“This chair taken?” from Douche #3.

Yeah, so not in the mood. Which is why when Douche #1 said, “Want a beer?” I nodded.

So I was risking getting busted for open container. This was the only way I was going to get through the day without being consumed by thoughts of Riley Mann, the swarming bastard. I had a terrible feeling that for the first time in well, ever, I was suffering from the insanity of an unrequited crush. It sucked. Hard.

Fortunately the Douche Trio was smart enough to have their beer disguised in travel mugs. While Douche #2 assured me they were twenty-one, they didn’t want to get kicked out.

“I’m not even twenty-one,” I told him. “So you’re really flirting with danger here.”

“Is that your name?” he asked with a wink. “Danger?”

Oh, God. “Yes. Jessica Danger.” Hell, it kind of suited me. Much more appropriate than Jessica Sweet. We all knew that was an ironic name for me.

Six hours and I’m not sure how many beers later, I let him give me a groping, wet-tongued kiss in the parking lot and I hated myself for it. But I was tired, drunk, confused by my own feelings toward Riley, and it seemed easier to just allow it than to work up a protest. But I did shove him off when he got too enthusiastic.

I felt nothing. I looked at him and I felt absolutely nothing. No attraction. No memory of what his name was or a single word he had spoken to me throughout the day.

“Can I get your digits?” he asked, holding his phone out for me.

“No,” I said shortly, climbing into Robin’s car and slamming the door shut. I locked it and shut my eyes, hot tears behind my lids. What was I doing? And I didn’t cry. I never cried.

He knocked on the window, looking pissed, but I ignored him and he wandered away, probably calculating how many beers he had wasted on a girl who wasn’t going to blow him. My heart wasn’t exactly bleeding for him. I had given zero encouragement and half-assed conversation all day.

Robin got in a second later and threw her beach bag in the backseat. I was wearing denim shorts over my bikini bottoms, but Robin hadn’t even bothered with that. When she turned the car on and the AC cranked on, she flicked it off with a shiver. “Are you okay?” she asked. “You seem totally upset.”

I sniffled, annoyed. God, crying stung my eyes. How did chicks do this all the time? “I’m hungry,” I told her. “Can we go to the gas station? I want a candy bar.”

“Sure.”

Too much sun. Too much beer. Too much time with douchey guys that I wasn’t interested in while I snuck glances on my phone of the picture of the guy I was interested in. Altogether a fail of a day. “I think I owe every girl I’ve ever rolled my eyes at for liking the wrong guy an apology.”

“You didn’t actually like that guy, did you?” Robin asked, startled, pulling out of the water park. “I thought you just drank too much beer.”

“I did. By the way, should you be driving?”

“I only had two beers and the last one was like three hours ago. You dusted me with the drinking.”

“Oh, okay. And no, I did not actually like that guy. I don’t even remember his name. I’m not sure I ever heard him when he told me, that is how little I gave a crap.”

“I think it was Rico.”

I snorted.

“Then who do you like if it isn’t Rico?”

If I hadn’t been buzzed, I never would have admitted it. But I was, so I said glumly, “Riley.”

Robin made a choking sound of horror. “Oh, shit. That’s probably not good.”

“No.” I nodded in agreement as we pulled into the gas station. “It’s idiotic. He treats me like an annoying little sister and I should be glad, really. If I have sex with him, I think my vag would explode.”

Laughing, Robin parked and got out of the car. “I want a drink. And if I were you, I would risk my vagina exploding for one night with that hunk of man meat. Riley is fucking hot. He was tagged in a picture with Rory and Tyler and I felt I needed a bib.”

Tell me about it.

Twenty minutes later Robin dropped me off and I struggled with all the bags. Before we’d hit the water park I had asked her to stop off at a discount home goods store and I had gone accessory shopping for the kitchen, so I had three bags over my right arm, plus a bag full of candy and energy drinks from the gas station and a fast food bag with the remnants of a chicken tender meal from the drive-thru. Having stuffed my face, I was decidedly less drunk, but I wouldn’t have classified myself as sober, which was obvious when I clipped my shin on the coffee table in the dark and ricocheted off the hall wall twice.

