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  “Please. You don’t even call him Pepperoni,” Ferney said as the cat peered over the sides of the box and Paul crammed half the crumpet in his mouth, as if sparing it from another near fall. “You might want to work on that. Not having a properly defined name can cause some real psychological damage.”

  Kimber rolled her eyes and sank onto the futon Ferney and Paul had brought over in Paul’s SUV. “Thank you for that valuable insight.”

  Paul cleared his throat and patted the back of the futon. “Is this okay, Kim? Was it what you were looking for?”

  “It’s perfect.” Kimber nodded. “Thanks for the donation.”

  “You’re welcome.” He eyed the piece of furniture with wistful longing. “It’s been good to me for the past few years. But Ferney said it’s time to move on.”

  “That’s right.” Ferney nodded. “It’s time for grown-up furniture. You’re not in college anymore.”

  “Grown-up furniture being Ferney’s furniture, obviously.” Kimber nudged her sister as Ferney sat next to her. “And I’m not in college anymore, either.”

  “But this futon says you need to go back so you can open your own bar, remember?”

  “I thought it says, ‘Please put your ass here,’ just like all good futons do.”

  “Oh, you. I’ll miss your juvenile wit.” Ferney put on her best sad face as she passed her sister the beer. “I can’t believe we won’t be roomies anymore.”

  Kimber shrugged. “Now that you and Paul are engaged, it’s only natural that you two would want your own space.”

  “Yeah, but I’ll miss you. Living with boys can be so gross.”

  “Speaking of living,” Kimber said, taking a sip and passing the bottle back, “it’s good to see you’ve made a miraculous recovery and are helping me like you promised to.”

  “Hey, I was seriously ill, okay? It was the worst thing ever.”

  “No, moving is the worst thing ever. I hate not knowing where everything is. Before you came over, I tried to unpack but found the whole thing so daunting that I just set up the TV and ate a box of Hot Pockets instead.”

  “Why didn’t Dane help you?” Ferney asked in a voice that was far too innocent to not have ulterior motives. “Was he too busy doing bong rips to fit it in his schedule?”

  Kimber shot her a warning look. She had told her sister about the breakup but asked her not to bring it up until the move was over and she’d had time to sort out her feelings. Now it seemed Ferney could no longer resist.

  “Don’t look at me like that. It’s lame he didn’t help you and you know it. If he wanted to get in your pants so bad, he should’ve made a fucking effort.”

  “He doesn’t have to make an effort anymore.”

  “Unbelievable. The things that guy thinks he can get away with. Meanwhile, you and Jay never even went out, and I bet he was lugging your crap up and down those steps all damn day.”

  Kimber blushed. “What’re you getting at?”

  “I think you should give Jay a little thank-you lay for all his years of suffering and pining.”

  Paul coughed. “I think I’ll go assemble that bed frame.” He scurried down the hallway, and Kimber heard him shut the bedroom door.

  “Look at him go, pretending he can do manly work.” Ferney fluttered her hand. “All because he’s scared of a little girl talk.”

  “I think he’s scared that you’re mentally ill. I know I am.” Kimber narrowed her eyes at her sister. “How could you say that about Jay? We’re best friends. We see each other like Ken and Barbie, with no sexy-time parts. There’s never been anything romantic between us and there won’t be. Neither of us would ever jeopardize what we have at the risk of trying for a relationship.”

  “Oh God.” Ferney snorted. “If you really believe all that nonsense, then I hate to break it to you, but you’re the mentally ill one.”

  Kimber licked her lips, forcing her annoyance with Ferney to take precedence over her heartbreaking disappointment in Dane. “Can we please just talk about something else?”

  “Fine, fine.” Ferney took a long, unladylike pull on her beer. “Let’s talk about how happy I am that I won’t have to see Dane diving headfirst into my refrigerator anymore or hear his eight hundred cell phone alarms go off before he drags his lazy ass out of bed.”

  Kimber gave a grunt of indifference although she privately agreed with her sister regarding those particular grievances. However, to hear Ferney gripe about the same things made Kimber defensive. As far as she was concerned, Ferney didn’t have the right to complain. She hadn’t earned it.

