Do you want me to come back tomorrow to get my junk? You look like you’re feeling pretty lousy. If you need to rest, I’ll get out of your way.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer and starts to rise from the couch. I grab his arm. “No. Don’t leave. I’m fine. It’s not that bad. I thought you were going to stay here tonight, hang out so we could catch up.”

His eyes widen and he looks surprised.

“Really? I thought you wouldn’t want me here so I planned on grabbing a couch at a friend’s in the city.”

For some reason I’m unexpectedly hurt by that. We parted in a good place. Still friends. Didn’t we?

“Well, I thought you were going to grab my couch,” I counter quietly. Something in how he looks at me makes me anxious and sad. I add, “I really want you to stay here, Neil.”

I can feel him watching me in that way he has when he’s trying to make sense of me. A few seconds pass. He sinks back down on the couch.

“Thanks, Chrissie. If you are sure you feel up to it and you’re cool with it, I would really like to stay here tonight.”

“Good.”

Neil sighs, closes his eyes and lays his head back against the couch. “Fuck, it feels good to be here. It’s quiet here. I can breathe. I’ll probably be terrible company tonight. I feel like I could sleep for a week.”

My anxiety fades and I take in more detail of him. He definitely looks exhausted. Neil is such a gorgeous guy—tanned skin; tall, long, lean-muscled body; messy sun-streaked shoulder-length chestnut waves framing a strongly featured face with brilliant green eyes—I often miss details, like the fatigue lines beneath his eyes and around his lips.

“You look really tired, Neil. Was it awful out on the road this time? You didn’t make it sound awful whenever we talked on the phone. You always sounded really good. Happy. ”

Neil chuckles in a tired, loose way. “Worst four months of my life, ever. Trust me, Chrissie, it was miserable every day. The larger the venues, the more shit. Everything went wrong that could go wrong from the first day out of Seattle. And the fucking band fought almost the entire time. The minute things start to go good everyone goes crazy.”

His eyes open and I make a pout of sympathy.

He reaches out to lightly touch my cheek. “It feels good to be here with you. I missed you so much, Chrissie. I kept thinking about you. What I did wrong. I know I fucked up. Why you dumped me. I get it.”

“You didn’t fuck up,” I say contritely, guilt flooding my digestive track. “And I didn’t dump you. We are just going in different directions and it didn’t seem fair to you or to me for us to try to stay together. It was the right thing for us both, Neil.”

His eyes burn into me, and the heat increases across my cheeks.

“No, Chrissie. It wasn’t the right thing for me. Not by a long shot. You always thought I was joking when I asked, but I really did think we’d end up married someday.”

“I thought you weren’t going to do this, Neil.”

He runs a hand through his hair in an aggravated way. He looks impatient and annoyed with himself. “You’re right. Sorry. I won’t do it again.”

I stare down at my fingers, digging into my knees. “I’m not someplace where I can even think about us. I just want to hang out. Keep everything light. I could really use that, Neil. OK?”

“I said I won’t do it again,” Neil counters, and I can’t tell if he’s irritated with me or himself.

This moment just got extremely awkward, to the point of feeling almost smothering, and I’m starting to feel really badly when the front door opens with enough force to hit the wall with a boom. We both turn to look as Rene pauses in the doorway, hands on hips encased in too-short Cal shorts, her pretty face awash with pretend irritation.

“When the hell did you get back?”

Neil laughs, pulling his body away from me to settle with more space between us on the couch.

“About twenty minutes ago. How ya doing, Rene?” he says, amused.

Rene closes the door and crosses the room in a flurry, dropping down on the couch on the vacant spot beside Neil. I watch her lean in to give him a sloppy kiss on the cheek, and their easy closeness gives me a sharp stab in my stomach. They hated each other when Neil first moved into the condo, and now they are more comfortable as friends than I am with Neil.

Rene’s pretty face fills with a dazzling smile. “Really. How long are you staying?”

“A day. Maybe two…” He makes a face in my direction. “…or I might just stay until Chrissie kicks me out.”

They laugh, and I fight not to let show how much that jab hurt me. Neil was only teasing, messing with me like he likes to do, but I still feel badly about how I treated Neil. I miss him more than I ever thought I would, and every lighthearted taunt seems to hold an edge and bite today.

Rene taps Neil on the chest with an index finger. “I’ve got plans tonight, but your ass is mine in the morning. I don’t have class until noon. Why don’t we go out, grab some breakfast, kick around Berkeley for a while?”

“Deal,” Neil says as Rene springs up from the couch. He follows her with his eyes until she disappears into her bedroom and then turns to give me a heavily exasperated look. “I will never get used to it when Rene is being nice.”

“I told you she would be glad you’re here.”

His expression changes and something about his eyes makes me tense. “Are you glad I’m here or is this hard for you? I can’t quite figure out what I’m feeling from you.”

Crap. I take in a deep breath to steady myself. “I’m just going through some stuff, Neil. It’s no big deal. It doesn’t have anything to do with you. I’m really happy you’re here. It’s just me. OK?”

Neil leans into me, his eyes filled with concern. “Anything serious?”

I struggle to hold back my words. For some reason, the second Neil walked through my door the urge to blurt out my problems to him has been almost overpowering.

I shift my gaze away from his. “Nothing serious. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want ruin you being here with my lame drama.”

He lifts my chin so I have no choice but to meet his eyes. “Lame drama, huh? Nope, not buying it, Chrissie. Tell me what’s wrong. I can tell when something is pretty fucked in your world. I’ll help however I can.”

When I don’t answer him, Neil shakes his head, exasperated, and pulls me against him.

“God, you’re really frustrating at times. Most girls can’t wait to tell you their shit, and it’s like pulling teeth to get you to say anything about anything even when I ask you to.”

I roll my eyes, and try to manage a don’t make a big deal of this kind of face. “I’m just fucked up that way.”

“You’re not fucked up in any way.” He lets out a long, sort of angry exhale of breath. “I hate that you say that about yourself. I’d like to kick the shit out of whoever said that to you and made you believe it.”

I can feel my eyes start to burn with tears and I don’t want them to. I don’t know how he can think I’m not a fucked-up girl after how I treated him, but then Neil has never known me the way Alan does. It was Alan who said that to me—you’re a pretty fucked-up girl—but he said it for a good reason, to try to help me, back when he used to care about me.