“So,” Devon said, clearing her throat, “why were you in so late from work?”

“I’m working on some foreign investments.  They like to have someone there to work the markets when they’re open.  We alternate who gets the worst hours,” he said with a shrug as if this all made sense to her.

She knew nothing about stocks, except that her parents had invested well and that had paid for her college education.

“Sounds boring,” she told him honestly.

“Definitely not as interesting as stripping,” he said with mischief in his eyes.

Devon laughed and swatted at him.  It felt nice to laugh and feel this carefree.  “Oh, stop it!”

“Tell me, do the men cry in your corner?  When they say, ‘no touch,’ do they mean no touch?” he asked with humor in his voice.

“Crying is a definite,” Devon said, playing his game.  “And the no-touch rule only applies to those I don’t want to touch me.”

She couldn’t figure out why her voice changed or when the carefree had shifted away from carefree.  Somehow, her teasing had strayed without her permission, and her body was now responding to his assessment of her.  She didn’t know why, but it was like, all of a sudden, she realized she was attracted to him.  He was her best friend’s boyfriend and pretty much the nicest guy she had ever met.  Why was she allowing herself to be attracted to him?

Garrett laughed at her playfulness, and she tried not to read into the edge in his voice.  He certainly wasn’t attracted to her.  She was reading into it.  It wasn’t there.  She had just had a rough night and was exhausted.  That was all.

“I, uh…think I should go to bed,” Devon said with a smile.  Even if she was reading into it, she needed to be far away from this moment.

“Are you sleeping any better?” he asked, keeping her from her departure.

She nodded her head even though it wasn’t the truth.  “Much.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

His gaze never left her, and she tried not to squirm.

“Night,” Devon whispered, easing out of the room as fast as she could.

As soon as she closed her bedroom door behind her, she rushed to her bed and threw herself against it.  What the fuck was she thinking?  First Brennan, and now Garrett?  Was she out of her fucking mind?

She couldn’t get a grasp on it.  Why was she acting like this?  She had gone a month without sex…only a month.  It hadn’t been that long of a period of time without Reid.

Her body was betraying her mind.  She wanted to scold herself for acting like a hormone-crazed teenager.  Was she such a carnal animal that she couldn’t go a month without wanting to fuck everyone who got close enough to her?  It didn’t make sense.  She refused for it to make sense.

Devon stuffed her earbuds into her ears and blasted Dustin’s music as loud as she could manage.  It had always had a calming effect.  She let the angsty music rush over her body with its anger and rebellion seeping deep into her pores.  She had initiated her own rebellion and needed to see it through.  She couldn’t be distracted by anything.  There was no way she could risk bringing anyone down with her.

She’d had the strength to propel herself into action—to finally leave.  She now needed the strength to stay away.  Devon couldn’t help but remember how it felt to be back in St. Louis, helpless to her own desire for acceptance.  As much as she had tried to escape everything that had happened, her life pinwheeled her through time and space.  She felt upside-down and right-side-up.  She felt lost and so alone yet completely surrounded.

All she wanted to do was to give her body a release and free herself from her own trap.  But she wouldn’t let herself.  She wouldn’t orient herself in that way.  If she did, then she would only be accepting her attraction.  It would be better for her body to ache and her mind to remember that she would have to go without… she could go without.  She wasn’t beholden to her body’s demands.

She could initiate her own rebellion.

THOSE NEXT TWO weeks were the best Devon had experienced since coming to Chicago.  Working at Jenn’s was so taxing that when she came back to the apartment, all she could do was fall into bed, exhausted.  And she hadn’t had one nightmare during that whole time.

She worried that once the routine started kicking in—when she didn’t feel the constant pain in her feet, or the rush to always be moving, or the ring of orders in her brain—the dreams would return.  She didn’t want to think about it.  She preferred to believe that she had made the right choice, that the depression was sliding off her, and that she was improving.  Devon didn’t want to face the alternative.

Either way, her attitude was much improving with her mind occupied.

The main thing holding her back was that Hadley still hadn’t gotten over what had happened.  Not that Devon could blame her.  She had basically blackmailed Hadley into allowing her to stay.  But Hadley didn’t know why Devon needed to stay.  If Hadley knew, then she likely wouldn’t have been as pissed.  Devon just couldn’t tell her.  Even before Hadley had avoided speaking with her for nearly a month, Devon hadn’t felt comfortable telling Hadley about what had happened in St. Louis.  Now with the strain in their relationship, it seemed even less likely.

When Hadley had found out she was working at Jenn’s, it had been a disaster.  Hadley had walked into the restaurant with her normal bounce in her step, slapped her ass right down on a seat at the bar, and ordered the chicken from Brennan.  Devon had walked out of the kitchen, balancing a tray of drinks on her shoulder.  As she had walked to the booth to deliver the drinks, she caught Hadley’s eye.  All of her bounce had disappeared.  She had muttered something to Brennan that Devon couldn’t hear before she had stood and strode right out of the place.

Brennan had glanced between Hadley’s retreating form and Devon.  “You guys in a fight?”

Devon had shrugged and averted her gaze.  She had walked back into the kitchen, but Brennan followed her.

“You going to tell me what that was all about?” he had asked.

“No.”  She had placed the tray down and loaded it back up with food for another table.

“Aren’t you guys best friends?” Brennan had prodded.

“Yes,” she had answered simply.

“Devon,” he had said, reaching out and grabbing her arm, “is everything alright?”

That had become his mantra.  She didn’t know how many times he had asked her that or how many times she had lied.  She was fine.  Fine.

Hadley hadn’t shown up in Jenn’s since that day, or at least, she hadn’t shown up anytime Devon was working.  In fact, Devon had only seen her in passing at the apartment, too.  It was like Hadley was avoiding the apartment as much as Devon had before she had gotten a job.  Devon had tried stopping Hadley to talk, but she always pretended to be busy before she immediately left.  Devon worried that she would go the rest of the summer without seeing her friend.  What she had done was wrong, but she wanted to help Hadley if only Hadley would let her.

THE DAY THAT Hadley walked back into Jenn’s Restaurant, Devon was so surprised that she nearly dropped her tray.  She had been lugging that thing around for how long, and she almost lost control of it?  When Amy, the other waitress on duty, glared at her, Devon quickly recovered.

Devon slowly tried to go about her business and not pay any extra attention to her friend.  She wasn’t a particularly perceptive person to begin with, but Devon noticed everything about Hadley that day.  Her business suit was as pristine as ever.  Her blonde hair had been tied up into a French twist at the back of her scalp.  Her makeup had been carefully applied.  She looked perfect.