The handle rattled again, and with my heart in my throat, I cautiously opened the door. The shadowy figure of a broad-shouldered man loomed in the darkened hallway, and I screamed and jumped back.

“Audrey?” the man said hopefully, his voice thin and his breath smelling like beer, as he lurched forward toward me.

Panicked, I put up my hands to ward him off. “No!”

“But …” he said, staggering backward, wiping at his eyes with the backs of his hands.

That was when I recognized the shadowy figure as Nick, whom Audrey had been casually seeing for only a couple of weeks, and also when I realized that he was crying. I shuddered as I realized he had been the one making that inhuman noise.

“You can’t be here,” I said, trying to keep the alarm from my voice. “Men aren’t allowed upstairs after seven p.m.”

“I know,” he moaned. “But she’s not taking my calls. Where is she?”

I hesitated, worried about his reaction if I told him Audrey wasn’t there. Before I could come up with a plausible lie, the hallway was suddenly drenched in light and our house mom, Nancy, was pointing a sharp pink fingernail at Nick.

“You,” she growled. “Out. Now.”

Nick blinked in the light, his eyes red-rimmed and bright with tears. He opened his mouth to say something, but then seemed to notice Nancy’s expression and shuffled away. Audrey had laughed when I’d recounted the story to her, and Nick had never once hinted that he remembered the incident, but I had never been able to forget the image of Nick crying outside our room like some third-rate Romeo.

I wonder what Nick thinks about Max.

“HEY,” AUDREY SAID BREEZILY, dropping onto a cushion beside me as I sat around a fire pit with Connor, Priya, and some of Priya’s work friends. She sat so close to me that she was practically on my lap, forcing me to brush strands of her hair from my eyes and scoot away, and then she glanced up at Max and patted the sliver of cushion beside her. “Come on, sit down.”

As Max awkwardly lowered himself onto the precarious seat, Audrey turned to the rest of us and, completely oblivious that she was interrupting our conversation about our predictions for the upcoming Supreme Court term, said, “Have you all met my boyfriend, Max?”

Boyfriend? I felt my cheeks grow hot. Since when was Audrey calling Max her boyfriend? And why hadn’t she told me first? We were best friends. Or we were supposed to be.

“Hi,” Max said, waving self-consciously.

“Nice to meet—” Priya began.

“So,” Audrey said, cutting Priya off as she leaned forward. “Do you guys want to hear a scary story?”

“Baby,” Max said softly, putting a hand on her shoulder.

I almost felt bad for him. He would learn soon enough that there was no stopping Audrey once she got going, and even if there were, a soft “baby” wasn’t going to do it. Baby. As if Audrey Miller stood for anyone calling her “baby.” I gave Max another week, at most.