Something was very, very off.

I left Annie alone so she could focus on herself for the first time in at least six years, but with Drake in a panic, it really only meant that I should have been too.

I called her, but there was no answer.

I texted her to let me know what she was up to.

What else could I do?

Just as Griffin came into the living room from the kitchen, I spat out the only words on my mind. "You want to go to New York with me?"

He hesitated. "Now?"

I nodded.

"At this very moment even though we just got back from Talladega?" he asked.

"Well, maybe not, but as soon as we can. I'm kind of freaking out about Annie. Drake knows something I don't."

"Is she okay?"

I shrugged. "I hope so, but he didn't tell me a goddamn thing about why he was so worked up. And—and she's one of the only people who actually gives a shit about me, and I really care about her."

He didn't respond right away.

"We'll take the Corvette. You can drive," I said.

"It's not that I don't want to. It's that I'm physically exhaus—" He paused for a moment. "You really think it can handle another long drive like that?"

"Probably, and besides, getting stranded together wouldn't be so bad, would it?" I forced a smile.

"There are definitely worse people to be with."

High praise.

My racing heart still hadn't dialed down, but there wasn't a damn thing I could do about Annie. And as unsettling as that was, for the first time in too long, she got to live the way I always tried to: the way she wanted.

And anyway, Drake sounded like he was on the move on the other end of the phone call. Everything would be fine.

"Why don't you look into the next flight to New York? It'll be faster," Griffin said. "I hate flying, but she seems like a sweetheart. I don't want anything to happen to her."

She was a sweetheart. Even though we came from two different ways of life, she was a lot of things I could never be, and dammit, I respected the hell out of that.

"Griffin, you fly all the time. How many times has your plane crashed?" I asked.

He shook his head. "That doesn't matter. I would feel better if I was the one flying the plane."

"Then you should have been a pilot. Or you could get a private helicopter. That's what rich and famous people do."

"Yeah, and then I end up dead in the infield of Talladega like Davey Allison. No thanks," he said.

I smiled. It was a brutal life we lived, but at least there was a trophy waiting on the other side of the finish line.

"Why don't you give yourself a break, calm down after this stressful week we've both had, and we'll regroup for tomorrow. You want something to eat?" I asked.

"I don't want your cooking. No offense, but you're good at other things." He laughed. My mac and cheese was stellar. Fuck him. "So are we flying, or can I drive the Corvette?"

I laughed. "The Corvette, obviously. I've only had it for a few days. And when I die, I want it buried with me."

***

New York City was supposedly the place to be for someone like Annie to find herself and show the world what the hell she was made of. I never bought into that. I loved the distraction of a big city—the lights, the people, the nights, the mood—but it never was a place to figure life out. It was far too loud and fun for that.

There were several people I was expecting a call from, like Drake, Annie, or even Andre Moretti to tell me that I hadn't quite fucked up as badly as I thought.

The next morning, Griffin was still asleep upstairs, and I couldn't really blame him. It was always difficult to handle when my season ended, and I never made it as far into the playoffs as he did. I didn't mind the quiet in the kitchen, though. It reminded me of early mornings with Annie back at the Sacrilege house.

When my phone rang, I didn't even bother to check which one it was before answering.

"Hey Katie," she said. Annie. What a gorgeous, sweet voice.

"Where the hell are you? Are you doing okay?" I asked. "Drake called me in a fucking panic last night, and so I started freaking out, and—"

"I'm fine. Really. I mean, I'm honestly better than fine. I ended up in this cute little town called Saratoga Springs, and everyone is so friendly. I thought people from New York were supposed to be douchebags."

"What?"

"People from New York are rude. Everyone has heard that."

For someone so smart and kind, she believed just about everything anyone ever told her. What a cutie.

I blinked. "You do realize that when people say they're going to New York on a whim, they usually mean the city, right?"

"Why would I go there?" she asked.

I took in a breath. "Well, I'm really glad that you're actually okay. I was worried. That's all."

"Yeah, I'm sorry that I didn't respond earlier. When I first stopped in town, I went to this restaurant run by a local family, and when they found out that I didn't really have anywhere else to go, they offered me a job and let me sleep in the car in their parking lot. I was just so exhausted last night, but it was the good kind of tired, like I got something done instead of just running in circles."

I nodded. I was pretty much stuck in the running in circles phase of my life.

"But anyway, I'm sure you want your car back, so—" she began, but I cut her off.

"Keep it. You need a place to sleep, Annie."

She hesitated for a moment. "Are you sure? I don't want to use you."

"Don't worry about it. You took care of me when I needed it, so it's only fair if I do the same for you. Hell, Griffin and I were just about to drive to New York in the Corvette to check up on you." I chuckled.

"Really?"

"Why the fuck wouldn't we?"

She laughed. "I'm gonna be honest, Katie, if he was my best friend, there would be benefits, and there would be a lot of them. He's too hot to just be friends."

"Oh, there are. There are so many goddamn benefits."

She gasped. "Are you serious? When the hell did that start?"

"We kissed the morning after I got back to Baton Rouge, and it just kinda—" A flush of heat spread across my face and all the way down my body. "Oh my god, Annie. That's all I have to say."

"So what about Drake?"

"What about him?"

"Is he aware that you moved on?"

"Well, I made it clear that I was going to, so if he finds out and it surprises him, that's his problem."

