“I’m awake, too. I can pretty much guarantee it. I’m always awake.”

“Good thing we have people making bread to soothe us into sleep.”

“Good thing.”

Chapter Five

Jessie

Welp. I just woke up with my cell phone plastered to my cheek and my out of battery laptop halfway balanced on my stomach. Because apparently I fell asleep on the phone last night.

Talking to Eliot Hoffman. While we watched a show together.

It’s so nauseatingly high school. Which must be the reason I immediately bury my face in the couch cushions and make a noise I haven’t made for fifteen years.

What am I doing? I’m off the deep end.

Okay.

It’s probably time I explain something.

I’m very likely not Eliot Hoffman’s type. I am a very specific . . . flavor, shall we say? And when dudes aren’t into me, they are like, viscerally not into me. I don’t say that from a place of insecurity. Honestly, it reassures me. Because when someone is expressing interest, I know that they are really into it. Me. And if they aren’t then there’s no confusion and we all move on. It’s a black-and-white system and it works for me.

In the handful of times that I’ve stood in front of or next to Eliot Hoffman, and in the fewer than a handful of times I’ve actually spoken with him, I’ve never once gotten a vibe that he was into me. He obviously likes talking to me on the phone. But if he were to see me in person, he’d probably weed-whack the flirty vibe immediately.

But this . . . this is not why I’m refusing to tell him who I am. If it were as simple as that, I’d pull off the Band-Aid and let the chips fall where they may.

The anonymity is necessary, because when he finds out who I am . . . at some point, he’s going to find out who my brother is. And that’s when things get ugly.

Like, very ugly.

As in, my entire life completely unravels. I go broke and homeless. My brother disappears off the face of the earth. And Eliot Hoffman hates me and never speaks to me again.

Did I mention that the stakes are kind of high?

So, why, oh why am I doing something as stupid as falling asleep on the phone with him? Why, oh why am I not just screening his calls? Or blocking him and pretending that this whole mess never even happened?

Because I’m possessed by this stupid, crushed-out girl, and she takes control of my body so she can flirt with him.