“You’re perfect. You’re good-hearted and pretty and loyal and fun. You have a good job. Any guy would kill to have a girlfriend like you.” She exhales a laugh. “Me? I’m just a hot mess.”
“Literally,” I say, smiling.
She snorts. Actually laughs. Doesn’t get offended. That’s new.
Then, out of nowhere, she starts talking.
About growing up without a father. About a mom who worked all the time. About being the pretty girl in school with holes in her socks and clothes that smelled faintly like detergent and something else because they had to haul everything to the laundromat.
“I grew up poor,” she says plainly. “Down South. On the bayou.”
She stares at the street like she’s watching it all again.
“Sometimes we were so broke, we’d go down to the creek and catch crawfish for dinner. My mom would fry them up and pretend it was camping.” She lets out a small, embarrassed laugh. “I know it sounds dumb.”
“It’s not dumb,” I say immediately. “We all have something.”
She nods.
“My dad…” I trail off. “He was killed by a drunk driver. Holidays. Long time ago. It’s just been me and my mom since.”
We sit with that for a moment.
Then I sigh. “I’m broke. It’s probably a good thing we don’t go out anymore. I can’t afford it. I’m gonna have to get another job.”
“Me too,” she says quietly.
I think about the stacks of bills I saw that day. The secret I kept.
I am loyal, I remind myself. I never told anyone. I don’t even know if Ethan knows.
“We should find second jobs,” I say. “Instead of going out at night, we work nights. Not—” I grimace. “Not like that. Hostessing. Bar backing. I’ve got friends with connections.”
Sage nods slowly. “Whatever we do, we do it together. It’s safer. We take the T together.”
“I might have to sell my car,” I admit. “I can’t afford the payments.”
She looks at me.
“What were you thinking buying a Jeep Grand Cherokee?” she asks gently.
“I thought three hundred a month wasn’t that much,” I say, half laughing, half horrified. “Student loans. Credit cards. Even living at home—I can’t save a dime.”
We sit there, single girls, iced coffee melting between us, realizing adulthood hit harder than we thought.
And for the first time since summer ended, it doesn’t feel quite as lonely.
Because whatever comes next?—
We’re not doing it alone.
CHAPTER 22
ETHAN
“You gonna say something,” Tony says, “or you just gonna stare at her like she’s about to sink?”
I blink and look up.
