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Nell hadn’t realized how much sleep she needed. When she finally woke up in Barrett’s bed the next day, it was already almost one in the afternoon. She groaned and sat up, shaking the grogginess from her mind.

Barrett’s side of the bed wasn’t warm. He’d left for work long before, and she was left with combating emotions as she remembered the day before—the highs of her day spent entirely in this bed with Barrett and his talented hands, and the lows of what had led to her being here at all.

Her chest was in a constant swing of loss and bliss. A painful and familiar movement.

Luckily, with the help of Tina’s weekly “gift”, she had enough energy to ignore the pain and focus purely on the pleasure as she got out of bed and walked through Barrett’s room.

She’d been in there before but never spent much time taking in everything.

Sandra was on the wall in her usual spot, and hundreds of cassettes were lined in boxes labeled with names and songs she only half recognized.

The rest of the room was a mess. Nothing too grotesque. Clothes strewn about, a couple of empty cans here and there, but for the most part, a good tidying wouldn’t hurt. Plus, it was the least she could do.

At some point in the night, she must have gotten a bloody nose because there was that little dark stain where her head had been laying, so she quickly took off the pillow case to clean as well.

It didn’t take her long to tidy up, and from there, she moved into the kitchen—washing some dishes, putting away clean ones.

Truth was, she wasn’t too accustomed to house chores. She’d done the occasional chores at the request of her parents, but her mother had the traditional housewife role down to a T. Their house was always spotless, and Nell rarely woke to anything but the smell of eggs and bacon in the morning.

But she owed Barrett and Ron. Letting her stay there was a debt she had to repay, and since she hadn’t brought along any cash—other than what was in her wallet—and couldn’t ask her parents for more, she was left with actions.

Like cleaning and cooking.

She opened the refrigerator and peeked inside. There wasn’t much—a mix of random ingredients, milk, and a few microwave meals.

Well, it was too late to wake Barrett with bacon and eggs, but if she was lucky, he hadn’t eaten lunch yet.

Gathering a mix of meats, cheese, bread, and a few other things, she laid them out on the countertop and began putting together four sandwiches.

Before she’d even spread mayonnaise over the bread, the front door jiggled open.

Nell paused and perked up. “You’re back already?”

The door closed, and Nell’s face flushed.

Ron stared at her, taking in her standing there with messy hair and eight pieces of bread spread in front of her and—she looked down at herself—only Barrett’s long shirt covering her down to her mid-thigh.

Oh, god.

Nell felt like dropping the knife and running. But Ron didn’t seem to even notice that part, or at least he kindly pretended not to. Instead, he simply surveyed in the surrounding area, his eyebrow quirked.

“You cleaned,” he said.

Nell swallowed, pulling her arms in close to her body, hoping it would shrink everything down. She thought he worked until later. Or maybe it was that he usually worked nights? She wasn’t really sure what his schedule was; he just usually wasn’t around when she was.

“Uh, yeah. I wanted to help however I can, as a thank you for letting me stay here. I know it isn’t ideal.”

“No, it’s not.” He shook his head.

Nell shrank a little further. “I, uh, am making lunch to take to Barrett. I was also making a sandwich for you for later. I didn’t know you were going to be here right now.”

Ron looked over the sandwich stuff again, and Nell wondered if maybe she should have asked first. Maybe he had a very specific recipe he was going to use the lunch meat for.

“That’s nice of you.”

Nell blinked and cleared her throat, surprised. “It’s the least I could do.”

He nodded. “I’ll get changed and be right back to eat,” he said and left.

Nell, knowing this was her only chance, ran back to Barrett’s bedroom and threw on a pair of shorts and a bra. If she had her way, she would rather just stay in there and roll around in mortification. But now, she really had to finish these sandwiches.

A few minutes later, Ron sat on a counter stool, picking up the sandwich that Nell had made and eyeing it.

Nell watched, suddenly terrified that her sandwich-making skills were not up to par.

