The customer pays and Annie catches my eye. What was that? she mouths, and I shake my head. I finally look over my shoulder and practically slump with relief when I see that Nick isn’t standing there anymore; he must’ve gone into the kitchen. Now I don’t have to think about his hot face or his expressive eyes or that stupid scruff on his chin that should not even be this much of a turn-on.

I don’t get awkward. I don’t stammer. I certainly don’t ramble about desserts.

But something about this ridiculous movie is making everything go haywire.

Chapter Five

As usual, I have about ten million things to do, but when Milo asks me to help him move into Mikey Danger’s guest room, I say yes. This is how it’s always been. Milo says jump, I say how high. Or, more accurately, Milo whines at me to jump and I bitch at him for a few minutes and then do it anyway, because family comes first.

Blessedly, Milo and Fred crammed very few personal belongings into the tiny rental car they drove from wherever they lived in Brooklyn (I know it’s not accurate, but after watching so many sitcoms I imagine everyone in Brooklyn lives in a giant loft), so we borrow Nick’s truck and load their boxes into the back. Of course, the Ohio skies pick this day to release a torrential downpour, so we secure an ugly bright blue tarp to protect everything.

“Damn,” Milo says, crammed behind me in the back seat of the truck’s cab. “Your boss has a nice truck.”

“I didn’t know you cared about trucks,” I say.

“I don’t, but I can appreciate a quality ride when I see it,” Milo says, sounding offended. He continues muttering to himself as I drive slowly, trying to avoid harming Nick’s spotless truck. “It’s positively roomy back here.”

I tear my eyes away from the road long enough to shoot an eyebrows-raised glance at Fred in the passenger seat, and he smiles back at me.

“Is his name really . . . Mikey Danger?” Fred asks in a low voice.

“It wasn’t the name his parents gave him,” I say, “but if he’s anything like he was ten years ago, I think you’ll agree with me that he’s always been Mikey Danger at heart.”

Mikey lives right by Ohio State University on a street full of duplexes inhabited by constantly inebriated college students. I suspect the reason Mikey, a man who is almost in his thirties, chooses to live among twenty-one-year-olds is that he has the soul of a twenty-one-year-old.

The three of us ring the doorbell and huddle on Mikey’s front steps as raindrops pelt our one umbrella. I kick a crumpled can of Bud Light off the steps, then feel bad and pick it up. I look out over the yard full of overgrown weeds and say, “Milo, there has got to be somewhere else you guys can live.”