“And there’s catalog work here. Fred can get a job anywhere. Look at him.”

Fred looks up at us. “Fred can hear you, you know. Fred is about three feet away from the kitchen.”

“Right.” I nod.

“Small apartment,” Milo says, but he’s smiling at Fred, not caring even a little that Fred overheard him say that he plans on settling down. Fred smiles back at him and I get the distinct feeling that they no longer know I’m here.

I frown. “Maybe you two lovebirds should go make out at Mikey Danger’s now. I feel like a third wheel in my own place.”

Milo wraps me up in a hug again. “It’s good to be back, you know? I missed home.”

I don’t know how Milo can be so Milo about this—so nonchalant about being technically homeless and jobless. I’ve spent my entire life pedaling at warp speed to avoid that exact situation, but he willingly put himself into it. He’s the personification of those motivational posters that say, Jump, and the net will appear, whereas my motivational poster would say something like, There is no net, so maybe reconsider jumping and just find a ladder or something?

But he’s here now. Milo. My other half. I look at his silly glasses and his messy hair and the blue T-shirt that I know he’s wearing to make his eyes look bluer, because we have the same eyes and I do the same thing.

And even though I have a million and one reasons to be annoyed at him, I say, “I’m glad you’re here,” because it’s the truth.

Chapter Four

If you’d told me when I graduated from high school that I’d be working in a coffee shop down the street from Annie’s house when I was almost thirty, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. But then again, I might have, because at eighteen part of me still sort of thought I’d become a mermaid when I grew up.

When Annie and I started college at OSU, she majored in film studies without giving it a second thought, while I went for the beloved major of aimless students everywhere: undecided.

College was a financial stretch for me, and instead of moving into the dorms, I moved into Annie and Don’s carriage house. Don asked me to; he worried about Annie, he said, since her mom recently died of a heart attack. If she couldn’t have her mom around during such a big transition, then maybe at least she could have a friend who felt like family. It was an easy decision, because I knew the feeling. Although my mom hadn’t died, I’d accepted that she was dead to me and I would never see her again.

Don tried to get me to live there rent-free, but my Chloe Sanderson sense of pride wouldn’t let me accept that offer. Instead, we agreed on a rent payment so low that it was almost embarrassing, but at least I was paying my way.