The Trouble With Before by Portia Moore Page B

my shoulder.
    “What are you doing?” she says through a laugh.
    “I don’t know. I guess what people do in this type of thing?” I chuckle, and she looks up and smiles at me. It’s barely there, but it’s a smile I remember from before all of this happened.
    “Thanks for making me laugh,” she says quietly.
    Over the next fifteen minutes, she tells me about how she went back home and Evie welcomed her like a bill collector calling at dinner time, and that Evie had let her asshole of a husband lock her out. I clench my fist at the last part. I want to go over there and kick that stupid jerk’s ass. Who the hell does he think he is? I stand and head to the door.
    Lisa jumps up and grabs my arm. “No, I didn’t tell you that for you to go to jail!”
    I feel my jaw clench and let out a deep breath.
    “He’s a pussy. He’d call the police if you go over there. It’s karma. I had this coming,” she says, rubbing her finger over the tattoo she got about five years ago.
    On the top side of her arm is the word fate, and on the bottom is the word hope . She got it the day before I deployed and said that as long as she had those words on her, she knew I’d come back okay. It was one moment that was between us, not us and Chris. It was when I knew we were so much more than just friends of Chris. We were something else entirely.
    “Then what do you want me to do? You can’t tell me shit like that and think I’m just going to sit here and not do anything!” I tell her.
    She nods furiously. “I’m sorry! I just wanted to talk to get it out, not for you to go over there and bash his head in! I have much bigger issues at this point. I’m practically homeless.”
    “You’re not homeless. You can stay here until . . . until you get on your feet,” I tell her, trying to push down the anger coursing through me.
    She shakes her head. “No, I can’t stay here. I just need somewhere to crash until I can get to the bank in the morning.”
    “You said you only have about three thousand in the bank. You don’t have a job, nobody is going to rent to you without one, and you’re going to blow through that if you get a hotel room before you can get some more cash.”
    She’s still looking at me with stubbornness all over her face.
    “And you have more important things to be banking up for right about now,” I add quietly.
    She looks down, defeated. “What about . . . ?” She gestures to the part of the house where Hillary is.
    There isn’t enough time in the day to describe what’s going on between Hillary and me. I don’t even know what’s going on between us. From Lisa’s POV, she probably thinks we’re living together.
    “Hillary’s cool,” I lie. Hillary will probably be anything but cool with this arrangement.
    She looks at me disbelievingly. “The girl who threw wine in Jenna’s face and jumped over the table to kick her ass and threatened me the moment she saw me is going to be cool with your former best friend, the whore, staying here?”
    “You can sleep in the guest room upstairs until we get things figured out and I’ll see if Hillary has any extra clothes until we can pick up your things.”
    She relents with a nod. I lead her up to the room and open the door for her, even though she’s always known where it is. When things went wrong with Evie, Lisa crashed here more than a couple of times.
    “I’ll let Grams know you’re here when she gets back,” I tell her even though we both know Grams is the least of her worries. She loved Lisa and Chris.
    “I really appreciate this,” she says as I turn to leave.
    I give her a wink. “You owe me.” She rolls her eyes, and I laugh. Before I leave, I turn around and look at her. “And you’re not a whore.”
    Lisa made a mistake, a huge one, but she’s always been picky with guys. I’d bet money she could count on one hand the number of guys she’s done. Her eyes meet mine, and she looks surprised. A small, genuine smile appears on her