Page 2 of Double Fault

“Ew.” I pluck them off, then drop the bag onto my bed. I send up a silent prayer that there are no spiders hiding in the dust bunnies, but I’m already envisioning them burrowing into my sheets.

In my purse, my phone buzzes, and when I dig it out and see my best friend’s name on the screen, it feels as though she somehow knows I need her.

I slide a finger across the screen to answer, smiling. “Lu!”

“My Sabrina senses were tingling. What’s wrong?”

I turn, facing my reflection in the mirror hung over the back of the bathroom door, and twist a curl with one finger. “I’m being evicted.”

“Sab,” she scolds. “When I asked you if you needed money yesterday, you swore you didn’t.”

Lucy is only a year older than me, but man, those twelve months make a whole world of difference. She has a whole wife, while I haven’t even made it to the end of a date in the past six months. It’s not my fault that the last three guys I went out either spent the night whining about an ex or straight-up told me they were only paying for dinner if I agreed to have sex with them. As-fucking-if.

Lucy is a personal shopper at a luxury store in the massive mall downtown. It pays well, but her wife makes the big bucks. Alyssa created a dating app when she was only seventeen. The woman is a tech wizard. She met Lucy through the app. It kills them both every time another date I set up using it ends terribly.

They think something’s wrong with the algorithm.

Ithink they’ve forgotten that straight men are the literal worst.

“You know I don’t like taking money from you.”

I already have a running tally of every penny I’ve borrowed on my phone’s notes app.

Twenty-five dollars for gas.

Another $55.60 for groceries.

A total of $5.65 for Starbucks.

Was the coffee a necessity?

In the moment, absolutely.

In hindsight, I should’ve suffered the caffeine headache.

“Pack your shit and get over here.”

I pluck a T-shirt off the floor and assess it. It hasn’t made its way to the monster pile yet, so I give it a sniff, then stuff it in the duffel. At least I can do my laundry at Lucy’s.

“Already on it. I was planning to show up at your door and beg for sanctuary.”

“Don’t be dramatic. You know we always have room for you. Why don’t you stay with us for a few months? Give yourself some time to save and find a job?”

She’s made the same offer a dozen times. And like every time before, I respond with a firm “no.”

As much as I love Lucy and Alyssa—and I could go days in their palatial house without even seeing them—I refuse to be a mooch. Okay, I refuse to bethat muchof a mooch, since, in situations like this, where the alternative means sleeping in the car, I have to accept her help. But I can’t stand the idea of burdening them with my problems long term.

“Don’t be stubborn.”

My throat tightens. “I’m sure I’ll find a job in no time.”

“That’s what you say every time,” she argues. I can picture her pacing in her tiny office in the back part of the store.

“And every time, I find a job.”Eventually.

“I don’t know why you won’t let Alyssa help you. She has connections.”

With a groan, I shove another armful of clothes into the bag. “I’m not a charity case, Lu.”

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