He took his first bite, and Nell stared, rabid for his approval. Clearly, he didn’t completely like her. Clearly, he didn’t trust her.

If she were to be with Barrett, she wanted—no, needed —the most important person in his life to accept her. Even if it started with a sandwich.

“Can I ask you something?” Ron swallowed and set down the sandwich on his plate.

Nell’s stomach flipped, not sure what this meant. “Yes, of course.”

“I heard the band was offered a chance at a deal.”

Nell tilted her head, surprised by this turn in their nonexistent conversation. But she nodded. “A once-in-a-lifetime deal.”

“Do you think they’ll get it?”

Nell smiled. She knew this answer. “I’m positive they will. I don’t know if you’ve heard them perform, but they’re amazing.”

Ron nodded, and Nell smiled wider when he took another large bite of his sandwich.

“Then can I ask a favor?”

Nell was more confident now. She nodded, eager to accept.

“You make sure he goes. No matter what, okay?”

Nell’s smile faltered for a moment because there was that emptiness she got whenever she imagined Barrett up and leaving Gemsburg. But the last bits of Tina’s gift caught it and mellowed it out.

She grinned. “Okay.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

* * *

Maybe it was wishful thinking, but Ron seemed to be taking a liking to her over the last week. Or, at the very least, he didn’t mind her living with them.

She herself had started to get a hang of living like this. For the most part, it was heaven being with Barrett nearly every hour of the day at home or practice.

It was quite easy to ignore everything else when she was here. She’d found ways to almost always be in a good mood.

The hardest part was avoiding any spots in town her parents might run into her and waking up in the morning without the smell of her mom’s breakfast. But she would live.

She’d even gotten good at making breakfast herself.

In fact, she’d become the designated breakfast cook of the house. Experimenting with the million different ways to make eggs was her new hobby.

Poached, she discovered, was turning out to be the most difficult so far.

It’d seemed easy when her mom did it, but every time Nell dropped the egg into the water and tried to pull it out, it ended up in an inedible watered-down soup.

She had managed to get one of the eggs to stay together, but when she’d looked closely at it, she realized she’d broken the yolk. Barrett liked his yolks runny, so now she was on her fourth try.

What she’d managed to scrape together from her previous attempts was on her plate for breakfast.

She watched the boiling pot closely as she dropped the latest victim in. She adjusted the bun she’d pulled her hair into and leaned over, squinting at the water.

“What is it this time?”

Nell jumped as arms wrapped around her waist from behind, and Barrett’s messy bedhead tickled her neck as he rested his chin on her shoulder and looked into the pot.

“You scared me.” Nell lightly tapped his hand crossed over her stomach.

“I said ‘good morning’. You just didn’t hear me.” He turned his head and pecked at the side of her jaw. “What’s with the mess?”

Nell frowned when she realized he was talking about the plate with all the ruined eggs. She spun so she was facing him, but his arms stayed in place around her, allowing her to lean against his chest. “I’m trying to make poached eggs, but they’re impossible. What are you doing up so early anyway?”

Normally, she made breakfast, then woke him up to eat before he went to work. When Ron wasn’t working an early morning shift, she did the same for him.

“The bed was too cold,” he said, his eyes narrowed sleepily as he smiled down at her. “I came to bring you back.”

“If I go back, you’ll show up to work late and hungry.”

He shook his head, unconvinced. “I’m willing to make the sacrifice.” He closed the space between their mouths before Nell could reason with him, which drained any semblance of reason from her. She grinned as he nibbled lazily on her lips and murmured, “How long does that thing need to cook?”

Nell’s eyes widened as she gasped and pulled away, breaking herself out of his hold to spin toward the pot.

She knew before she even caught the slippery egg that it was a dud. She groaned, shooting him a joking glare and biting back a smile. “You’re distracting me. Either go back to bed or make some toast.”

He chuckled, smacked one more kiss on her cheek, and left to find the bread.