“Hey, are you objectifying my body?” he asked, not bothering to pull up his pants.

“Yes.” I started untwisting the existing knobs, surprised at how firmly they were on there. It took me five solid minutes to get one off.

“Try this,” Riley said, opening a cabinet and showing me the back of the screw. He held the drill up and pushed something and bam, like that, the screw retreated and the knob fall off the front of the cabinet.

“Tricky,” I told him. But when he handed me the drill I could barely hold it up, let alone line the tip up to the screw. When I finally got it, I pushed the button and the kickback startled me so that I jerked back, and nothing happened. “Hm.”

Riley just watched me attempt a second time, his eyebrows raised.

“Don’t judge me,” I said when the drill fell away again with zero effect on the screw. “I’ve never held a power tool in my life.”

“It’s not a table saw. It’s a hand drill.” But he took the drill back from me. “You do something else. I’ll take these off or we’ll still be here two hours from now.”

I started to stick my tongue out at him, then remembered what had happened the last time I’d done that. So while he made fast work of knob removal, I pulled out the Sharpie I’d bought, and I went to work on the kitchen table, covering up the swear words with paislies and curlicues. I didn’t want to destroy their odd message board of sorts, but I didn’t think the social worker wanted to read about dick sucking on the table where an eleven-year-old was eating his Cheerios. Then when I was done, I put a cookie jar in the shape of the Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo in the center of the table. Then I filled it with store-bought cookies.

Riley tossed the old knobs in the trash and lifted the lid, swiping a cookie. “Seriously? A cookie jar? This is the tits, Jess.”

“I guess that’s a positive thing?” I asked. “By the way, when these cookies run out, make Rory bake some more. I don’t do that.”

“So you’ve said.” He kissed the top of my head, getting crumbs in my hair. “We all have our role, babe.”

Mine, apparently, was to be his sister/mother. How in the hell did I get myself into that position? It was about as foreign to me as celibacy.

Since the kitchen was now gray, I wanted blue and yellow accents, so I had bought yellow canisters to hold flour and sugar and coffee, and after clearing every random thing that was cluttering the counter off it and shoving them in a cabinet, I arranged the containers. Then I set a pump with soap next to the sink and hung the blue and yellow towels on silver hooks that I made Riley drill into the wall. I set up a little coffee station with blue mugs and a yellow sugar bowl. Just getting rid of the weird stuff they had laying around—I mean, who needs a phone book and seventeen lighters?—it already looked better. With my accessories, it looked like while the kitchen was old, someone who gave a shit used it.

“Over a little. To the right. The right, Riley,” I said in exasperation as he shifted the art I’d bought to the left, not the right. “Show me which hand is your right.”

“Fuck you,” was his opinion. But he did shift the piece to the right. He had already given his thoughts on the peace sign made out of license plates by calling it “weirdo hippie shit” but I actually thought it gave a cool pop of color to the room. Pop of color was to design what protein was to food—it was one of the basic food groups.

It was actually mine, something I’d bought at an art festival when I was thirteen and feeling the peace symbol. My mother had thought it was a hideous piece of trash, so I had boldly displayed it in my room all through high school and had brought it to school with me knowing if I left it behind, she would toss it in the trash. I didn’t want to hang it in my dorm room, but I wanted to keep it for sentimental reasons. When I looked at it, I felt thirteen again, in love with rainbow colors and glitter and patriotism. I had a plan then to visit all fifty states with my peace symbol and blog about it.

What happened to that kid? I wondered. When did I get cynical?

But then again, maybe I hadn’t, because here I was, hanging that peace sign on the wall of a house that was Easton’s safe haven.

“This is mine, you know,” I told him. “I bought this at an art festival for twenty bucks when I was thirteen. I’m letting you borrow it, gallery style. Some day I might want to take it back.”

“Mark where you want it hung,” he said. “My arms are killing me.”

Exasperated, I took a pencil and made a mark at the top where I wanted it hung. I was sorry I’d told him anything personal. “Fine. Here.”

“Jesus, thank you,” he sighed. He set it on the floor and reached for his drill. “You have good taste, you know. It looks awesome in here, I’m not going to lie.”

“What was that?” I asked, cupping my hand to my ear, pleased with the compliment. “I didn’t hear you over the sound of the drill and your large ego.”

He efficiently drilled a screw into the wall and hung the peace sign. “I said, you have good taste. See, I can admit it. No one would guess this is the same kitchen.”

“Thank you.” I was preening. I could feel it. I couldn’t help it. I was craving his appreciation. How completely pathetic was that?

He turned and hit the button on the drill in my direction.

I shrieked. Which of course made him grin and step even closer to me.

“Stop it,” I said, unnerved by the sound and that spiraling tip pointing at me. I could lose an eye or something.

“What?” He shoved it toward my face. “What’s the matter?”

I darted away, laughing, and tripped over the garbage can. I fell against the wall and the peace sign fell. Riley caught it and hung it back up.

“Way to go, Jess. You almost killed peace.”

Before I could retort something nasty, there was a knock on the back door. Riley went and opened it, and I saw Robin was standing there, wearing short shorts and a sparkly blue tank top. I had texted her and she was there to deliver the art piece.

“Hey,” Riley said, in a voice of surprise and intrigue. “Can I help you?”

I realized that he had never met Robin. I also realized that Robin was an exotic brunette. Which made me realize that asking her to come over was a very stupid and idiotic idea.