"Oh." She paused for a moment. "So describe it to me. I'm sitting alone in a car in a restaurant parking lot at eight in the morning, and I need something to distract me. Every detail of sex with Griffin. Go."

I smiled. As much as I loved having Griffin as my best friend, there were times I missed the benefits of female friendship. "Well, let's start at the beginning. So he had just gotten home after a meeting with the car owner Roger Truscott. And I was sitting in the living room, where he had a small party the night before, so there were a few leftover cups and bottles lying around. Our eyes met, and I was gonna say something about our kiss earlier when he—"

Annie interrupted. "Wait, wait, hold on. Hold on. Drake?"

"No, this was definitely Griffin." But there was a voice that definitely wasn't Annie's on the other end of the call.

I knew that voice. It was deep, calm, and thoughtful.

Drake.

"Drake? What the fuck is he doing there?" I asked.

The phone thumped against something (maybe the car floor), and although I could hear his voice, the sound was muffled and I couldn't make out the words.

"Okay, so you had enough time and energy to tell Drake last night about where the hell you ended up, but not me. That's cool. Real fucking cool, Annie," I said.

This time, it was Annie's voice, but she wasn't responding to me.

How the hell could Drake just drop everything to check on her? Even I couldn't do that.

The day I first met him, he warned Josiah that eventually, he was going to lose Annie if he didn't treat her right. And when she finally left, he said that she was his friend and that he loved her.

Oh my god.

The reason he was so goddamn closed off to me was that he was really in love with his best friend's girlfriend. How the fuck hadn't I figured it out before?

When we first kissed, he told me that it would never work because we wanted different things. But that wasn't true. We both wanted the same person, and that was Annie.

Unfortunately for me, she was straight, but that wasn't a problem for Drake.

"Oh my god. What the fuck is he doing?" I rose my voice. "You don't need this right now, Annie. You just got out of a toxic relationship, like, last week. Can you hear me?"

But she must not have heard me, even though there wasn't any talking going on anymore.

"Annie, don't do anything. He loves you, but he's waited six years already. He can wait a little longer," I said.

He always said I was pretty or that I was talented, but there was never that certain bond that I wanted from a relationship. Maybe that type of bond wasn't even real at all. But we never even had a chance if he just wanted one with Annie the whole goddamn time.

And as their voices piped up on the other end of the phone again, I couldn't even blame him. She was probably the best team player on Team Sacrilege, and she was the only one who cared about it the same way Drake did.

"Would you at least hang up the phone? I don't want to hear this," I said. But I needed to hear. She was just beginning her journey to do what she wanted with her life, and she sure as shit didn't need a haunting reminder of that old life.

"Guys, please. Not now. Just give it a couple months and then see. I mean, that's like me going after Griffin the day I got out of the hospital. You can't do that kind of shit."

I was only talking to myself since there was no way they could hear me, but I couldn't just sit back and let them ruin all of the progress Annie made without Josiah. She didn't need him. She didn't need anyone.

Maybe they were just talking about casual friendly things like old times with Sacrilege, but what were the odds of that? It was a fast-paced world, life was a highway and all of that bullshit, but there was a time and a place for everything and a parking lot in upstate New York at eight a.m. was not it.

"Why the fuck are you yelling?" Griffin asked as he came down the stairs to start the day. Unlike the day we first kissed, he wasn't put together, and his hair stuck up in the air and the tag on his sweatpants was sticking out in the front.

Rough morning for us both, then.

I hung up and set my phone on the kitchen table. "I'm not yelling. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't my fault that Annie can't hear me."

"Is she okay?"

"She's fine, I guess. She might fuck it all up right now though." I laughed. "And you know what's the worst part? I can't even stop her."

He nodded but didn't say anything as he headed to the fridge.

"Well, now we don't have to go to New York, I guess," I said. "How are you feeling?"

"Still pissed."

I kept a chuckle to myself since I knew damn well that would only piss him off more. I didn't let myself spend one moment sulking before I packed up and headed to Vegas, but we all dealt with shit in different ways.

"Your pants are on backwards, babe," I said instead.

He looked up from the fridge, then down at himself. "Goddammit."

I let myself laugh. "Don't worry about it. I think it's cute, but I really prefer it when they're off."

His scowl broke into a smile as he walked over to my chair. "How the hell am I supposed to stay mad when you're here talking like that?"

"Good God, Griffin. You like that stupid ass shit?"

He brushed his lips against mine. "I think it's cute, but I really prefer it when the only words you can manage are fuck and Griffin."

Every single time he touched me, a fire burned in my stomach, and before he could get away, I pulled him closer by the shoulders and kissed him like there wasn't a second we could waste.

Even if it would have been a bad idea to get involved with him right away, I couldn't help but wonder why the hell I didn't. He wasn't going to reject me, and I probably knew that.

But there was a time and a place, and it was real fucking nice to be in that moment.

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Hello everyone! Thank you so much for your patience with this chapter! I've had quite a week and didn't have much energy to write, so I hope this was worth the wait! Thank you for reading!

So I was thinking about this story (as I do, since I kind of have to), and compared to my other protagonists, Katie is a little less direct about what she cares about the most. For Amanda and Reagan, it's pretty obvious (I think, right?), so for today's question, what do you think is the most important thing to Katie? What drives her choices?