“Damn it.” I made it to my room and flicked on the light. I was freezing from still wearing a wet bathing suit so I pulled off my bottoms and slipped into panties and pajama pants. Then yanking my hoodie off the window, I peeled the duct tape off the cuffs and pulled it on over my yellow bikini top, leaving it unzipped. I wanted to snuggle in the warm fabric, to get a hoodie hug. It was old and had been washed a hundred times, a Christmas gift my sophomore year in high school. My mother had threatened to burn it when I had been home on Christmas break, saying it was so faded and threadbare that she wouldn’t even dream of donating it to the homeless shelter. But I loved it and right now, it felt like just what I needed.

Heading back to the kitchen to finish eating, because I didn’t want my room to smell like old fries in the morning, I flicked on the kitchen light and screamed.

“Holy shit!”

Riley was sitting in the kitchen, in what had been the dark until I had turned on the light.

“Oh my God, what are you doing?” I breathed out in relief. “You scared the shit out of me.”

But despite my own alcohol remnants, I could see immediately what he was doing. There was an ashtray on the table with a burning cigarette resting in it, a half-empty glass next to it, and a mostly empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s rounding out the trio. Riley was sitting slack in the chair, his eyes dull, wearing nothing but his black boxer briefs. I wasn’t sure what was more distracting to me—the mostly empty bottle of liquor or the view of his muscular chest and thighs, his metal-studded bracelet and iron cross still on against his bare skin. The table was partially blocking the view of his briefs, and I decided that was a good thing.

I was in way too weird of a place for anything good to come out of me checking out his junk.

“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Why are you drinking alone in the dark?” I set the bags down on the table and pulled out a sports drink. After taking a sip I held it out to him. “Want some? You look like you need it.”

I thought he would actually reject it, but he did take the bottle and gulped some of the drink before eyeing my other bags. “What’s in there?”

“Chicken nuggets. Fries. Three chocolate bars and a bag of chips.”

“What, do you have PMS or something?” he asked, making a minimal effort to reach out and hook the bag with one finger and dragging it toward him. He dug in for a French fry and ate it half heartedly.

More like all self-control disappeared entirely with a six-pack. “No. Maybe I’m just a pig.”

He finally looked over at me, eyeing my outfit. “Is that your bra?”

If he wasn’t clearly loaded I would have been annoyed. “No. It’s my bikini top. I went to the water park today.”

“Oh.” His eyes narrowed at my chest. “Yellow.”

Thanks, Captain Obvious. I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “So any particular reason you’re having a party for one?”

He lifted his cigarette to his mouth and took a deep drag. As he blew out smoke, he gestured to some papers on the table. “That.”

My heart dropped. “We’re being kicked out by the bank?” As I reached for the papers, I wondered at my use of the word “we.”

“No. That will be a while still. This is about Easton. The social worker is coming next week to do a home inspection.”

Oh, no. He was worried about Easton, which was worse. Way worse. I knew that Riley had filed for custody of Easton when their mom died. Jayden was eighteen and considered an adult, but Easton was only eleven.

Riley picked up the bottle and drank directly from it. “They’re going to take him from me, I know it.” His voice cracked at the end of his sentence, and suddenly there were tears welling in his eyes.

I didn’t know what to say or to do. Seeing him so vulnerable, so clearly in pain, stunned me. I wasn’t the girl you went to for a hug. I wasn’t the friend who knew the right thing to say. I couldn’t soothe and comfort and make it all okay. I was just Jessica, sarcasm my only superpower.

But my heart ached for him, and I felt right then that I would do anything to make it okay for him, that I had to pull my head out of the Bud Light can and be a true, honest-to-God friend to him.

“What makes you think they’ll take him away?” I asked. “You’re his brother, and you have a steady job. He’s lived with you almost his whole life. This is his home. I would think stability counts for something, right? And no one else is contesting custody, are they?”

He shook his head, lifting his cigarette to his mouth again. “No. My aunt Jackie disappeared a month ago, probably shacked up with her drug dealer. Her son is in jail, and they’re my only family, besides good ol’ Dad, who isn’t eligible for parole for another ten years. But look around you, Jess. I mean, you clearly know it—this place is a dump. It reeks in here, and that social worker is going to take one look around and think that my brother belongs in some fucking foster home with people who don’t give a shit about him.”