Jesus fucking Christ with this idiot. That was the other reason why I wanted to date Millie. The need to protect the strays burned in me from a young age. A soft spot and all that bullshit. I wasn’t all bad, like Vicious, neither was I all good, like Jaime. I had my own moral code, and bullying was a long, red line, drawn in blood.

See, as far as strays go, Millie was the perfect, shivering-in-the-rain fleabag in need of shelter. Terrorized at school and haunted by one of my best friends. I needed to do the right thing. I needed to, but fuck if I wanted to.

“I’ll take care of him.” I tried not to snap. “Go back inside.”

And leave me with your sister.

“You don’t need to, really. I’m just glad you’re here.”

I stole a glimpse at the girl who was destined to be the Rachel to my Jacob, this time longingly, because I knew I stood no chance with her the minute her sister kissed me to get back at fucking Vicious.

“I thought about it.” Millie blinked fast, too caught up in her own mess to realize I had barely spared her a glance since she appeared at the door. Too busy to notice her sister was right fucking there beside us. “And I decided—why not? I’d love to date you, actually.”

No, she wouldn’t. What she wanted was for me to be her shield.

Millie needed saving.

And I needed to smoke a fucking blunt.

I sighed, pulling the older sister into a hug, cupping the back of her head, the light-brown wisps of hair entwining between my fingers. My eyes still zoomed at Baby LeBlanc. At my little Rachel.

I’m going to make it right, my gaze promised her. It was clearly more optimistic than I was.

“You don’t have to date me. I can make life easier for you, as your friend. Say the word and I’ll kick his ass,” I whispered into Millie’s perfectly curved ear, my pupils honing in on her sister.

She shook her head, burying it deeper into my shoulder. “No, Dean. I want to date you. You’re nice and fun and compassionate.”

And completely in awe of your sister.

“Doubt it, Millie. You’ve been shutting me down for weeks. This is about Vic, and we both know it. Drink a glass of water. Rethink. I’ll talk to him tomorrow morning at practice.”

“Please, Dean.” Her wobbly voice steadied as she balled the fabric of my designer tee in her fists, pulling me closer to her and away from my new, shiny fantasy at the same time. “I’m a big girl. I know what I’m doing. Let’s go right now.”

“Yeah. Go.” I heard Baby LeBlanc rasp, waving her hand in our direction. “I need to study anyway, and you guys are a distraction. I’ll drown Vicious’s ass if I see him in the pool, Millie,” she joked, pretending to flex her skinny arms.

Baby LeBlanc was a shitty student, with C minuses for miles, but I didn’t know it back then. She didn’t want to study. She wanted her sister to be saved.

I took Millie for an ice cream, this time not looking back.

I took Millie when I should have taken Rosie.

I took Millie, and I was going to kill Vicious.

Present

What makes you feel alive?

Condensation. For it reminds me that I still breathe.

I MEAN, I GUESS THIS is classified as talking to myself, but I’d always been this way.

The voice that always asked the elusive question seemed to have been implanted in my brain, and it wasn’t me. It was a man’s voice. No one familiar, I don’t think. He always made me remember that I still breathed, which wasn’t necessarily something I took for granted. This time, my answer floated in my head like a bubble that was about to burst. I pressed my nose to the mirror in the elevator of the glitzy skyscraper that I lived in and blew air from my mouth, creating a thick cloud of white mist. I pulled away, staring at my doings.

The fact that I was still breathing was a huge screw-you to my illness.

Cystic Fibrosis. I always tried to get all the details out of the way when someone asked. All people needed to know was that I was diagnosed with it at the age of three when my sister, Millie, licked my face and said I tasted “really salty.” It was a red flag, so my parents had me checked. The results came back positive. It’s a lung disease. Yes, it is treatable. No, there’s no cure for it. Yes, it affects my life immensely. I’m constantly on pills, have three physiotherapy sessions a week, an indefinite amount of nebulizers, and I will probably die in the next fifteen years. No, I don’t need your pity, so don’t give me that look.

Still clad in my green scrubs, my hair a tangled mess, and my eyes glassy with lack of sleep, I inwardly prayed that the elevator would finally close and carry me to my apartment on the tenth floor. I wanted to undress, dip into a hot bath, and lie in bed, binge-watching Portlandia. And I wanted not to think about my ex-boyfriend, Darren.

Actually, I really wanted not to think about him.

Violent clicks of street-corner high heels echoed in my ears, seemingly out of nowhere, growing louder by the second. I twisted my head to the lobby and stifled a cough. The elevator’s door had already started to slide shut, but a feminine hand with red-hot fingernails slipped through the crack at the very last second, pushing it open with a high-pitched laugh.

I frowned.

Not him again.

