Page 89 of Anyone But You

“Do you need me to hold your hand?” Brittney offered genuinely.

“For what?” I asked, logging into my credit monitoring app.

“Your credit score is about to look like your IQ.”

“I’ve never seen anyone with a single-digit credit score before,” Alyssa ribbed, earning an eye roll from me.

“Haha. You got jokes.”

“Victoria! Join me in the bedroom so we can lie down on the box spring and watch your invisible TV!” Knox shouted.

“All right. I think you’ve made your point,” I commented as my credit report populated.

“Ooooo,” Brittney said, staring down at my 289 credit score. Alyssa hummed the lyrics to “Locked Up” by Akon as I surveyed the damage. I found several delinquent credit cards that were opened in my name since my absence, and if I had to guess, they performed balance transfers for the cash.

Knox entered the living room looking like the devil himself.

“You’re getting a security guard. Scratch that—a team of guards.”

My brows crinkled in confusion.

“I don’t need a security team.”

“What if those crackheads were here lying in wait for you?”

“Crackheads?” I asked incredulously.

“I lived through the eighties—your sisters are crackheads.”

My best friends cackled as I attempted to poorly hold myself back from laughing.

“Every day, you open your mouth and remind me of the significant age gap between us.”

“Not only that, but crackheads are strong. My bike was stolen by a crackhead when I was twelve. Foolishly, I thought I’d fight her.”

“She whooped your ass, didn’t she?” Alyssa asked, amused by his confession. Knox huffed and ran a hand through his hair.

“I thought she was a damn Power Ranger by the time she was done with me.”

A laugh ripped out of me, and I slid to the floor with tears streaming down my face as Knox tried to convince me his story “wasn’t that funny.”

“Oh, my God,” I said, chuckling as I wiped away salty tears. “Thank you for the laugh. I needed it.”

Knox’s frown briefly tugged into a minuscule smile, and he seemed to relax before my eyes.

It would be awful of me to tell him about the identity theft now. The news will rile him up again. I’ll tell him after I put it on him.

“You’re welcome. I apologize for my earlier outburst. I’m sure that added to your stress, but this shit isn’t right. Can you give me some insight on why they hate you so much?”

“They’re jealous,” Brittney piped up.

“That part,” Alyssa added.

I blew a raspberry and pulled myself up from the floor.

“I’ll tell you all about it after I finish filing a police report, but only if we pick up pizza from Vince’s.”

“Let’s because I’m still considering rescinding my marriage proposal because you said his pizza was better than mine.”