  “You should be glad to be rid of him,” Ferney continued. “I’m excited at the prospect of his downfall once he realizes no one but you will ever put up with his immature shit again. That’ll be such an awesomely rude wake-up call.” She clapped with glee. “That’s what he gets for not showing up at your college graduation all those years ago.”

  “He couldn’t find where it was.” Was the excuse really as thin as it sounded?

  “Pff. Right. There were only signs all over campus pointing to the football field. He’s totally full of crap. Think of all the times he’s blown you off or stood you up. He’s a selfish prick, and he has no right to be so preoccupied with himself when he’s such a suck-fest. He does nothing but play in that loser band and work at that loser car wash.”

  Kimber curled up on the futon and groaned. “Thanks. I feel much better about life now.”

  “You’re welcome.” Ferney reached over and patted her sister on the shoulder. “Don’t you worry. We’ll find you a real man. I’ve got my feelers out.”

  “Can’t wait to see what you come up with,” Kimber said, her voice thick with sarcasm.

  Ferney’s eyes glittered. “Me neither.”

  * * *

  “Hey, slugger.” Jay arrived at the casino bar at the end of Kimber’s shift the following day and slid onto an empty stool. “Almost ready to go?”

  “Almost.” Kimber held up a finger as she backed through the door marked Employees Only. “Let me just punch out.”

  “All right.” Jay plunged his hand into a bowl of mints on the counter and helped himself. “I’ll be waiting.”

  I’ll be waiting. The casual promise rolled around in Kimber’s head as she gathered her things until her entire body ached with the sadness she’d suppressed all day. When had Dane ever waited for her? Jay went out of his way for her thousands of times through the years, most recently leaving work only to drive the same seventeen-mile round trip to pick her up a few hours later because her car was in the shop. Dane-the boy she’d given everything to-could never have been bothered with such gestures. Everything had always been such a struggle. Why? How could a love she’d poured so much faith and hope into turn out so wrong?

  Jay rose from the stool as she staggered from the back room, clutching her purse and jacket like she feared they’d be stolen. “What happened?”

  “I-I broke up with Dane.”

  Surprise flared in Jay’s eyes. “What, just now?”

  “No, last night. After you left.”

  His bewildered expression gave way to something unrecognizable. “Is this for real or one of those we’ll-probably-be-back-together-in-two-days things?”

  “It’s for real.” She gritted her teeth in the effort to stay strong but her vision blurred with tears she hadn’t been able to cry all day. “It has to be.”

  Jay slung an arm around her and guided her toward the door. “Come on. Let’s go for a drive.”

  His kindness dissolved her, and as they left the casino and crossed the crowded parking lot toward the Monte Carlo, she couldn’t prevent her sobs any longer. “I’m sorry, I think it’s just finally dawning on me,” she said between hiccups.

  “That’s okay.” He opened her car door and waited until she collapsed inside before closing it, then slid behind the wheel. “You guys were together for a long time and it was a big decision. You’re allowed to be sad, but things’ll get easier. Better, too.”<
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  “Blah, blah.” Kimber wiped her cheeks as he started the car. “The standard bullshit pep talk friends say in such circumstances, right?”

  “Right, but it’s still true.” He drummed his fingers on the wheel and stared out the windshield as if deep in thought, then brightened. “I know where we can go.”

  “Yeah? Where?”

  “This park where my dad used to bring me and my brothers when we were kids.” He negotiated the car out of the parking lot and onto the main highway. “It was when my mom moved out and the divorce wasn’t finalized yet. My dad was depressed and went to the park to get some perspective.” He smiled. “I guess it worked. Now when I visit him and my stepmom in Vegas he’s always urging me to get laid and calling me a fucking pussy when I don’t talk to girls.”

  “Awesome.” Kimber reclined in her seat. “I can’t wait to follow in your dad’s footsteps. Then I’ll flip through those Vegas hooker magazines, pick an escort, and call up some sex god to do me on my lunch break.”

