There were certain text messages that made your heart rate double when you got them.

"I need to talk to you" and similar variations. Then there was the classic "are you up?" notoriously followed by "come over."

That was Sage's go-to move, and despite the images I had in my head of AJ's smile that I clung to like a warm blanket in the dead of winter, bad habits were always the hardest to break. Without Hunter around to confiscate my phone, my resolve was a weak and crumbling wall that Sage easily busted through. Despite my head being heavy with sleep, I snuck downstairs and out through the back door, coasting along on my new skateboard under the light of the moon.

The moment I shimmied through Sage's bedroom window, she gripped onto my t-shirt and yanked me down into her, her lips colliding with mine and wasting no time exploring my mouth.

"Everything okay?" I breathed out in between kisses. We stumbled over to her bed and fell backwards into it. I liked the way her sheets always smelled like citrus and cigarettes and flowers, like a twisted combination of us.

"I just missed you," she said softly. "You weren't answering my calls, I thought something was wrong."

"Nothing's wrong," I insisted.

Other than the fact that I hadn't used in over a week and my body was dying to remind me, but every time I closed my eyes I saw AJ's gigawatt smile, and for those few moments it all washed away with the tide.

Sage raised an eyebrow at me, but melted into my arms when I pressed another kiss to her lips. After all the years of our rollercoaster relationship, I knew every dip and curve of her body, every birthmark and every scar, but for the first time, she felt unfamiliar.

She pulled at my clothes, but I couldn't think straight. For someone who never gave a shit about anything, I found myself second guessing my every move. It seemed like overnight I was suddenly hyper aware of every harsh line and angle of my body, aware of the dirt under my nails and the scabs on my knees. And even though I had someone else's lips on my skin, it made me wonder if AJ would even like all of my calloused, damaged self, down to the tiniest scar.

But as I laid in Sage's bed with her head resting on my bare chest, at that moment it was okay. It was all okay.

✗✗✗

I sat on the bar at the Ordinary and watched Stella flutter back and forth from the table of orchids to the baskets of tulips, like she was actually a butterfly collecting nectar. Or in Stella's case, a wasp.

She groaned and turned to face me with her hands on her hips. "Are you just going to sit there and stuff your face or are you going to help me?"

I took another bite of my bacon, egg, and cheese bagel from the deli down the street and shook my head at her. I couldn't remember the last time I had actually eaten real breakfast, but the gods had definitely blessed my sandwich.

"I'm gonna sit here and stuff my face, and I'm not making you a stupid ass corsage like you're going to prom or something. It's the fucking Fourth of July parade, which is not for another two weeks. Anything I make now will just die."

"I need to be prepared." She was so dramatic, sometimes I wondered why she didn't try and pursue an acting career. She'd be really fucking good at it. "I also need a backup, and a backup for my backup."

I ignored her and went back to my sandwich, but when I looked up at her again her eyes were still on me, cool gray and sharp, like steel.

"What?" I bit back.

"The more I watch you eat, the weirder it is," she shrugged. "You know, for a while I was convinced you had actually turned into a plant from spending so much time here, and you didn't eat real food because you did photosynthesis and got your food from the sun. So now seeing you eat proves my theory wrong, and you know how much I hate being wrong."

I shot her a stony glare. "That's not even funny. Now get out of my face. Unlike you, I'm working."

She gave me one last glance before twirling around the empty room, arms open. "Oh yes, because you have so many customers, you're just so busy."

"Fuck off." I balled up the tinfoil my sandwich came in and chucked it at her as she sauntered out the door.

Before I could even take a breath, the bells on the door jingled again, and in an instant all the air had been sucked out of the room.

I was starting to wonder if I'd ever get used to seeing AJ, or if I'd just have to accept that every time she looked at me with those blue eyes of hers, I'd fall into them and drown. Every single time.

"Hey," I choked out. "What are you doing here?"

She just gave me that all-knowing smile of hers and handed me a cup of coffee, and I had a moment of deja vu as I took it from her hands, brushing my fingers against hers. I couldn't help but smile. "Are you going to continue to bribe me with coffee so I don't do drugs?"

She laughed. "Trade one addiction for another. I mean hey, coffee won't kill you."