But sure enough, it was him. He barged into the elevator, reeking of alcohol that I suspected would intoxicate a mature elephant to the point of death, armed with two women of the Desperate Housewives variety. The first one was the genius who compromised her arm to catch the elevator—a chick with velvet-red Jessica Rabbit hair and cleavage that left nothing to the imagination, even if you were extremely resourceful. The second was a petite brunette with the roundest ass I’ve ever seen on a human being and a dress so short, you could probably perform a gynecological exam on her without having to remove any clothing.

Oh, and then there was Dean ‘Ruckus’ Cole.

Tall—perfect size for a movie star—with moss-green eyes, almost radioactive in their sparkle and bottomless in their depth, disheveled, deep brown sex hair, and a body that would put Brock O’Hurn to shame. Sinfully sexy to the point you really had no choice but to look away and pray your underwear was thick enough to absorb your arousal. Seriously, the man was so outrageously hot, he was probably outlawed in ultra-religious countries. Luckily for me, I just so happened to know Mr. Cole was a world-class jerk, so I was mostly immune to his charm.

Mostly being the operative word here.

He was beautiful, but he was also a mess of epic proportions. You know those women who want the fucked-up, gorgeous, vulnerable guy they could fix and nurture? Dean Cole would be their wet dream. Because there definitely was something up with this guy. The notion that people in his immediate environment didn’t see the flashing neon warnings—his drinking, excessive pot-smoking, and raging addiction to everything sinful and fun—saddened me. Yet, I recognized that Dean Cole wasn’t my business. Besides, I had my own problems to deal with.

The HotHole hiccupped, punched the button to his penthouse five hundred times, and swayed in the small space the four of us shared. His eyes were feverish, and he wore a thin coat of sweat on his skin that smelled like pure brandy. A thick, rust-eaten wire twisted around my heart.

His smile didn’t look happy.

“Baby LeBlanc.” Dean’s lazy tone slipped right into my lower belly, and I stilled. He grabbed me by the shoulder, spinning me in place so that I faced him. His companions eyed me like I was a pile of rotten eggs. I placed my palms on his iron-steel chest, pushing him away.

“Careful. You smell like Jack Daniel’s just came in your mouth,” I deadpanned. He threw his head back and laughed—this time sporting an honest smile—thoroughly enjoying our bizarre exchange.

“This girl.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and squeezed me to his chest. He pointed at me with a hand that held onto the neck of a beer bottle, looking at the girls with a dazed grin. “Is fuck-hot and has brains and wit that would eclipse Winston Churchill in his finest hour,” he gushed. They probably thought Winston Churchill was a Cartoon Network character. Dean turned to face me, his brows dropping low all of a sudden. “That puts her in a high risk to be a condescending bitch, but she isn’t. She’s also fucking kind. That’s why she’s a nurse. Hiding that fine ass under scrubs is a crime, LeBlanc.”

“Sorry to disappoint, Officer Pothead, but I’m just volunteering. I’m actually a barista,” I corrected, ironing my scrubs with my hand as I wormed out of his touch, offering a polite smile to the girls. I volunteered at a NICU three times a week, monitoring incubators and cleaning baby poop. I wasn’t as artistically talented as Millie or as lucky as the HotHoles, but I had my passions—people and music—and I didn’t think any less of my aspirations than what they did for a living. Dean had an MBA from Harvard and a New York Times subscription, but was he really better than me? Hell, no. I worked in a small coffee shop called The Black Hole between First Ave and Ave A. The money was bad, but the company good. I figured life was too short to do something I wasn’t passionate about. Especially for me.

Jessica Rabbit rolled her eyes. The petite brunette hitched one bare shoulder and turned her back to us, messing with her phone. They thought I was a salty bitch. They were right. I literally was. But if we were being literal here, they were in for a rude awakening. I knew my neighbor and my sister’s ex-boyfriend’s ritual by heart. In the morning, he’ll call them a taxi and won’t even bother to pretend he saved their numbers.

In the morning, he’ll act like they were nothing but a mess he had to clean. In the morning, he will be sober, hungover, and ungrateful.

Because he was a HotHole.

A privileged, unhinged, egomaniac from Todos Santos who thought he deserved everything and owed nothing.

Come on, elevator. What’s taking you so long?

“LeBlanc,” Dean barked this time, leaning against the silver wall and pulling a joint from behind his ear, fishing for his lighter in his tailored, dark jeans. The bottle was discarded and passed to one of the women. He wore a designer V-neck tee—the kind of lime green that made his eyes pop and skin look even more tan—an open black blazer and high-top sneakers. He made me want stupid things. Things I never wanted from anyone, much less from a man who dated my sister for eight months. So I bottled them up and tried to be mean to him. Dean was like Batman. He was strong enough to take it.