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  Stupid.

  “Carter, you’re back,” Julia yells across the room, a happy smile on her face.

  At least this one’s real, not like the fake one she gave me before I left. I knew she was putting on a show for me, and I let her. I thought she might need some alone time, but I should have listened to my gut and stayed with her.

  Shit.

  “Why are you standing there? Come join me. Now the party can really start.” She still hollers, most of her words a slurry mess.

  A quick scan of the coffee table in front of her confirms my suspicions that Julia was busy while I was gone. Not only has she found every imaginable sugar source that could possibly be in this house, but she also found the wine stash. Looks like she almost made it through a whole bottle.

  Despite the situation, I have to laugh, making her smile even wider.

  “What are you doing, Jules?” I walk over to the couch and sit next to her.

  I try to take away the sizeable wine glass in her hand, but it doesn’t go unnoticed, and she snags it right back, giving my hand a soft slap.

  “Get your own glass, Carter.” She sticks out her tongue, and I roll my eyes. She’s so damn cute like this.

  Most of our time growing up, the three of us—Ollie, Jules, and I—were a tight-knit group, which made it easy to keep watch over her alcohol consumption at parties in her teenage years.

  I guess I have a drunken Julia for tonight, which is okay since she’s usually a happy drunk. A bit silly sometimes and too impulsive but in a good mood.

  “Have you talked to your brother?” I hope the change of subject might sober her up some, or at least make her put down the glass.

  She nods and her whole body moves with the simple gesture. Wine sloshes dangerously close to the edge of the glass, but of course, Miss Tipsy doesn’t notice. She might make an even bigger mess by dumping the whole glass on herself.

  “Yup. He told me all about his awesome girlfriend and their last-minute trip. Apparently, he was going to call me tomorrow to update me on everything. I explained my sudden homeless situation to him and that I’d be staying here for a while. I think he said something about calling you soon about it too. Not sure what you have to do with any of it, but yeah.” She finally takes a breath, but her mouth opens again a second later. “So how was your date?”

  I’m still stuck on the part where Ollie is about to call me to talk about his sister staying here. It will undoubtedly be all about taking good care of his sister and making sure her stupid ex doesn’t come anywhere near her while also keeping my hands off her. It’s been a while since we’ve had that conversation.

  Ollie used to give the keep-your-hands-off-my-sister speech all the time to our friends. I never told him, but so did I, imitating his big-brother persona. In hindsight, I wonder if there was more to it than I thought back then.

  Not that I really know why he feels the need to remind me of that every so often.

  “Carter, you keep zoning out.” Julia punches me in the arm, successfully spilling half her wine on both of us in the process. “Oops. Sorry,” she mutters to herself while putting the glass on the table.

  Finally.

  Nope. I take that back. Looks like she put it down so she can take off her wet shirt.

  Oh, for the love of . . .

  That leaves her in a thin tank top and nothing else.

  Nothing, as in no bra.

  Shit. Where the hell is her bra? And when have I ever wondered that about a girl?

  Before I stare at her boobs again like a moron, I quickly get up to walk to my room. “Let me get new shirts.” After switching my own shirt, I go back to the living room with an extra T-shirt for my new roommate.

  My roommate. How things have changed in the matter of a few hours.

  My childhood-bestie-turned-total-hottie—drunk off her ass, apparently not caring that I can see the outline of her hardened nipples—is now my new roommate, in her brother’s place, who also happens to be my best friend and business partner. That about sums it up.

  Crap.

  I want to turn around so I can shove my fist in my mouth and bite on it to relieve some tension, but I hand her the shirt instead.

  Of course, she shakes her head at my outstretched hand.

  “I’m fine. I’m already wearing a shirt, see.” She pulls the top away from her body, exposing even more skin in the process.

  Somebody, please save me.

  “Jules, that’s barely a shirt.” I give her a pointed look, hoping to convey a whole lot of things I don’t want to say out loud. She does not need to know that I think she’s hot as hell, even while sloppy drunk and sad. Nope.