"Well, thanks." I didn't mean to mumble, but I felt so small next to her.

She leaned against the counter and blew a chunk of cinnamon brown hair away from her face. "So, how are you?"

"I uh..." I felt my throat tighten. "Well, how are you?"

The grin she gave me made my heart flutter. "I'm great, and I'd be even better if you didn't deflect my question with another question."

"Right. Well...I'm okay," I sighed. It wasn't a total lie. I was okay, at least now that she was there. "I'm just tired."

She nodded intently at me, silently pushing me further along.

"No I just..." I blew out another breath. "I was just up late last night. My brain's been kind of on overdrive lately."

I did everything I could to try and avoid talking about the girl I was sleeping with to the girl I had completely fallen flat on my face for, but karma wasn't done fucking me up yet. As if on cue, the door to the shop flung open, and in walked Sage, in tiny workout shorts and a baseball hat she took from me back in high school. Tucked under her left arm was my gray hoodie. I left her house in such a rush that morning, I guess I had left it behind. A sense of dread overwhelmed me when I realized Sage looked right past me and nailed her gaze onto AJ. My stomach rolled, and I felt like I was about to see that sandwich I just ate again.

Everything Sage ever did was calculated. She took her time walking up to us, brushing her hands over the roses and tiptoeing around puddles.

"Hey," she said with a soft smile, pressing my sweatshirt into my hands. "I figured I'd drop this off on my way to the gym, you left it at my house last night."

My face burned with the heat of a thousand suns. I gulped down a ripple of nausea. "Right...thanks."

She then turned her attention to AJ, and I wondered if getting stabbed would be less painful than watching them interact.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to be rude," Sage said and gave AJ the same half-smile she gave me. "I'm Sage."

"AJ," she responded, softer and warmer than Sage was. "I've actually been looking for a gym, where do you go?"

"Oh," Sage perked up, and it threw my stomach for another loop. "It's called Notion and it's downtown, and they have this really good Pilates Yoga fusion class..." she looked down at her watch. "That I am actually about to be late for. It was nice meeting you."

Sage turned back to me and smiled. "I'll call you later, okay?"

After she left, the air around me felt heavy, and I didn't know if I was going to be sick, or faint, or both.

"Your girlfriend seems nice." A grin tugged on AJ's lips.

Being stabbed was definitely less painful.

"I'll admit though I was totally off base about the kind of girls I thought you dated," she chuckled. "I was kind of expecting tattoos, Doc Martens, but instead...Pilates Yoga fusion."

"Except she's not. We're not," I sputtered out, dropping my sweatshirt on the counter that still smelled like her room. As fucked up as it was, and as much as I knew how delusional it was thinking anything could happen between me and AJ, I still didn't want her thinking I was unavailable. "We're just...we're not."

AJ nodded slowly, her smile faltering ever so slightly, but I knew I had just put a crack in that otherworldly glow of hers. "Okay, I'm sorry. I know it's none of my business."

"No, I'm sorry. It's just complicated, that's all." I rubbed the back of my neck. "She was my girlfriend once upon a time, now it's just...it's whatever, I don't even know what it is. We break up and get back together a lot. I know that doesn't sound good, but...she's really all I've ever had, in terms of romance and relationships and all that stuff. I mean not that I have many real friends either...actually, just one, really."

There was the vomit. It was just in word form. But AJ kept her focus on me, tracing little flowers I had etched into the wooden countertop with her finger.

"Do you feel like you alienated people?" I asked. "I mean, when you weren't sober."

"Oh yeah, for sure," she scoffed. "Nobody wanted to hang out with me because I was a hot fucking mess, I'd always get us into trouble or kicked out of bars, and I owed a lot of people money. By the end of it all, I really didn't have anybody. I guess it all kind of shows you who your real friends are."

I thought of Hunter, and how many times he could have left me choking in the dust, but he never did.

"Well, I'm your friend." I gave her a weak smile. "I mean, if you still want a friend."

"Okay, but don't ask me to go to Pilates Yoga fusion with you." She smirked and gave my arm a light shove, and I swore it sent a bolt of lightning through me.

I wanted to be so much more than her friend, but I'd take anything that got her to look at me like I meant something.