CHAPTER 1. Noah
Three sharp knocks yank me out of the only decent part of this hangover: unconsciousness. Pain follows immediately.
The pounding in my head has developed its own pulse, a vindictive little rhythm that seems committed to cracking my skull open from the inside. Tequila. It was definitely tequila last night—followed, for reasons that now feel criminal, by three bottles of Budweiser Select 55. The evidence coats my cotton-dry mouth, lingers on my tongue, and sends nausea rolling through me when I crack one eye open and let daylight stab through the half-drawn blinds.
I groan and shove my face deeper into the pillows, briefly weighing whether I can opt out of existence before the memories load in.
No such luck.
They’re already there, circling patiently, ready to drop the worst of it.
Connor.
Oh God. Connor.
A memory punches through—my voice thick and slurring, explaining that I need a boyfriend for my father’s birthday celebration. Not an actual boyfriend. Just…temporary.Contractual. A limited-time social prop to make my asshole of an ex jealous.
I shoot upright, which is a mistake. The room tilts in slow protest. Nausea rises fast, and I clamp my mouth shut until it passes.
Did I actually cross the hall to Connor’s apartment last night and ask him to be my fake boyfriend?
Connor. My serious, permanently unimpressed, straight neighbor. The one I’ve exchanged exactly six sentences with in two years—four of them about the broken washing machine in the basement.
The knock comes again. Harder this time.
“Noah?” The voice is low. Accented. Irish.
Shit. Shit.Shit.It’s him.
I go completely still, staring at the front door. The couch is too close to it—and so old it creaks if you even think about moving.
Wait. Why am I sleeping on the couch?
“I know you’re in there,” Connor calls. “I can hear you breathing.”
Jesus Christ, can he actually hear me breathing? I mean, the walls are basically cardboard. I hear Mrs. Dunlop upstairs sobbing through Turkish soap operas every night, and I always know what Mrs. Horowitz is cooking because my entire apartment ends up smelling like it. So sure, fine, thin walls. But breathing? That feels invasive.
God. I should’ve taken the down payment money when Mom offered it and bought something with actual insulation. Instead I’m renting this shoebox and calling it independence.
I hold my breath automatically, trying to last as long as possible. Which turns out to be about eight seconds before I start choking on nothing and have to gasp for air. I have the lung capacity of a mildly asthmatic hamster. If he could hear me before, he definitely heard that. I still have to face him—just slightly more lightheaded.
“Just a minute,” I call back, my voice hoarse.
I push myself off the couch and immediately get tangled in the blanket. The floor sways under my feet, and I have to brace a hand against the wall until it steadies.
I catch my reflection in the mirror by the door and wince. My eyes are bloodshot, the whites veined red. My hair sticks up in every direction, refusing to cooperate. I’m still wearing yesterday’s clothes—a wrinkled blue button-down with a smear of something orange and oily on the front that looks suspiciously like instant ramen broth.
When did I eat ramen? I don’t remember that part.
What I do remember, in alcohol-soaked flashes, is Milo’s apartment.
The bottle of tequila. Britney’s laugh, bright in the dim room. The three of us sprawled across Milo’s mismatched furniture, trying to come up with a game plan for my father’s birthday this weekend—each idea worse than the last.
“You should say you have chickenpox,” Milo said, wincing at the tequila before licking the salt off his hand. “It’s contagious.They wouldn’t make you come. Especially if there are pregnant ladies. Will there be pregnant ladies?”
“Nah, plus my dad knows I had chickenpox in preschool,” I said.
“You could say you have the plague,” Milo went on, completely serious. “Or anthrax.”