To her credit she didn’t drool over Riley’s chest the way he was drooling over hers. She just said, “Hi, I’m Robin. Is Jessica here?”

“It’s for you,” he said over my shoulder. But without moving out of the way, he held out his hand. “I’m Riley. It’s really nice to meet you.”

Gross. I nudged him out of the way. “Hey, Robin. Come in. Riley, move your ass.”

Robin skirted him, looking curiously at me, the canvas in her hands. “I can’t stay, but here it is.”

I took the canvas and turned it around. It said YUM YUM, spelled out in candy wrappers on a gray background. It was perfect.

“I decided just paint was boring.” She gave a shrug. “It may be too cute for a house of guys, but I couldn’t resist.”

“It’s awesome,” I told her. “It goes perfectly next to the peace sign because they’re using similar mediums in similar colors. Don’t you think so, Riley?”

“Sure.” He nodded. “Though I can’t guarantee Jayden won’t pull those wrappers off hoping there is still a speck of chocolate in them.”

I scoffed. “He wouldn’t do that.”

“You haven’t seen him around sugar. He inhales it like an anteater.”

While I played around with placement on the wall, Riley put his old coffee in the microwave and heated it up. “Thanks for making that, Robin,” he said. “That was really nice. And Jess and I are just going to get some lunch.”

We were?

“Do you want to come with us?”

No. Say no, I tried to mentally project to Robin. I probably would have a classic college girl meltdown if the first guy I’d been genuinely attracted to in three years hit on one of my best friends.

Fortunately, I had told Robin in my beer buzz the night before that I liked Riley. And she knew the girl code. She shook her head. “Oh, no thanks. I have to work today and I have a ton of stuff to do before that.”

Yay, Robin. I owed her a beer for that. Hell, a case of beer. “Oh, that sucks.” I paused for a beat. “But thanks, you’re awesome. I’ll text you later.” So get the F out.

She grinned at me. “You’re welcome.” She reached over and gave me a hug, which was weird, because I didn’t do hugs and she knew that. But it was a ploy to whisper in my ear. “Holy hotness. Total vag explosion.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Are you two going to make out?” Riley asked, sounding hopeful.

I looked around for something to throw at him but came up short. The room was too clean to be risking breaking anything, anyway.

“Let me walk you out,” Riley said to Robin when she moved toward the door. “I don’t want any of the neighbors getting any ideas.”

Funny how he didn’t seem to have a problem with me coming and going on my own. But there wasn’t anything I could say that wouldn’t sound insane and I couldn’t exactly follow them either. So I just stayed in the kitchen and felt bitchy. The room looked amazing, like a hundred and ten percent improvement with the new cabinet knobs and all the other touches, and yet I was discontent. Maybe my mother was right—I was never grateful.

He was gone a long time. “Do you really want lunch?” I asked when he finally came back in, smelling like smoke. “Or was that just a way to try and get Robin to hang out longer?”

“Yes, I want lunch. I’m starving. The whiskey burned a hole in my gut and I need to fill it.” He started down the hallway to his bedroom. “Your friend is cute.”

“I know,” I yelled bitterly from the doorway of the kitchen. “And she’s single,” I added, just because I was a masochist and I wanted to see his reaction to that information. And maybe because if he was going to hit on her, I just wanted to get it over with.

“That’s a shame, I guess. Unless she wants to be single, then that’s good.” He reemerged from his room, wearing an AC/DC shirt.

“I have no idea what she wants,” I said, trying for dignified but sounding more like I had a stick up my ass.

“Are you okay?” he asked, sounding dubious. “I think you must be hungry, too. You sound like Jayden when he’s forgotten to eat.”

I couldn’t really argue with that. “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine? And if you want to hook up with Robin, go for it, she has a great body.”

Now why the hell did I say that last part? It was a rookie mistake I saw girl after girl make, and I had always rolled my eyes at their naiveté. Never let your emotion dictate what comes out of your mouth. It was a lesson straight out of Guy 101. The minute you did that, you handed control over to them.

Damn it.

His eyebrows shot up. “You want me to hook up with your friend? That’s very generous of you. I appreciate you looking for a landing spot for my dick.”

“Don’t be crude,” I chastised.

“You’re the one who is suggesting I hook up with her five minutes after I met her.”

“Never mind.” I went to my room to get my purse and threw it over my head so that it dangled on my hip. I was wearing an old shirt with peanut butter and jelly high-fiving each other and basketball shorts I worked out in, but I didn’t give a shit. It wasn’t like putting on cuter clothes was going to change the outcome of this day.

“Are you jealous of your friend? Because that seems like a bad foundation for a friendship.”

“Why would I be jealous of her? And what do you know about friendship?” Verbal vomit officially commencing. I grabbed a cookie out of the Mystery Machine and crammed it in my mouth just to shut myself up.

“Apparently nothing.”

We went and got sub sandwiches, and Riley ate his footlong and half of my six-inch, along with two bags of chips and a soft drink that was roughly the size of my dorm room wastebasket.

“Do you have any pictures of your family on your phone?” I asked, an idea for the long hallway to the bedrooms popping into my head.

“What do you mean?”

“You know, like snapshots of the boys. Ones where no one is flipping off the camera.”

He grinned. “That may be a tall order.” But he dutifully pulled out his phone and started scrolling through pictures. “Here’s one of Easton on his birthday. I got him a giant cupcake.” He held it out to me.

Easton was smiling, his dark eyes shining, as he held his giant cupcake up to his mouth, about to take a bite. “That’s perfect.”