“You just worry about yourself, and your own writing, okay? Keep plugging away. I know you’ll get there,” Mary says, but her words are drowned out by a buzzing in my head that’s quickly replaced by a buzzing IRL: a FaceTime call coming in on my laptop. Normally I would ignore it, considering I have company, but it’s from Bree.

“I’m sorry, I have to take this. For work,” I say, dazed by the upsetting questions whirling around in my brain. There’s no time to analyze what I’ve discovered and how it changes my perspective on everything.

Mary’s up already, wiping her mouth on a napkin and gathering her items. “No problem, I’ll clear out.” In her haste to give me privacy, she knocks her play to the floor and that’s where it’s still sitting, pages bent back, after she leaves. I don’t bother picking it up and smoothing it out. What’s the point?

I return Bree’s call. She answers on the first ring, looking . . . flushed. Endorphin-filled.

Like some kind of morning after.

Er, afternoon after.

“Hey lady,” she singsongs. “Guess who got lucky last night? And with whoooom?” She sounds like a self-satisfied owl.

Unless she reversed course and decided to return to her one-night stand ways, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to answer the second part of that question.

I congratulate her, my throat tight. She offers to provide all the “deets” and I politely decline. And whoosh, just like that, it’s over. I’m out of Bree’s life. Out of Jude’s. They’ve knocked cosplay boots or whatever and my services are no longer needed.

Which means any second now—yep, there it is: Clifford’s video and bonus cash appear in my inbox. The song blasting out of my speakers barely registers.

The bonus cash is nice, but the flaming hoops I jumped through to get it were not worth the angst. Clifford’s latest ripped-off song plays on a loop: Apparently, I’m a maniac, maniac on the floor. I can’t scrape by on Clifford’s nonsense alone, and let’s face it, he’s only going to get worse, with or without neuro-caterpillars eating his brain.

He could’ve just as easily pulled the plug on my work with Bree, and I’d have ended up with nothing. I can’t live like that. It’s time to get serious about finding other freelance work.

I don’t know how long I sit there, staring vacantly out the window and trying to muster up the energy to take stock of my situation. A knock at my door cuts through the mental fog.

Has Mary come back? I warily get up to open the door, but no one’s on the other side. There is, however, a bottle of champagne on the floor with a note from Sweet Nothings attached. Wow, that was fast.