“Way to go, Jess. You almost killed peace.”

Before I could retort something nasty, there was a knock on the back door. Riley went and opened it, and I saw Robin was standing there, wearing short shorts and a sparkly blue tank top. I had texted her and she was there to deliver the art piece.

“Hey,” Riley said, in a voice of surprise and intrigue. “Can I help you?”

I realized that he had never met Robin. I also realized that Robin was an exotic brunette. Which made me realize that asking her to come over was a very stupid and idiotic idea.

To her credit she didn’t drool over Riley’s chest the way he was drooling over hers. She just said, “Hi, I’m Robin. Is Jessica here?”

“It’s for you,” he said over my shoulder. But without moving out of the way, he held out his hand. “I’m Riley. It’s really nice to meet you.”

Gross. I nudged him out of the way. “Hey, Robin. Come in. Riley, move your ass.”

Robin skirted him, looking curiously at me, the canvas in her hands. “I can’t stay, but here it is.”

I took the canvas and turned it around. It said YUM YUM, spelled out in candy wrappers on a gray background. It was perfect.

“I decided just paint was boring.” She gave a shrug. “It may be too cute for a house of guys, but I couldn’t resist.”

“It’s awesome,” I told her. “It goes perfectly next to the peace sign because they’re using similar mediums in similar colors. Don’t you think so, Riley?”

“Sure.” He nodded. “Though I can’t guarantee Jayden won’t pull those wrappers off hoping there is still a speck of chocolate in them.”

I scoffed. “He wouldn’t do that.”

“You haven’t seen him around sugar. He inhales it like an anteater.”

While I played around with placement on the wall, Riley put his old coffee in the microwave and heated it up. “Thanks for making that, Robin,” he said. “That was really nice. And Jess and I are just going to get some lunch.”

We were?

“Do you want to come with us?”

No. Say no, I tried to mentally project to Robin. I probably would have a classic college girl meltdown if the first guy I’d been genuinely attracted to in three years hit on one of my best friends.

Fortunately, I had told Robin in my beer buzz the night before that I liked Riley. And she knew the girl code. She shook her head. “Oh, no thanks. I have to work today and I have a ton of stuff to do before that.”

Yay, Robin. I owed her a beer for that. Hell, a case of beer. “Oh, that sucks.” I paused for a beat. “But thanks, you’re awesome. I’ll text you later.” So get the F out.

She grinned at me. “You’re welcome.” She reached over and gave me a hug, which was weird, because I didn’t do hugs and she knew that. But it was a ploy to whisper in my ear. “Holy hotness. Total vag explosion.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Are you two going to make out?” Riley asked, sounding hopeful.

I looked around for something to throw at him but came up short. The room was too clean to be risking breaking anything, anyway.

“Let me walk you out,” Riley said to Robin when she moved toward the door. “I don’t want any of the neighbors getting any ideas.”

Funny how he didn’t seem to have a problem with me coming and going on my own. But there wasn’t anything I could say that wouldn’t sound insane and I couldn’t exactly follow them either. So I just stayed in the kitchen and felt bitchy. The room looked amazing, like a hundred and ten percent improvement with the new cabinet knobs and all the other touches, and yet I was discontent. Maybe my mother was right—I was never grateful.

He was gone a long time. “Do you really want lunch?” I asked when he finally came back in, smelling like smoke. “Or was that just a way to try and get Robin to hang out longer?”

“Yes, I want lunch. I’m starving. The whiskey burned a hole in my gut and I need to fill it.” He started down the hallway to his bedroom. “Your friend is cute.”

“I know,” I yelled bitterly from the doorway of the kitchen. “And she’s single,” I added, just because I was a masochist and I wanted to see his reaction to that information. And maybe because if he was going to hit on her, I just wanted to get it over with.

“That’s a shame, I guess. Unless she wants to be single, then that’s good.” He reemerged from his room, wearing an AC/DC shirt.

“I have no idea what she wants,” I said, trying for dignified but sounding more like I had a stick up my ass.

“Are you okay?” he asked, sounding dubious. “I think you must be hungry, too. You sound like Jayden when he’s forgotten to eat.”

I couldn’t really argue with that. “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine? And if you want to hook up with Robin, go for it, she has a great body.”

Now why the hell did I say that last part? It was a rookie mistake I saw girl after girl make, and I had always rolled my eyes at their naiveté. Never let your emotion dictate what comes out of your mouth. It was a lesson straight out of Guy 101. The minute you did that, you handed control over to them.

Damn it.

His eyebrows shot up. “You want me to hook up with your friend? That’s very generous of you. I appreciate you looking for a landing spot for my dick.”

“Don’t be crude,” I chastised.

“You’re the one who is suggesting I hook up with her five minutes after I met her.”

“Never mind.” I went to my room to get my purse and threw it over my head so that it dangled on my hip. I was wearing an old shirt with peanut butter and jelly high-fiving each other and basketball shorts I worked out in, but I didn’t give a shit. It wasn’t like putting on cuter clothes was going to change the outcome of this day.

“Are you jealous of your friend? Because that seems like a bad foundation for a friendship.”

“Why would I be jealous of her? And what do you know about friendship?” Verbal vomit officially commencing. I grabbed a cookie out of the Mystery Machine and crammed it in my mouth just to shut myself up.

“Apparently nothing.”

We went and got sub sandwiches, and Riley ate his footlong and half of my six-inch, along with two bags of chips and a soft drink that was roughly the size of my dorm room wastebasket.

“Do you have any pictures of your family on your phone?” I asked, an idea for the long hallway to the bedrooms popping into my head.

“What do you mean?”

“You know, like snapshots of the boys. Ones where no one is flipping off the camera.”

He grinned. “That may be a tall order.” But he dutifully pulled out his phone and started scrolling through pictures. “Here’s one of Easton on his birthday. I got him a giant cupcake.” He held it out to me.

Easton was smiling, his dark eyes shining, as he held his giant cupcake up to his mouth, about to take a bite. “That’s perfect.”

“Here’s Jayden with Rory.”

Jayden had his arm slung over Rory’s shoulder, and they both were smiling. Again, I felt a twinge of envy. “That’s cute.”

Then Riley’s smile fell off his face as he flipped through more pictures.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s my mom.” He studied the screen of his phone. “I know it sounds weird, but I do miss her in a way.” He turned the phone to me. “Maybe it’s because I remember her before the drugs, but she wasn’t a bad person. Not like my dad. He’s just a dick. But my mom was just, well, an addict.”

I thought of the picture of her in his bedroom at her prom, and I looked at the picture he was showing me. She looked shrunken, fragile, hardly any bigger than Easton, as she pulled him against her in a hug. He was making a funny face, but she was smiling, like she’d been caught in a laugh, her mouth open to show missing bottom teeth, her skin sallow. But there was genuine happiness there in her eyes.

“I understand,” I told him. “She’s your mom. I’m sure she loved all of you.”

“She did. She just couldn’t stay away from the smack. And it killed her.” He swiped past the picture. “So why did you ask, anyway?” he said, brisk, shaking more chips onto his sub wrapper.