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break room. For someone so hot, he was such a jerk. Wait till Payton heard about this.

    I was still fuming when I got home, so I decided to change the oil in my car. And detail the interior. By the time I’d finished, my dash came pretty close to showing my reflection, and my annoyance had moved from wanting to cut someone to insanely peeved.
    Storming into the apartment, I washed my hands at the kitchen sink, grumbling under my breath.
    “Should I even ask how your day went?” Payton plucked a chocolate-covered coffee bean from a plastic bag on the living room table and plopped it in her mouth.
    I dried my hands, slammed the towel on the kitchen counter with an ungratifying thud , and stomped into the living room. “Don’t even get me started. This guy—he’s a dick. He called me a princess! Gem Stones! Then he proceeded to tell me I wasn’t attractive enough to be a stripper.”
    Payton’s brows furrowed. “He what?” She shook her head and said, “Prick.”
    “I know, right? He was lucky I didn’t stick my stiletto heel up his ass.”
    She giggled and tossed me the bag of chocolate-covered coffee beans.
    “Here. I think you need these more than me.”
    I popped one in my mouth and slumped back into the sofa. “I don’t know what was worse—being told I don’t have the calling for the pole or using those stupid store slogans that are chock-full of innuendos.” I moved off the couch to grab my package of Oreos from the cupboard. This day called for two types of chocolate. “I mean, seriously, ‘ I hope I fulfilled your every office supply need ?’ What next? Let me unjam your stapler ?”
    Payton snorted. “Or how about : Can you punch my hole ?”
    “ Do you need your paper reamed? ”
    She raised a conspiratorial brow. “I bet some of your customers might ask for that.”
    I chucked a coffee bean at her. “Perv.”
    I was about to say another corny line when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I rolled my eyes when I read the number on the screen. “I have to take it. Parental unit check-in.”
    She nodded and went back to studying a running mag that came in the mail yesterday. I hit the accept call button and locked myself in my room, ready for the daily mental probing.
    “Hi, Mom.”
    “Juliette. How are you today?” Since I’d gotten out of rehab, Mom and I had this awkward dance, always skirting around the real reason for her call. Instead, she’d ask me about my day or about school. It wouldn’t bother me if there wasn’t a personal agenda behind it.
    Really I just wanted to say, Come on, Mom. Ask me what you really want to know.
    Even if I’d get some short-term satisfaction out of saying a smart remark like that, I knew that snark wasn’t the way to go. If I wanted them to start treating me like an adult, the way I deserved, I needed to show them that I could act like one, at least when I talked to them. I didn’t know how people over eighteen were considered adults, because at twenty-two, I had no clue what the heck I was doing, like I was playing a game of house, one where I didn’t quite fit any role.
    “I’m good. Worked. The usual.”
    “That’s nice, honey.” Mom’s code for I don’t give a crap. After a long pause, she said, “Have you been studying for your classes next semester?”
    “Mom. Classes don’t start for two months, I’m on break, so, no.”
    “Isn’t Payton studying?”
    “Yes, but she’s insane.” The girl didn’t know how to not study. She had two modes—reading or groping her boyfriend.
    “Maybe you could learn a thing or two from her.”
    Maybe I could. She was dead set on being a doctor, no hesitation whatsoever, whereas I second-guessed my decisions every time I signed up for classes at the beginning of each term. When I suggested that I wanted to explore other options to Mom, namely athletic training, she scoffed and told me I might as well have a degree made of toilet paper. So, here I was, on my way to being a doctor, following in her