It was my turn to pull hair, and I wrapped my red locks around my fingers. “What? Stop. Slow down. Start from the beginning, and I’ll try to stay awake.” I bit back a yawn. “You’re not making any sense.”

I listened as Kayla did her best to fill me in on what Joseph’s mom had said to him. The only problem was ... I didn’t care. The issue seemed so mundane, so irrelevant to my life that I couldn’t seem to muster up any emotion to actually give a shit.

“So, what do you think? Will you do it?” my roommate asked, her tone hopeful.

“No.”

“No?” she repeated, sounding exasperated. “Why the hell not?”

Shaking my head, I was too tired to mince words, too exhausted to play nice, so I didn’t. “Because I don’t care, Kayla. Poor little rich boy’s mommy won’t go away and leave him alone to run his multi-million-dollar company? I don’t have time for this kind of thing. It’s stupid. And I’m not stupid.”

“I already told him you’d do it.”

She made it sound like I didn’t have a choice in the matter, but this was my life, and I had nothing but choices.

“Well, that’s on you then. I never said I would. And you knew damn well I wouldn’t agree to this.”

Her lips formed a snarl as she tossed her head back against the cushions. “Of course I knew you’d say no.” She lifted her head to look me square in the eyes. “But that’s why I asked him for some incentive.”

What could she have figured I’d possibly want or need that would get me to agree to this potential shitshow?

“Let me guess,” I started, knowing there was only one thing that motivated people to do things like this for others. “Money?”

Her eyes grew two sizes too big. “Lots of money, Sutton.”

“I don’t need his money.” She knew that as much as I did.

Neither one of us was rolling in tons of cash, but we survived. We’d be doing a little bit better if we didn’t live in the city and had more affordable rent, but we’d scored with this place, and we had no intention of giving it up. It was safe, clean, and in a good neighborhood. The two of us paid our bills on time and still had money left over to have fun on weekends—when I wasn’t studying or in the emergency room.

“I know you don’t need it. But you’d get out of debt a whole lot quicker than you would otherwise. I know you’ve already had to start paying it back. I get our mail.”

I nodded because school loans waited for no one and nothing before you had to start breaking the bank each month. The idea of having them paid off was more than a little tempting. I never minded the debt that medical school put me in because I knew it would be worth it in the end, and it was part of what I had to do to become a burn specialist.