“Want some?” she asked me, dishing up rice and vegetables onto four plates.

“I’m good.”

She switched out plates in the microwave and said, “Then let’s go in the other room. I want to talk to you alone.” She touched Riley’s elbow. “Can you put these in for the boys?”

“Got it.”

I followed her back into the living room, and she sat on the floor by the coffee table. “Sit. I want to talk to you about what the hell is going on.”

I did want to tell her. I wanted to get the awful truth out and ask her what I was supposed to do about Nathan. But I couldn’t. All I could tell her was a small portion of the truth. I looked nervously at the sleeping cousin. “He can hear us. I feel weird talking in front of him.”

“He’s totally out. He just got out after five months in jail and he’s been sleeping for two days.”

“Jail?” I whispered, a little horrified. “For what?” How could she say that so casually, like it was no big deal?

She scooped rice into her mouth. “Fuck me, that is so good.” She closed her eyes and chewed. “I’m going to have to step up the workouts, but I think carbs are worth it.”

I didn’t say anything, sitting down on the floor next to her, drawing my knees up to my chest. I was wearing a sloppy T-shirt, and I dragged it over my bare knees, making a tent, cocooning myself.

“Okay, so what is going on? Seriously. You won’t drink, you won’t go out. You’ve lost weight. You don’t answer my texts. You’re even dressing differently. I’m totally worried about you.”

I was worried about me, too. I couldn’t seem to drag myself out of the anxiety that had been following me around. “I’m moving out of the house as soon as I find a new place to live.”

“What? Why the hell would you do that?”

Tears came to my eyes before I could stop them. “I just have to. I need to stop drinking.”

“But, it’s not like Rory is a big drinker. And I’m sure Kylie would respect it if you said you wanted to chill with the alcohol.” She looked hurt. “We would never pressure you to party, God, that’s so not us.”

“I know.” It made me feel even worse. “It’s just I feel like I need to be alone for a while. I was even thinking about moving home and being a commuter. It’s not that far to my parents’, only like a forty-five-minute drive to class.”

“You would seriously want to move home? That just blows my mind.” Jessica stared hard at me, tucking her blond hair behind her ear. “Besides, this is going to leave Rory and Kylie with a whole house to pay for since we’ve both bailed on them. I feel really bad about doing that.”

So did I. But I felt worse about screwing Kylie’s boyfriend. What would I do when Nathan came over to hang out? I couldn’t play it cool, like nothing had happened. I wasn’t drawn that way. “Didn’t Tyler say he wouldn’t mind moving in with Rory?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know if he can actually afford it.” Jessica frowned, picking up her fork. “I guess I can ask him. I guess maybe Nathan could move in there, too, with Kylie. Bill is moving into the engineering frat house.”

I dropped my knees, alarmed. That was not what I wanted to happen. I didn’t want Kylie to become even more dependent and more in love with Nathan.

“This is so weird,” she said. “This is totally not what we planned. It’s like complete roommate shuffle. What happened?”

Rory fell in love with Tyler. Jessica fell in love with Riley. I blacked out and had sex with Nathan.

Not exactly the same happy ending for me. I wanted to tell her so desperately I swallowed hard and clamped my mouth shut. Telling her would only mean she would have to keep a secret from Kylie. From Riley, too. Telling Kylie would only hurt her to appease my guilt.

I couldn’t do it.

Shrugging, I said, “Things change.”

“Robin.”

“What?”

“If you got attacked or something, you would tell me, right? You know you can tell me.” She reached out and touched my arm, expression filled with concern.

And it went from bad to worse. Now she thought I was a victim. I nodded. “I would tell you. It’s nothing like that, I swear.”

“Because it seems like you started acting strange after the party at the Shit Shack. Something is obviously wrong. So if that Aaron guy did something to you, tell me.”

“No, he didn’t.” I shook my head emphatically. Aaron had just been a guy I had danced with, flirted with, kissed. Before he ditched me and somehow I ended up going home with Nathan.

“Did something freaky happen? Did you do something you regret, like anal?”

Not that I was aware of. I couldn’t prevent a shudder. “No. No anal.” Though I did do something I regretted, more than anything else I’d ever done. The person who said that life was too short for regrets clearly had never done something super shitty.