  We have a silent staring contest, and just when I’m about to say something, her expression turns grim and she snatches the T-shirt out of my hand, roughly pulling it over her head. “Right. Too much skin. Especially this body.” She points to herself with disdain. “Nothing like the girls I’ve seen you with.”

  What the hell?

  Before I can react, she grabs the wine glass and chugs down the content in one big gulp.

  Why do I feel like I just did something wrong?

  I sit back down and rub the back of my neck while Jules silently finishes the rest of the wine bottle before focusing her attention on the goodies on the table. I’m not sure where she found all that food, but it looks like half the candy aisle puked all over the coffee table.

  Drawing in a breath and releasing it, I look at her out of the corner of my eye, wondering if she’s still mad. “So, what are we watching?”

  She shrugs one shoulder. “Not sure. Looks like some reality show.”

  “Ah.” I look at the TV, the muted TV. “You don’t like listening to it, though?”

  I look at her when I feel her gaze on me, or more so her glare.

  One thing’s for sure: she’s got that down pat. It’s mean, and my balls might have just shriveled a little.

  Retreat, Carter. Retreat. We’re in the middle of a damn minefield.

  After a few more minutes of staring at the silent TV—watching a couple fight at the grocery store—I turn to the side when I hear quiet sniffles.

  “Oh, Jules.” I sigh. “Please don’t cry.”

  “Why did he say those awful things, Carter?” Her voice breaks, and my chest aches for her.

  Her stare is distant, tear after tear spilling over the rim of her lower eyelids. It’s probably the saddest I’ve ever seen her, and it makes me want to hunt down Nate right now.

  “Because he’s a fucking moron, that’s why.” I shake my head in disgust and open my arms. “Come here.”

  Julia leaps into them, and I cradle her on my lap, slowly smoothing my hand over her hair and down her back until the loud sobs finally subside. I absolutely loathe seeing her like this.

  I wish I could take away her pain. Julia is one of the sweetest, funniest girls I know, and she shouldn’t believe the lies that asswipe said to her. How does she not know that?

  We stay like this for a long time, and I know I’m probably enjoying her nearness more than I should. Oliver would kill me if he found us like this.

  “It’s going to be okay.” I’ve repeated the same words so many times, they’re almost like a mantra. “He doesn’t deserve you, never did and never will.”

  Her fingers brush over her face, probably trying to wipe away the remnants of her little meltdown. Somehow, I expect her to move away, but instead, she snuggles closer into my chest, pulling her knees up to her body, forming a little ball.

  Maybe I should be the one pulling away, but I can’t bring myself to do so. A few minutes later, her breathing steadies.

  It’s as though the only place she feels safe is in my arms, and I’m sitting here smiling like an idiot.

  Clearly, there’s something wrong with me.

  I sigh, keeping my voice down. “Oh, Jules.”

  When I stand up with her in my arms, careful not to jostle her too much, I’m reminded of when I was ten. She was eight and f
ell out of a tree, and since there was no one else around that day, I had to carry her back to the house. Back then, to my scrawny little self, it felt like she weighed a million pounds. Now, she feels light and tiny in my arms, definitely not like a burden. It’s like she belongs there, and I like that.

  I walk to her room she’s already managed to make a mess of and gently put her down on the bed. “Things will be better in the morning.”

  After covering her with the blanket, I look at her for a few moments. Just as I’m about to turn and leave, she grabs my arm and pulls on it.

  “Please don’t leave me alone, Freddy.”

  My body freezes instantly at her pleading words. She hasn’t called me that in a very long time. She gave me the silly nickname forever ago when we had our little Scooby Doo obsession. It was our thing since Oliver refused to be named after the characters.

  Hearing the name leave her lips does weird things to my stomach.

  Maybe I ate something wrong earlier.

