“I’m fine.”

“You look weird.”

Ignoring her, I slide the files closer so I can begin to organize them by priority. Melissa can’t take a hint, though, and continues to stare at me until I look back up at her questioningly.

“You know what’s odd, Piper? I could have sworn I saw you the other night, making out with that hippy homeless guy that’s always hanging around downtown, begging for money.”

My jaw clenches as I narrow my eyes at this girl who loves to antagonize me. I knew someday this was bound to happen. Evan and I haven’t exactly always been discrete about public displays of affection.

“Don’t you have work to do, Melissa?”

“Aren’t you even going to deny it?”

That’s when it truly hits me like a brick wall. I’m in love with Evan, and I don’t want to hide or deny it. I refuse to live a lie or cover up my feelings for him just to satisfy other people or to avoid being judged by them.

Love isn’t dictated by what a person does for work or where they live.

“Why should I deny it? He’s sweet, incredibly talented, and hot as hell.”

“He’s homeless, Piper. Are you fucking serious?”

“I am,” I admit casually. “By the way, how’s your fiancé? Is he still unemployed?”

Melissa makes a disgusted face, and I fear she’s going to come right over the top of my desk and murder me here on the spot.

“You’re a bitch,” she seethes. “No wonder you can only get a homeless guy to date you. Nobody else would ever want you.”

I feel guilty as she stomps away in the direction of her cubicle with tears in her eyes, but she instigated me. Saying hurtful words to someone isn’t something I enjoy at all, but as my mom is always telling me, I have to fight back sometimes so people don’t walk all over me. It’s not my fault Melissa is a rude, judgmental bitch who constantly goes out of her way to make me feel bad, so maybe she deserves a jobless fiancé.

Blue usually hears my car pull up in front of the abandoned house every night and waits for me at the shed door, but today when I get there, he’s not standing at the door. Instead, he’s sitting on the floor with his guitar, surrounded by a notebook and scraps of paper. He’s so immersed in scribbling madly with a black crayon that he doesn’t even look up at me.

“Blue?” I say softly.

Without acknowledging me, he rubs his hand across his forehead and plays a few notes, then shakes his head, starts over, shakes his head again, plays a few notes, then bangs his hand on the body of the guitar.

“Fuck!” he yells, reaching for the pack of cigarettes lying next to him. I glance over at Acorn, who’s curled up in the fleece dog bed I bought for him earlier in the week. He was so happy when I gave it to him he wagged his tail and spun around in circles for about fifteen minutes before snuggling into the bed with his cherished penguin.

“Evan.” I take a few steps closer to him. “Are you okay?”

He takes a deep drag on the cigarette and blows smoke up over his head. His eyes are wild, bloodshot with exhaustion, his expression tortured. The handsome smile I love is nowhere to be seen.

“Do I look fucking okay?” He grabs a bottle of vodka from beside him that I somehow didn’t see until now and takes a gulp of it before slamming it back down and picking up the crayon to write more on the tattered notepaper.

My heart sinks like a two-ton rock into my gut. “You’re drinking?”

I kneel in front of him and touch his hand, but he yanks it away as if I burned him.

“I’m trying to write, and I can’t fucking get it. It’s all a mess.” Eyes darting across the page, he shakes his head in frustration and crumples the paper into a ball and tosses it a few feet away with the others.

“It’s okay,” I say softly. “Maybe you just need to take a break for a few minutes.”

His lip curls up in anger. “I don’t need a break. I need to fucking get this song right.”

“It sounds good, from what I heard,” I say, and that’s the truth. I didn’t hear anything wrong at all with the piece he was playing. It sounded just as awesome as all his other songs.

The face he makes is one of complete disbelief and repulsion. “Don’t pacify me. Are you deaf? It’s pure shit. It’s making my fucking ears bleed.”

I want to tell him how wrong he is, but it’s obvious he’s too far down into the tunnel of his own head to listen to any sort of logic, reason, or honest feedback from me. I don’t understand why this particular song has him so stressed out. I don’t think anyone expects it to sound a specific way.