“Jessica!” Jayden called her name from the kitchen. “Can you come here?”

“Yeah, I’ll be right there, buddy.” She set down her fork. “Be right back.”

Jayden was eighteen, but he had Down syndrome, and I knew that Rory and Jessica both cut him a lot of slack. If he asked for attention, they gave it to him, and I was totally grateful for the interruption. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could lie to direct questions.

As Jessica went into the kitchen, the guy on the couch suddenly coughed. I turned and saw dark eyes staring at me. He had rolled onto his back and was sitting up on the arm roll, his hair sticking up in front. My palms got clammy, and I stared back, horrified.

Not only was he completely and totally hot, he had obviously been awake for more than thirty seconds. He looked way too alert to have just opened his eyes.

“Uh, hi. I’m Robin,” I said, my hands starting to shake. What had we said? Nothing incriminating, I didn’t think. I hadn’t admitted anything. Though I had said “anal” out loud and that was awkward enough. All those nasty jokes about prison popped into my head and my cheeks burned.

His expression was inscrutable, but he nodded. “Phoenix.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said, because that’s what you say even if there was zero truth to it. It wasn’t nice to meet him. He was a criminal and I was a lying cheat, and I was way too preoccupied with my own self-hatred to have anything interesting to say to him.

“Yeah. Sure.” He sounded about as enthusiastic as I felt.

Agitated, I sat down on the coffee table next to the couch, wiping my hands on my denim shorts. “Sorry if we woke you up.”

He shrugged. “No big deal.”

I wasn’t sure what to say after that. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and like his cousins, he had tattoos covering his chest and arms. The one that caught my attention was the bleeding heart. It looked severed in two, the blood draining down his flesh toward his abdomen. It was beautiful and creepy and bold. Was it a metaphor? It seemed a little poetic for the average guy, but something about his steady stare suggested he was no ordinary guy. His dark hair stuck up then fell over one eye, so it felt like he had an extra advantage, that he could watch me from behind that cascade of hair.

Jessica hadn’t told me why he had been in jail, and I decided I really didn’t want to know. Phoenix was trouble and trouble was exactly what I was trying to avoid.

“I’m not a big fan of anal either,” he said.

Giving or receiving? I couldn’t tell if he was making fun of me. He didn’t seem to be trying to lighten the mood with a joke for my benefit since he still looked stone-faced. It made me super uncomfortable.

“We thought you were asleep.”

“What difference does it make? You didn’t confess to a crime.”

Thank God. “I don’t like just anyone hearing my personal business. You don’t even know me.”

“You’re right, I don’t.” He threw back the blanket that had been covering him below the waist and he stood up. He was in his underwear, black boxer briefs that clung to his thighs. “Robin.” He added my name at the end like it was an accusation.

His body was lean and wiry, yet muscular. He looked like he worked out constantly but had been born with a raging high metabolism, so he would never be bulky. Every muscle was obvious, the V of his hips so defined it made my mouth thick with saliva in a totally inappropriate way for the situation. He bent over and picked up a pair of shorts off the floor, stepping into them and drawing them up. But he left them partially unzipped and the belt clanked against his thighs as he moved out of the living room and down the hall into the bathroom without another word to me.

I watched him, unnerved. There was something hard about him, mysterious. His name suited him, unusual and intriguing. Annoyed with myself, I went into the kitchen, where Jessica was clearly laying out the situation for Tyler.

“So what are we going to do? Kylie and I were supposed to share, and Rory and Robin each had their own room, but now there’s an empty room completely.”

“Can you guys just break the lease?” Riley asked. “I mean, what difference does it make? Everyone can move out.”

“My dad and Rory’s dad are the ones who signed the lease. I don’t think either one of us needs to piss our dads off any more.”

Riley frowned. “No. That’s no good.” He looked at me. “I guess you should find a replacement, since you’re the one moving out.”

Hovering in the doorway, I crossed my arms over my chest, miserable. “I’ll just move home and I’ll pay my portion of the rent. I can cover it with my paychecks from waitressing.”

I was trying to be fair. To not stick them with either a bigger rent or with a roommate they didn’t know and may not get along with, but Jessica’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.