  “Don’t worry, Daphne. I’m right here.” I’m not even sure she can hear my whispered reply, but I don’t care. I climb into bed and lie down beside her.

  After a minute, her breathing evens out again, her hand still holding my arm tightly.

  Maybe I should leave. If I was worried about Oliver seeing her on my lap, this would be way, way worse.

  Despite that, I relax next to her and close my eyes, because, quite frankly, this feels incredibly right.

  Chapter Three

  Julia

  My head. Painkillers. I need a painkiller in the worst way. Like yesterday.

  Even though my eyes feel like they have fifty-pound weights on them, I somehow manage to open them slowly, relieved it’s still dark outside, and I don’t have to deal with the bright sun shining in my face. A quick glance at the digital clock on the bedside table tells me it’s five in the morning. Good enough to get up and make some coffee. I have a feeling I might need a lot today.

  Pushing the blanket aside, I try to lift my upper body as slowly as possible. I freeze when I’m held back by a weight on my belly, making it impossible for me to move any farther.

  What the heck?

  There’s an arm slung across my midsection, and I’m trying hard to boot up my brain. I need to know what happened. But, I draw a complete blank. Most of last night is fuzzy at best.

  I finally manage to lift my head enough to peek past the fluffed-up pillow next to me and stare straight into Carter’s sleeping face.

  A quick double take of our bodies assures me we’re both fully dressed—thank goodness—even though I’m not entirely sure why I’m wearing his shirt. Not that I think I’d forget having sex with Carter.

  I don’t even want to think about that though since the thought alone would be a disaster on way too many levels. The pounding in my head gets louder, clearing my brain from all other thoughts.

  “Carter.” I keep my voice down, mostly for my own benefit, and push at his arm as hard as I can muster.

  Instead of waking up, he only grunts and turns his head to the other side, his arm still firm around my middle.

  Somehow, I manage to wiggle out from under his embrace, and after a quick bathroom break and taking some painkillers, I head to the kitchen for a much-needed caffeine fix.

  Before I know it, I’m a few cups in, cuddled up on the couch with the sun shining brightly outside, closing my favorite photo album of my parents—the one from their college years. Where they met and fell head over heels in love with each other, inseparable from that moment on. I always wondered, and maybe even hoped, if I’d find my other half that young too.

  Instead, all this crap happened, and I’m probably as far away from the love of my life as I could be.

  I blow out a loud breath, suddenly bothered by that thought.

  Even though my brain still feels a little fuzzy, it works enough to attempt and analyze my life and how I got to this point.

  Dumped by my boyfriend of two and a half years and somewhat homeless, because I’m not planning on really moving in with my brother and Carter.

  Getting embarrassingly drenched in the rain, followed by the most awful entrance back into Carter’s life I could have imagined. Getting high on sugar and drunk off my ass.

  The weirdest thing is, I’m not heartbroken. Yes, Nate’s words hurt me, but I feel like I’m done crying over him. I want to say I’m surprised, but I think I secretly knew I never fully gave him my heart. Maybe not even more than a teeny tiny bit as it turns out. It was nice with him, but maybe it turned more into a convenience over time than anything else.

  What screams the loudest in my head is probably the disappointment, the way my stomach clenches thinking about the last few years and how I let myself go. It’s as if I’ve been . . . complacent. Things with Nate were okay, so everything else in my life was okay as well. I’ve lacked . . . luster.

  Turns out, Nate might have had some good points after all, and a sudden determination to change my life for the better hits me, filling me with a new kind of high.

  Since my laptop is still on the coffee table from last night, I snatch it and open a new Word document. After staring at the blinking cursor for a while, my fingers start flying over the keyboard like they’re on fire, the constant flow of caffeine keeping my mind awake and going, despite my slight hungover state. Before I know it, the page is filled with random notes and a small list at the bottom. I stare at it for a moment before jumping into action.

  Two minutes later, I speed-walk across the living room back to my bedroom, armed with two coffees in hand, and my laptop tucked under my arm.

