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Chapter OneTessI walk through the door to the sound of Taylor Swift blaring through the small apart around the living rooether

As usual, our shared two-bedroom is a battlefield of discarded clothes – hers – and paperback novels and writing material—mine

She looks up with a bright s around her shoulders She’s in her silk bathrobe and her bikini, having coet a gli in my chest

My barista outfit feels like it’s clinging tightly to reedily tore into before I left

“Hey, doll,” she says, turning to

Giz over toout in his excite, a cross between a Chihuahua and a Toy Poodle, called Gizmo after the Gremlin

I kneel and tickle his pointy, furry ears and then lift hi him lick my face hello and cradle him close to me

“Good day?” Kait asks, dropping onto the couch and pausing the music on her phone

I carry Giz musty, a secondhand freebie we haven’t had professionally cleaned yet

“Oh, a,” I mutter dryly “I didn’t spill coffee on any custo in the bathroom So, all in all, a victory”

She grins at h I’m twenty-one and she’s twenty Kaitlyn is always full of life when she comes from the club, perhaps because she has to put on a fake nice face, and it carries over when she’s hohted with the handicap of introspection and seriousness

Even now, I’ too much

I tug my attention back to my friend

“I still can’t believe you did that,” she says “If you really need to write down an idea for your Great American Novel, I’m sure you can find somewhere better than the shitter”

I laugh, nodding as Gizmo climbs onto ht,” I say “Hoas your day, anyway?”

“An afternoon shift at a strip club?” she beams “Tess, it’s hell It’s absolutely hell No e for a bunch of bored day-walkers”

“So why are you so happy?”

“Because I’ood friend”

“Okay …” I wait for her to reveal the punch-line, but she just keeps bea ht?”

“I’ood news, I feel like I’ve got soood news, too Honestly, Tess, you don’t kno happy I a time—whatever But, like, I don’t know … it feels like more, you know?”