Page 6 of The Do-Over

And he’d traded me for concert tickets.

I bit my lip; I would not cry. A dark tendril of hair escaped my ponytail and fluttered in front of my eyes. I shoved it aside and rubbed my stinging nose.

With a sniffle, I set my bags on the floor and fished my phone from my purse. After it stopped ringing, I tapped out a group text message to my family and told them my (imaginary) stomach problems would keep me from going to the party at the Loveland Hotel we went to each year for New Year’s Eve. Then I shot off a proof-of-life text to my best friend, Mathias, and turned my phone off before anyone could reply.

A door slammed above, and a man appeared, a rush of leather jacket and dark hair as he jogged down the stairs and past me. He was more of an impression than an image, blurred in his haste. No one I’d seen before, but it was a big complex; I didn’t know everyone. Still, he paused a few steps past me, turned back toward me.

“Hey,” he said. “You okay?”

I straightened, oddly touched that he’d asked. “Oh, um, I’m fine.”

His head tipped to the side. He waited half a second before heading back down the stairs, throwing a hand in the air in a wave.

When I pushed into my dark little apartment a minute later, I dumped everything on the kitchen counter and flipped on the lights. There were many boring things about me, but my apartment wasn’t one of them.

The tiny dining area held a square chrome-and-turquoise table surrounded by four mismatched chairs. Bold, whimsical prints along with small, framed photographs—a Mayfield family photo, a few of Mimi and me, my sister and I—nestled on the shelf I’d installed along the long, exposed brick wall. A few candles here and there, a vase or two for fresh flowers, a leopard-print fleece blanket (a gift from Mimi) thrown on the chaise, my spoon collection displayed in the hanging wooden cabinet.

If it was bright, bold, striped, checked, floral, or whimsical, I wanted it here. But I hadn’t gathered all these things to impress anyone. I’d wanted a sanctuary, and it wasn’t lost on me that my little apartment was everything I was too afraid to be.

Sal, my betta fish, gazed at me peacefully from his spot perched on a giant, overturned flowerpot acting as an end table in the living room. I hurried over to greet him.

“This has been a horrible day.” I picked up a can of fish food and sprinkled a dusting in his bowl. “I mean, really bad. I know you weren’t a big fan of Brent.” Brent had been forever moving Sal’s bowl to another table or the kitchen so he could set up his laptop in the living room. “But it was nice to have someone.”

I plopped on the chunky red couch I’d gotten for a song at a thrift store. Exhausted from the day’s events, I allowed the silence to soothe what it could of my battered heart. Sal’s tail fluttered in a wave of reds and blues and purples as he drifted to the side of the bowl and peered out with one round black sympathetic eye.

I pressed a finger to the glass. “Thanks, pal. I can always trust you to have my back.”

Sal smiled, or I like to think it was a smile. Sal and I were close, and he seemed to get me in a way a lot of others didn’t. For example, he never told me what to do or judged me. Or if he did, he kept it to himself.

After changing into more comfortable clothes which featured a lot of elastic and stretch material, I curled in the floral-covered papasan chair closest to the patio window in the living room. On sunny days, light shone through the glass door and provided the perfect reading spot. Today wasn’t sunny. Today, it was gray and nasty.

Kind of like Brent’s heart.

Ten minutes later, which I spent thoroughly examining the many ways that my life was a disaster, Mathias showed up unannounced, bearing gifts of red wine, fruit, and a small dartboard.

“A dartboard?”

“Hold on.” From his pocket, he produced a crudely cut-out picture of Brent’s head and slapped it on the board. “I printed it off Facebook.”

“And the devil horns and goatee?”

Mathias grinned. “I added those. I think it suits him. You like?”

“Totally.”

This was why Mathias was my best friend. He was like the brother I never wanted but couldn’t live without. We’d met several years ago when Phee had had a decent shot at the Miss Texas title. Our mother had hired Mathias’s mother as her coach, who used her powers to guide young, hopeful women to their full pageant potential. Mrs. Jorgenson had been Miss Texas 1978 and her mother had been Miss Texas 1953. Mathias, unable to follow in their footsteps, had been dragged into the family business nonetheless.

He mostly kept busy as a photographer, but he also helped with the soft skills—public speaking, social media, and marketing—and he traveled a lot to meet with clients for photo sessions and sometimes, damage control. But his knowledge of double-sided tape and Preparation H was well-honed, and he could step in to solve a wardrobe malfunction or a hair crisis when needed. Furthermore, his arsenal of pep talks was legendary. As were his romances with beauty queens.

But he was still always pining for one beauty queen in particular. Namely, my sister.

Mathias dumped it all on the counter, put his hands on my shoulders and leveled a steady blue gaze at me. “Brent is an asshat. Remember that.”

“I mean, maybe—”

“Nope. He’s an asshat. You are not the problem here. He is.” He wrapped me in a tight hug and rested his chin on the top of my head. I melted against him, enjoying the knowledge that if nothing else, I always had him. Plus, he smelled good. Mathias took care with his appearance. His outfits—skinny jeans and a crisp white t-shirt today—might scream casual, but they were always calculated to impress. “God, you’re short.”

With a snort, I stepped back. “Thanks.”