My eyes widened. I hadn’t thought of the lighting in the apartment when I’d read the ad. But if it did have huge, lake-facing windows, Sam was probably right.
“Maybe I’d be able to create from home again,” I mused. I hadn’t lived somewhere with good enough lighting to work on my projects in almost two years. I missed it more than I liked to admit.
Sam smiled, looking relieved. “Exactly.”
“Okay,” I conceded. “I’m at least willing to ask for more information.”
Sam reached up and put his hand on my shoulder. His warm, steady touch calmed me, just as it had every time I’d needed it to since we were kids. The knot of anxiety that had taken up what felt like permanent residence in the pit of my stomach these past two weeks began to loosen.
For the first time in ages, it felt like I could breathe again.
“We’ll see the apartment and meet the roommate first, of course,” he said very quickly. “I can even help you negotiate a month-to-month lease if you want. That way, if it’s really awful, you can leave without breaking another lease.”
Which would mean I wouldn’t have to worry about getting hauled back into court by yet another angry landlord. Honestly, that would be a decent compromise. If this person turned out to be an axe murderer or a libertarian or some other awful thing, a month-to-month lease would let me leave quickly with no strings attached.
“You’d do that for me?” I asked. Not for the first time, I felt badly about how short I’d been with him lately.
“What else am I gonna do with my law degree?”
“For starters, you could use it to make tons of money at your firm instead of using it to help perennial fuckups like me.”
“I’m making tons of money at my firm either way,” he said, grinning. “But since you won’t let me loan you any of that money—”
“I won’t,” I agreed. It had been my choice to get an impractical graduate degree and end up hopelessly in student loan debt with few job prospects for my troubles. I wasn’t about to make that anyone else’s problem.
Sam sighed. “You won’t. Right. We’ve been over that. Repeatedly.” He shook his head and added, in a more wistful tone, “I wish you could just move in with us, Cassie. Or with Amelia. That would solve everything.”
I bit my lip and pretended to study the Craigslist ad intensely to avoid having to look at him.
In truth, a large part of me was relieved that Sam and his new husband Scott had just bought a tiny lakefront condo that barely accommodated them and their two cats. While living with them would save me the stress and the hassle of what I was going through now, Sam and Scott had just gotten married two months ago. Not only would my living with them hinder their ability to have sex wherever and whenever they felt like it, the way I understood newlyweds tended to, it would also be an awkward reminder of just how long it had been since I’d last been in a relationship.
As well as a constant reminder of what a colossal failure every other aspect of my life was.
And, of course, living with Amelia was out of the question. Sam didn’t understand that his straitlaced, perfect sister had always looked down on me and thought I was a total loser. But it was the truth.
Honestly, my finding a place to live that was neither Sam and Scott’s new sofa nor Amelia’s loft in Lakeview was best for all of us.
“I’ll be fine,” I said, trying to sound like I believed it. My stomach clenched a little at the look of concern that crossed Sam’s face. “No, really—I’ll be okay. I always am, aren’t I?”
Sam smiled and tousled my too-short hair, which was his way of teasing me. Normally I didn’t mind, but I’d cut my hair pretty dramatically on a whim a couple weeks ago because I was frustrated and needed an outlet that didn’t require an internet connection. It was yet another of my not-great recent decisions. My thick, curly blond hair tended to stick up in odd places if not cut by a professional. In that moment, as Sam continued to mess with my hair, I probably looked like a Muppet who’d recently stuck her finger in a light socket.
“Stop that,” I said, laughing as I shrugged away from him. But my mood was better now—which was probably exactly why Sam had done it.
He put his hand on my shoulder. “If you ever change your mind about the loan . . .”
He trailed off without finishing his sentence.
“If I change my mind about a loan, you’ll be the first to know,” I said. But we both knew I never would.