I looked at Taylor after I released Teddi. Her smile was blinding. It went straight to the part of my brain that calmed me. It had been interesting getting to know her outside of being Teddi’s friend and right-hand lady.

She was quieter. And lovely. She was truly so pretty. It was crazy seeing her like that now—after so many years of seeing her just as a younger sister figure. I felt a pang of concern over how wholesome she was. Making her deal with my Endgame drama bullshit was wrong. She didn’t need to know what living with a drug dealer was like.

As I watched her take back up at the potato station, I started getting into deeper thought about how I needed Endgame out of the apartment. He hadn’t paid rent—well, ever—but when he and I were dating, I could find a reason to support him more.

That was before he stole money from me. Before he cheated on me. Before our breakup. Now it would make sense to ask the grown man living in my apartment to pay his way.

I didn’t want drug money either. I wanted clean money that he earned in a normal way. And with that guideline, I knew I was picking a future. Endgame couldn’t do a regular job. He was a personality that only dealt in extremes. The amount of money he made dealing was too exorbitant, it would actually kill him to work so many more hours for minimum wage. But if Taylor was going to be around for a few months, I had to preserve her giggling, happy personality, Endgame had to go.

I had made a plan standing in my parents’ kitchen watching Taylor swing her hips to the music Gaze had playing from his phone. And that made me want to make this weekend last forever. Because facing Endgame and ending whatever it was we still had was not something that would be simple or easy or painless. Not even a little.

* * *

TAYLOR

Teddi’s old bedroom had been the site of so many sleepovers in the past, it felt like old times. We had an extra air mattress, and Teddi and Peaches were on her bed. We had taken so many selfies together and recorded a few dances as well. This was how it was for us back then. Talking up a storm until we drifted off at ass early in the morning.

Teddi sat up straight. “I gotta go kiss Ruffian goodnight. Be back in a few.”

Peaches held her hand out to me, and when I took hers, she pulled on my arm until I got up on the bed with her.

“No, seriously.” She acted like we were already having a conversation. “Living with Austin?”

I buried my head under Teddi’s pillows. Peaches started slapping my butt like it was a set of bongo drums. “Talk to me.”