  “Right. And it all starts with the park. My dad said it helped bring him peace when he had a broken heart. Maybe it’ll do the same for you.”

  They cruised the nearly empty highway weaving through the Pennsylvania mountainside, the sinking sun flickering through the trees flanking the pavement. Kimber rolled down her window, letting a rush of air inside the car, and Jay did the same. Her ears filled with the roar of wind, the deafening noise providing a welcome distraction from the dark thoughts crowding her head and blackening her heart.

  They turned off the highway onto a desolate route, and a few moments later the Monte Carlo slowed in front of a dirt-and-gravel lot surrounded by tall grass. Jay parked the car between the only other two vehicles present-a red flat-bed truck and a gold Malibu-and raised his chin at Kimber as he got out, signaling her to follow. She trailed him as he led the way to a nearby path worn down over time by countless feet and surveyed the area. To the left was a steep tiered knoll backed by a thicket of trees, and to the right stretched a stream with a designated swimming hole. Beyond lay a field, in the middle of which stood a slanting, splintering barn. Kimber relaxed, the quiet, unfamiliar setting erasing some of her stress.

  Jay glanced her way and gave a half smile. “Nice, right?”

  “Yeah.” She squinted into the setting sun, burning bright in the horizon. “Where’d your dad ever find this place? It’s so removed from reality here.” She smiled. “I sort of feel like we’re running away from home.”

  “We are.” Jay gestured to their surroundings as the path led into the woods. “Didn’t I tell you? We live here now.”

  “No way. I’m not cut out for roughing it in the wilderness.”

  “You’re underestimating yourself.”

  “You’re underestimating the likelihood of me getting eaten by a bear.”

  Jay laughed. “No bears are going to eat you. You worry too much.”

  “Maybe I do.” Kimber’s thoughts crept back to Dane as she picked up a fallen branch and swiped at a passing tree trunk with it. “Maybe I get worked up over nothing. You think?”

  “Where are you going with this?” Jay’s voice held a note of suspicion.

  “Just thinking. I mean, isn’t it possible that Dane really isn’t so bad? Maybe my expectations are just too high.”

  “It sounds like you’re what’s high. Are you being serious?”

  “Listen. Dane is who he is.”

  “And you hate who he is.”

  “No, I just haven’t learned to accept him as he is.” She chucked her stick aside. “I wanted him to fit the ideal boyfriend mold I have in my head, but maybe that’s not realistic.”

  “What does the ideal boyfriend do, call you? Take you out? Want to spend time with you? Find a way to make things better when he fucks it up? Make you feel like you matter?”

  She shrugged, feeling as weak as her collapsing argument. “Well, yeah, of course.”

  “And you didn’t get any of that from Dane at all. Do you realize that even the dumbest fucking people in the world know how to show the ones they care about that they, in fact, care? It isn’t hard and it isn’t an inconvenience. I can’t even believe this is up for debate.”

  “Neither can I.” Tears pricked Kimber’s eyes as she thought of all the hurt she’d endured, thinking it would somehow be worth it in the end. It hadn’t been, and it also could’ve been easily avoided-she didn’t know which was more disappointing. She gave a watery sigh. “You know what’s so fucking sad to me? After all Dane and I have been through, he’s just going to turn into a story of mine, never anything more.”

  Jay heaved a giant breath of his own. “You don’t have to look at it that way. You’re just choosing to make yourself sad now.”

  “Because the whole thing is sad.” Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “Maybe it is, but I don’t want you to be sad, too. You need to get pissed. Like, really pissed. Think of all the times he screwed you over. I’ll help you.” He held up a finger. “First, remember last year? He threw that party without inviting you and you later found out they’d all been playing Spin the Bottle. Then he made you feel like you had no reason to be pissed because they were all friends, just trading little pecks. Hate to break to you, but that’s not normal. Someone who really loved you would never have done that, let alone played.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” A new wave of anger regarding an old crime washed over Kimber.

