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CHRIS

My phone was ringing.

It was five fifteen in the morning.

Mike.

I was only half awake when I hit the answer button. “What.”

“Bro, I need you to do me a favor.”

I groaned. “What favor?”

“I need you to drive Larissa and her mom to the hospital.”

I squeezed my eyes shut in the dark.

My best friend was a lot of things. He was loyal to a fault. He’d give you the shirt off his back. He was hilarious, generous, and protective of the people he cared about. But he was also the most likely to call you at some ungodly hour with a request that started with “I need a favor.”

“I told her I would take them,” he said. “Her car’s in the shop and her mom’s car is stick and Larissa doesn’t know how to drive it. It’s her mom’s surgery today.”

I rolled onto my back. “And you can’t do it why?”

“I screwed up, man. I hit it too hard last night. I’ve got the hangover of the fucking century. I think I’m still drunk.”

“Mike, it’s my day off. I’m tired.”

“I know. Look, there’s nobody else to take them. Jesse took Becca down to Wakan for their anniversary. Xavier’s in town but he’s not picking up. I even asked my mom.”

“I don’t even know Larissa,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I only met her that one time.”

“Come on, dude. She’ll never get a lift this early in the morning.”

“Can’t her mom drive them there? They can get a rideshare back.”

“And leave the car in the parking lot? And then she’s gonna be there by herself while her mom’s in surgery. Don’t make me beg you. I need this. Please.”

I stared at the ceiling in the dark. Fuck. I kicked out of my blankets. “Why’d you drink so much if you knew you had to be somewhere early?” I turned on the lamp on my nightstand and winced at the light.

“It got away from me. Look, I’ll pay you back. I’ll wash your car, dude, I’ll do anything. It took me six weeks to get this girl to have coffee with me. She might not even talk to me after this if I leave her hanging. I like her so much, I can’t mess this up.”

I pulled a hoodie over my head. “You owe me big-time. I’m serious.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “Hey, don’t tell her I’m hungover, okay? I’m gonna say I have a migraine.”

“Whatever. Just text me the address.” I hung up on him.

I stood in the middle of my room momentarily, too irritated to move.

This crap would annoy me on a good day.

I hadn’t had a good day in a while.

All I wanted to do was sleep and be left alone. Mostly the second one.

The guys insisted on hauling me out of my house as much as humanly possible—which I appreciated objectively because they were trying to help. But this situation was Mike being Mike. And who the hell was he out drinking with? God knows if the guys had gone anywhere last night, I would have been kidnapped and thrown in the trunk.