“I was, uh, hoping I could meet up with you tomorrow so I could get my assignments from you.” Man, this is awkward. We’re standing in the middle of this shitty diner, where Des and Wade can overhear every single thing I’m saying to Chelsea the innocent tutor with the blue, blue eyes and the pink, pink lips. They don’t even know what’s going on. I’m going to hear an endless amount of crap once we leave this place.

“Tomorrow? Friday?” Her delicate brows draw downward and her entire face scrunches up like she’s adorably confused. Which she is. Adorable.

Dude. Cut with the “adorable” shit.

“Tomorrow is Thursday,” I remind her.

“No, today is Thursday, considering it’s almost four in the morning.”

“Right.” She makes me feel like a dumbass. I don’t like it. “Can we meet later this afternoon, then? I need to get those assignments, especially if we’re not going to see each other again until Monday.”

A lot can happen between now and Monday. Shit, I can’t even begin to consider all the possibilities. I feel like I’m walking on a tightrope, weaving this way and that, just waiting for the right amount of wind to send me toppling over and plummeting to my death.

This is what my life has turned into. The push and pull. The wanting to do right and instead falling into the same old habit of doing wrong. I want to tell Fable the truth. I want to tell Mom to leave me alone.

I know, deep in my heart, I will do none of that. I will keep going. Keep up the pretense of right and wrong. Of living two lives. One where I’m the good brother who does what Drew and Fable want me to do. And then there’s the other, where I’m the “good” son who slips his mom some money when she comes around asking for it, which is all the time. Then smokes a joint with her and begs her to buy him some beer.

Sometimes, I really hate myself.

“I have class all afternoon.” She sniffs and lifts her chin, all haughty virginal princess. I have no idea if she really is a virgin, but she just screams untouchable to me. “And I have a tutoring appointment at five.”

“How about after?” I chance a glance over my shoulder to find my friends watching me, curiosity written all over their drunk, tired faces. I turn back to face Chelsea to find her studying me, like she’s trying to figure me out.

Good luck with that. I can’t even figure me out.

She heaves out a big sigh, which expands her chest, making me notice her tits. They seem decent enough, but I can’t really tell with that ugly uniform she has on. And I hadn’t really checked them out when I first met her, though I had scoped out her ass.

It was nice. Looked real good in those tight jeans she wore, too.

“If you can make it quick, I’ll meet you then. Say around six fifteen? Same room we met in before?”

Relief floods me, making me feel like a pussy. I don’t give a shit about my grades, but Fable is gonna kill me if I don’t get my act together. “I can do that.”

“Okay.” She takes a step backward, her foot poised to turn around. “I’ll see you later, then.”

“See ya,” I say to her retreating back, not moving at all as I watch her walk away, pushing through the swinging door that leads into the kitchen.

I hear my friends snicker behind me and I turn to see Wade and Des climbing out of the booth, stumbling over their feet. The food in their bellies did nothing to calm their drunken asses down and for whatever stupid reason, that pisses me off. I wasn’t as wasted as they were when we first got here and my buzz is pretty much gone. Finding Chelsea working here helped take it away.

My drunken buzz. Seeing her, touching her arm even for that brief moment, gave me another sort of buzz I’d rather ignore.

“So who is this chick?” Wade approaches me first, followed by Des.

I shoot them both a look that says shut the hell up, and we exit the diner into the cold, early fall night. The house I share with Wade isn’t too far from the downtown area since we live pretty close to campus, and we start our trek down the side street that leads to our neighborhood. Des will crash on our couch like he always does.

“Remember how I said my counselor wanted to meet with me?” I ask, stuffing my hands in my jeans pockets. I blow out a breath that I can see and hunch my neck lower in my hoodie to ward off the chill.

“Yeah.” Des makes a skeptical noise. “What the hell was that all about? Like, whose counselor ever wants to meet with a student?”

“Is she hot?” Wade asks. “Don’t tell me the sexy little waitress is your counselor, dude. ’Cos she’s hot.”

Irritation fills my veins, making my blood ignite. “No, the waitress is not my counselor, you dumbass. My counselor’s name is Dolores, and I’m pretty sure she’s two hundred years old.”

“That waitress was nowhere near hot,” Des says, kicking at a rock. It skitters across the broken sidewalk and lands on the side of the road. “Did you see what she was wearing? Black polyester sucks.”

“How the hell do you know that she’s wearing polyester? What, are you in fashion design now?” Wade sneers.

Fuck. These two love to go round and round. Wade is my oldest friend. Des is one of my newer friends. They claim to like each other, but sometimes …

I wonder.

“Knock it off,” I tell them both, not in the mood. When am I ever in the mood to hear them fight?

“So who is she?” Des asks. “The not-hot waitress wearing polyester.”

I wouldn’t call her hot. But she’s definitely not ugly. She’s … sweet. All clean, wholesome innocence. I bet if I looked close enough, she’d have a sprinkle of freckles across her nose. “I met with my counselor, and Coach and Drew and Fable were there.”

“Your brother-in-law was there?” Des’s mouth hangs open. He’s in awe of Drew. Wade’s not, because he’s known him forever, but Des and I only became friends early in our freshman year of college. The fact that my brother-in-law plays for the 49ers sends most guys into a dumbstruck stupor.

“I’m failing a few classes,” I say, my voice grim. “They got me a tutor. The waitress?”

“Is your tutor,” Wade finishes for me, shaking his head. “Man, you need to keep clean. No more dope for a while.”

Weed. It’s been my problem for years. I’ve been smoking since I was in junior high, back when we lived with my mom and she didn’t give a shit what we did. Once Fable took over, she forced me to quit. Drew made me want to quit. But then …

I fell back into my bad habits. I can’t help it that I like how I feel when I’m high. Nothing gets me down. My troubles don’t weigh heavily on my soul. And I’ve got them. Troubles. Most of them I created myself.

Some I didn’t ask for at all. One, specifically, is my mom. She’s like that fly that keeps hovering around you and no matter how much you swat it away, it comes back. Bigger and louder than ever.

Yeah. That’s her. A nagging, fat, irritating-as-fuck fly.

“You probably shouldn’t have gone out tonight, either,” Des says.

Since when did these two idiots turn responsible? “Listen, I’m gonna have to lay low for a while. Catch up on my homework, retake a few tests, and bring my grades up.” I can’t believe I’m saying this. I was totally against it earlier. Only because the tutoring sessions were screwing with my work schedule, and I need that money so Fable doesn’t know I’m giving most of it to Mom.

But I talked to my boss earlier, before we went bar hopping. Got everything straightened out and a new schedule. I can do all of it. No problem. The tutoring is temporary anyway. Once I get my grades back up, I won’t need Chelsea’s help any longer.

“You’re gonna be busy,” Wade says. “No time for chicks.”

“When do I ever make time for chicks?”

“A few weeks ago, when you brought that one girl back to the house. I know you thought I was asleep on the couch, but I heard you bang her brains out,” Wade says with a laugh.