Worth the Fall Read Online Free PDF Page B

of me.” I could pick the book up and show my girlfriends next time we got together. Look, this character is named after me! You don’t get that being a soccer mom. Wait. “What exactly did you say you write?”
    With my luck she wrote some weird niche-erotica I’d have to deal with every time someone Googled me.
    “YA, young adult.”
    Oh. That sounded fairly safe. It did seem weird they’d let a slightly crazy woman write for kids, but what did I know?
    Jenna smiled and began pulling more stuff out of her tote. A laptop and cord, a small giraffe-shaped timer, a pile of scribbled on pages.
    “You don’t usually work here, do you?” She opened the laptop and leaned back in her chair while it powered up.
    “First day. Good mocha.”  
    “That’s why you aren’t familiar. This is my can’t-take-my-own-company-any-longer office.” It was hard to dislike a girl who was so kind to others and laughed at herself so easily.
    I glanced around. Besides Abby, it was pretty dead. I pulled the overstuffed chair next to me, close enough to strategically pile stuff on it.
    “Is it always this quiet?”
    “Not usually on Wednesdays. Midweek slump. It must be the nice weather. During the week there’s a small lunch rush and then quiet again ‘til the after work crowd. John says they’re packed during the morning commute, but that would involve getting up before eight, so…”
    “Sweet.”  
    “I’ll be here every day for a while.” She pulled the computer onto her lap and set the timer. “A tree fell into my office.”
    A tree fell into it? She said it as if this was an everyday occurrence. I almost asked her about it, but she smiled, stuck her earbuds in, and began typing away.
    It took me a moment to refocus, which was weird since I’d been so surprised she’d sat in my overstuffed corner of the café and chatted me up.  
    Hopefully nothing fell on her while we were working so close together. She seemed like the type of person something like that would happen to.  
    And my luck didn’t need any help getting worse.

FIVE

    “I should have known you guys would find each other.” John’s voice cut through the music I’d plugged in to drown out my thoughts. There was nothing like a little Jason Aldean to get you rocking out when you didn’t want to think about life. I was ignoring that his name was Jason and focusing on the Country Rock God part of the equation.
    I pulled my earbuds out and looked up at him resting on the edge of the arm of Jenna’s chair.
    “Who?”
    If this was another attempt at telling me how to meet men, I was going to have to rethink this whole place, mocha thing or not.
    “You and Jenna. Jenna’s the one we need to ask about the apartment.”
    I turned toward the adorable elf half-hidden behind the seventeen inch screen of her laptop.
    “You’re moving?”
    Her cheerfulness seemed a little droopy as she shook her head.  
    “Not me. Ben is going to London for a year and was thinking about subletting his apartment.”
    Wow. In some ways that was worse than being dumped. At least I could get over my ex-idiot. I felt like I was most-of-the-way there already. But, if someone I really loved was going away for twelve months…Yeah, that kind of stunk. A lot.
    “So, he’s just looking to sublet it?”
    Jenna nodded. “Maybe. He wasn’t sure. The company is paying for his place in London, so it’s not like he’s losing out. But it makes sense to have someone in there.”
    I thought about the overly-charming neighborhood we were currently in and my lack of charming-level money.
    “Is it near here? I probably can’t afford anything in this neighborhood.” I was getting tired of my own tale of woe at this point. “I lost my job and was supposed to be moving in with my boyfriend—now ex -boyfriend—this weekend so, rent is going to be tight as it is. I have five weeks’ payout and some savings, but I don’t want to get into a bad situation money-wise.”
    “Well, he’s