  Ready to go to war.

  Well, something like that.

  It feels good to be productive and active, and I’m hyped up on life. Okay, it’s probably more the caffeine talking, but still.

  I march into the room and plop down on the bed beside sleeping beauty.

  Growing up with him, I got to watch him change from a cute, gangly kid to a flirty and cheeky teenager. But grown-up Carter, he’s something else entirely.

  Without a doubt, he’s all man now. Tall and filled out in all the right places, a confident air about him that makes people take notice of him.

  He’s handsome and deliciously sexy, even I have to admit that.

  Without overthinking it, I use the next few minutes to study him silently. His dark-blond hair has gotten longer since the last time I saw him a few months ago, now unruly falling over his eyes. If he doesn’t brush it out of his face, it covers up his beautiful blue-gray eyes. To some they might seem boring, but to me they represent the ocean he loves so much, the ocean we all love so much.

  They’re my favorite part of him, and every time they zoom in on me, I want to let out a little sigh. Not just for me, but for all women across the world, and surely plenty of men too.

  Watching him, being this close to him, brings back memories. From a time where I was happier, where life didn’t seem so dull and sad. A life where the people I loved the most hadn’t left me yet, and I didn’t have to figure out how to manage life without losing myself in the process.

  Now, Carter represents everything good that happened before then, and I enjoy basking in the joy he brings me with his presence. After my parents died in that awful accident, it hurt too much to think about them, to think about anything from the past. Getting to this point where I’m able to think about them and setting foot in their house again didn’t happen overnight and took a lot of therapy sessions, but the pain has subsided some and is now mostly linked to positive memories.

  “You don’t think it’s creepy to stare at me while I’m sleeping?” Carter’s voice is raspy and full of sleep, immediately snapping me out of my thoughts.

  I huff out a breath, letting myself fall back on the bed to stare at the white ceiling instead of him, biting the inside of my cheek to refrain from smiling. “I think it’s rude to pretend to be asleep when you’re not.”

  I missed this banter with him. I missed him, plain and
simple.

  The truth that I made a mess of my life these past few years hits me hard, and I know it will take me a while to work through this.

  I met Nate shortly after my parents’ death, and the years I spent with him, I can now see I virtually disappeared from my old life. My best friend, Michelle, is the only one who was able to stick with me, and it was anything but easy to say goodbye to my roommate and confidante of so long last week when she left to be an au pair in Australia for the next year.

  My brother was a whole different entity, and I only saw him on occasion, mostly when we had our combined therapy sessions. Once those ended, we started meeting up in places I deemed safe. This house, our parents’ house, didn’t feel safe. Not for a very long time. It was too much for me. Still is sometimes, but I can handle it.

  Most of the year surrounding my parents’ death is a blur. I spent it mostly at the apartment I shared with Michelle for a few years and the therapist’s office. I took a year off school, and once I went back for my sophomore year, I met Nate. He was nice, and for some reason, he felt safe, maybe because he didn’t know the old me. With him I could pretend everything was okay.

  Now, I feel like everything I avoided those years—this house, my brother at large, and Carter—were actually missing pieces of me.

  Maybe that’s why it feels like old times with Carter because everything is clicking back in place.

  He clears his throat, and when he speaks, the smile is easy to detect in his voice. “Color me surprised, but you’re a lot more chipper this morning than I thought you’d be.”

  It’s so easy to smile with him, his company effortless. “I might have had some coffee.”

  “Define some.”

  “I didn’t really count, but I think I’m somewhere halfway through the second pot.” The words flow out of my mouth in a rush before I look over at him.

  He shakes his head as much as he can with his head still smushed into the pillow. “Of course. You and your brother both have an affinity for caffeine.”

  “Anyway. I got some for you too.” We both sit up, and I grab one of the mugs from the nightstand to hand it to him before grabbing my laptop. “And I need your help.”