It takes us fifteen minutes to get to his apartment. I get out of the car and pull Asher with me, thanking the driver before we stumble into his building. I’ve never been more thankful for the security guard in the lobby. He rides the elevator and holds Asher up while I pat him down in an attempt to find his key.

He giggles.

I roll my eyes and find his keys in his coat pocket.

“No, keep doing that,” he says.

I shake my head and unlock the door.

“Thank you, Elliot,” I say to the security guard. “I can take it from here.”

I guide Asher to the stairs of his loft. His couch is preoccupied with half-wrapped Christmas presents, so it’s not an option. We take each step slowly.

“C’mon, Ash, just a few more.”

“Here’s fine.”

“I don’t think it’ll be very comfortable.”

He groans, but we make it to the bed. I manage to get his coat off before he tumbles face-first onto the mattress. I pull his boots off next and round the bed to put them back in their rightful place—the bathtub in his bedroom that doubles as a shoe bin.

But, to my surprise, it’s empty.

I glance over at Asher, who hasn’t moved.

Why did he clean it out? He said a bathtub in the bedroom was impractical. It made better storage. What changed his mind?

I place his shoes on the floor of his closet and force my mind not to wander. It has nothing to do with me and the vivid picture I painted for him of what I would use that tub for.

He did it for himself.

We both know you’re lying, my heart says.

“Olivia?” Asher’s voice is muffled by his pillows and sheets.

“Yeah?”

“I think I’m in love with you.”

15

Willa Loveridge makes spectacular granola balls.

I’ve eaten five in the past ten minutes in an effort to keep my mouth occupied. God knows the kind of trouble it would get me into if I didn’t keep it busy. So I chew and I chew and I chew and I try to grasp that I’m at the Loveridge-Herrera townhouse on a Sunday morning.

Ana is still in her bathrobe.

Willa isn’t wearing a bra.

I wish I knew this meeting was pajama-casual.

I wouldn’t have put on pants.

“I think I’m in love with you.”

I eat another granola ball.

Those are some very big words from a very confusing and very drunk man who ordered twelve lemon loaves from a Starbucks in Utah thirty minutes prior to making such a confession. I mean, what kind of man orders twelve lemon loaves when he could order twelve banana-nut loaves? And what kind of man tells me he loves me when he’s drunk when he could, I don’t know, tell me when he’s sober?