  “I also recall he got mad at you when you wouldn’t come over to his place at three in the morning after a bad gig and an even worse after party, so he burned himself with a cigarette so he’d always be reminded of the time you betrayed him.”

  Kimber gritted her teeth, too furious to refute what she knew was true.

  “Then there was the time he got drunk and threw a plate of instant rice through his last neighbor’s upstairs window.”

  “That was a dark time for him. He was depressed after getting kicked out of school.”

  “Which brings me to that whole fiasco. Remember how hard he tried to appeal to the dean’s decision?”

  “No. He barely tried at all.” Confused, Kimber glanced at Jay, who slanted her a look.

  “Exactly my point. And what was the alternative to trying? Being unemployed and living with his parents for an entire year. Now he finally has a job, and what is it? Working at a car wash, doing Jesus Christ knows what, considering machines do all the work.” Jay shook his head. “I could list a thousand more reasons, but I’ll skip to the most recent one. Namely, you broke up with him, and he’s done nothing to convince you not to or win you back. If he wanted to call, he would’ve called. If he wanted to move in with you, he would’ve. If he wanted to be with you, he would be, or he’d at least make the effort to be with you, even if you were getting hitched to another guy on some Hawaiian mountaintop. He’d crash the wedding and threaten to fling himself off the cliff if you didn’t choose him instead. He’d do anything he possibly could, and then some.”

  “I told him not to call me back,” she said, knowing her excuse was as weak as her voice.

  “Trust me, that wouldn’t stop anyone who really didn’t want to let someone go.”

  Kimber worried her bottom lip with her teeth for a moment before heaving a sigh of resignation. “Jesus. You’re so right. What have I been thinking?” She stopped walking and pressed her fingertips to her temples. “How could I have forgiven all that? How could I have let any of that slide?”

  “Don’t do that.” Jay stopped in front of her and grabbed her shoulders, stooping slightly so they were eye level. “You feeling shitty about your decisions wasn’t the point of that exercise. The point was for you to recognize how much better off you are without him. Kim, think about it-you will never, ever have to deal with any of that again. The worst is over, and you lived through it and dealt with it. You should be proud of yourself.”

  Kimber dropped her hands to her sides and stared at Jay and the determined look in his eyes. “Yeah. That’s true.
” She growled and slapped a palm to her forehead. “I can’t believe I’m even talking about this. It’s nonsense.”

  “I agree. You’re too hot to have these problems.”

  She laughed and gave his shoulder a push. “And yet I do. Why’s it so hard to find a guy?”

  “It’s easy to find a guy. We do make up about half the world’s population, you know.”

  “I mean, a cool guy. A soul mate or whatever.”

  “Soul mates. Pff. Soul mates are for the Dr. Phil, eHarmony-type. At this point in the game, all you can do is try to find someone you can stand to be around, and someone who can stand to be around you. If you got that, I think you’re pretty lucky.”

  “That seems too simple, too callous. I want to think there’s something more magical than that. I want a Moan.”

  “What the hell is a Moan?”

  “It’s a term I made up for a person of your preferred gender who embodies absolute romantic ecstasy for you, enough to make you moan with pleasure. He or she is so moanlicious that he or she is powerful enough to give you a physical, emotional, and spiritual orgasm.”

  “A spiritual orgasm? What’s that? I want one.”

  “Join the club.”

  “So is Dane your Moan?”

  “No, I guess not. And you finally helped me see that.” She sighed, feeling a smile tug at the corners of her mouth. “I’m so glad you’re on my side.”

  “Always. Now come here, you.” He wrapped his arms around her and she sank into his embrace, squeezing his waist with all her might until he gasped. “Easy now. You’re supposed to be giving me a hug, not cracking my rib.”

  “Sorry.” Kimber giggled as she loosened her grip. She rested her face against his chest and relaxed, feeling comforted and safe. What had she done before Jay came along? What would she ever do without him? It was an unfathomable question; Jay had been one of the only constants in her life, and for that she was grateful. “You know, you always give the best hugs, and I like how you don’t let go until I do. I guess the tutorial I gave you in high school really left its impression on you.”