Worth the Fall Read Online Free PDF

before shifting in her chair to look at me. “Okay, she may not be wrong. The theory probably holds. But she’s like nine years old and you can’t put a number on some things.”
    “I’d like to hope that’s true.” Especially since I wasn’t looking so good on paper at this point. There was nothing attractive about homelessness. One more reason I had to get this business up and running.
    The whole idea that I had to carry my own weight had ticked me off last night. There was a reason “for better or for worse” was in the marriage vows. But that was in a real relationship, not one you thought was real but apparently was just a convenience to one party. One more reason Jason and I weren’t married. And now, there’s no way I’d be putting myself out there when I was homeless and unemployed.
    Of course, there was no way I’d be putting myself out there for quite a while anyway. I was pretty much declaring the ten foot sphere around me a Guy Free Zone. I might even bring back the giant hoop skirts to enforce this new sanction.
    But, she wasn’t done.
    “My boyfriend, Ben?” She got this silly grin on her face. “He’s gorgeous. Like, the second most beautiful guy I know. Seriously. Do I look like beautiful guy material?”
    I almost shook my head. Not because she wasn’t pretty. She was. In a cute, girl-next-door-who-is-a-bit-too-nerdy way. I was pretty sure guys would be attracted to her just because of all that shininess coming off her. And the glasses. I’d never been envious of girls with glasses, but she seemed to pull them off as if they were just part of her look.  
    Of course, that could just be New Relationship Shine, but I was guessing she was pretty darn adorable sans-Ben.
    “I’m Jenna Drake.” She leaned over the coffee table, hand stretched out.
    It was such a welcoming gesture. She just wasn’t one of those people you dismissed rudely because you were trying to work. Plus, her name was vaguely familiar as I struggled to place it. I was really, really hoping we hadn’t gone to high school together or something.  
    That was the last thing I needed. The small town gossip tree was still alive and well. My mother would have me on the phone thirty seconds after she heard my new status, and I’d be getting a lecture on women alone in the world.  
    Obviously my mother had accidentally time warped to the 1940s.
    In her eyes, there was only one thing worse than not being married…being single.
    “Kasey Lane.”
    “Oh!” She pulled out a little red notebook and scribbled in it. “That’s a great name. I’m totally stealing it.”
    Stealing my name? As in identity theft? I wasn’t sure what else she could mean, but she didn’t have any of my information so figured I was fairly safe. I’d just have to remember not to leave my purse alone…or throw my receipt away.  
    She glanced up and must have caught the horrified look on my face.
    “Oh, don’t worry. I’m not stealing anything real . Just your name. It’s a great name,” she said again, this time with a smile as she folded the notebook back into her tote. “I’m a writer and you’d be shocked how hard it gets to come up with new names. I mean, there’s what? Millions of them? And yet, you find yourself drifting toward the same ones over and over again. I have tried to name four different guys James.”
    She was a little bundle of energy…really unfocused energy.  
    “Sorry. I’m trying not to babble. I’m not good with people.”  
    She seemed to really think that. She’d been nothing but sweet, welcoming and friendly. If this was bad with people I was in a lot of trouble.
    And Barista Abby…Well, Abby was five steps past trouble. The Brew Ha Ha might need to be reconsidered as my new hangout.
    “No. No, that’s okay,” I jumped in before she could start up again. “I was just a little thrown by the word steal . It could be kind of fun to know my name is out there in some book. Kind of like a famous non-version