Oh my God, I am going to be in so much trouble. Way to go, Aly.

Alyssa pushed off the couch and hurriedly wrapped the cord around the handles of the vacuum, then stowed it in the closet.

How was she going to explain this? Was anyone even there that early?

She dashed into the bathroom to inspect the damage. Luckily, her ponytail had kept her hair fairly neat. Her face was another story. She wiped a square of tissue under her eyes to remove the smudges of mascara and hoped the crease from the couch's seam would disappear from her cheek sooner rather than later. But, oh hell, nothing was changing the fact that her shirt looked slept in.

Taking a deep breath, Alyssa opened the door to the green room and peered down the dim hall. The coast was clear. She dashed to the lounge and grabbed her purse, then darted toward the door, the sound of clanging pots in the kitchen sending her heart into her throat. Finally in the parking lot, Alyssa heaved a relieved breath at the good fortune of not getting caught and jumped into her car.

There were a few other cars in the lot, but she didn't know anyone besides Marco well enough to know who they might belong to. Before anybody saw her, she made a beeline for the exit-but then had no idea where to go. She needed to change clothes, at a minimum, but a shower wasn't possible since she no longer had a room, and she didn't want to waste her money just to have a place for a few hours.

The Old Town Diner down the street was her first stop. Some coffee and pancakes would clear the remaining fog from her head and she could come up with a game plan. The only drawback was the possibility of running into her father, who used to love bringing her and Brady to the diner before their mother died. It wasn't likely because he'd long ago become a shut-in, living on the family savings and her mother's insurance policy when he'd become too sloppy to hold down a job. But that didn't keep her stomach from squeezing in fear of the prospect.

After doing a quick scan of the restaurant to ensure the coast was clear, she slid into a Naugahyde booth and grabbed the plastic menu from behind the napkin dispenser. She smiled to herself-they still had the blueberry pancakes she remembered from when she was a teenager. Brady and Marco used to bring her here sometimes to carry on the family tradition and try to give her some semblance of normalcy. And because the diner was open late and served huge portions. The guys could eat like, well, guys, and the bill would still be cheap.

She eyed the long Formica counter and saw her teenage self sitting on the third stool from the end, Marco beside her and a chocolate milkshake in front of her that was so big it came with seconds in a big silver mixing cup. They'd just finished a guitar lesson, and the milkshake had been meant to cheer her up after Brady arrived at the Vieris' house with a black eye...

Stop it, Aly.

The waitress arrived, interrupting her thoughts, and efficiently took her order. A few moments later, she brought over a cup of hot, fragrant coffee. Exactly what Alyssa needed.

Cheap food was good, because eating out like this was not part of the plan. Even though she felt horrible about falling asleep at Whiskey's, at least she'd saved the money a hotel would've cost, giving her an even hundred dollars to her name and making her feel a bit less guilty about splurging on a meal out for the first time since arriving back in Frederick. She'd enjoyed the complimentary continental breakfast the hotel laid out the day before, and then there was Van's awesome cooking at work. It was tiding her over just fine for now. Someday-soon-she would be able to stop fretting over every little expense. Or maybe not, since the grace period on her student loans ended in six months, but she'd cross that bridge when she came to it.

Alyssa dug into her pancakes when they came, enjoying the burst of warm blueberry on her tongue. She could only make it halfway through the huge stack before she had to admit defeat. Her cell phone rang and she dropped her napkin to her plate.

"Hello?" she answered.

"Aly, it's me," came her brother's voice through a crackle of static.

"Brady? Oh my God. Are you okay? Where are you?" She pressed her fingers against her other ear in an attempt to hear through the poor connection.

"I'm fine. Listen, I-" His words cut out behind a burst of static. "...tell you...weeks. Are you..."

"Brady, you're coming in and out."

"...I don't know when I'll..."

Tears pricked at the backs of Alyssa's eyes. "I can't hear you. Just promise me you're okay."

"...okay. I promise... Damn, Aly, I have to..."

"Brady?"

"...again if I can, okay?"

Alyssa nodded in reply, though of course he couldn't see her. "Call me again when you can. I love you."

"Me, too. Okay, gotta-" The line went dead.

Blinking the tears from her eyes, she pulled the phone from her ear and stared at it. She didn't have the slightest idea what he'd been trying to tell her. At least she knew that, somewhere out there in the world, her brother was fine and thinking about her.

Talking to Brady always made her realize just how much she missed him. She hadn't seen him since two Christmases ago-the same time she'd last seen Marco before this week. She could picture the two of them so clearly in her mind, sitting at Mrs. Vieri's dinner table. Their hair had been shorter than they'd kept it before, their skin more tanned, but they'd both seemed their old selves, joking around, telling stories, and eating everything that wasn't nailed down.

Feeling a little rattled, she dropped her money on the table and headed for the bathroom. An idea sprang to mind and she about-faced and went to her car instead. She could freshen up here. Except for the overnight bag she'd been living out of the past few days, most of her clothes were squished into her trunk. She grabbed a hand towel, her toiletry bag, and a fresh set of clothes, concealed everything in her overnight bag, then made her way back inside and into the small single-toilet bathroom.

The door locked behind her, Alyssa dropped her bag to the floor. She laid a few paper towels on the tile in front of the sink to stand on, then toed off her Chucks and undressed. Racing against the inevitable knock on the door, Alyssa washed off at the sink, patted dry with the hand towel, and redressed as fast as she could. Once she was decent again, she relaxed. Teeth and hair brushed and makeup back on, she felt more like herself already.

Disaster averted!

Except, apparently, this wasn't going to be her day.

With nowhere else to go, she wandered the mall until almost noon but got so sleepy she finally decided to spring the six bucks it cost to go to a matinee movie. She ended up sleeping through the film and the credits, which meant she had to race across town to make it to Whiskey's on time. When she arrived, she realized she'd never clocked out the previous night, so she'd had to go to Pete and apologize for "forgetting." She felt horrible about the half truth and making a bad impression so soon, but it wasn't like she could admit why she'd forgotten.

From there, her day continued to go downhill. Marco called in sick to work-which he never did, according to the day's running commentary. And, of course, he didn't answer either of the calls she'd placed to check on him. Then, to top it off, she got paired with a different waitress for her last training shift. Unlike Kim, Tori was clearly unhappy to have Alyssa shadowing her. Instead, she alternated between ignoring her and bossing her around all night and never gave a thought about sharing any of her tips, despite the fact that Alyssa had handled two of the tables on her own.

When she'd finished her shift, Alyssa crashed on the ugly couch in the lounge. Anxiety had her shaking her crossed feet and wondering what the heck she should do. She'd expected to make a little more in tips tonight, but she never should've blown nearly twenty dollars on breakfast and a movie. She took a deep breath. It'll work out. Somehow it will.

"Hey, you. Up for helping me again tonight?"

Alyssa forced her eyes open and found Eric standing in the doorway. Oh, the green room. She was so tired, but it hadn't taken that long the night before. Might as well do it and make her check that much bigger. She was going to need every cent to get on her feet.

"You don't have to if you don't want to. I just thought-"

"No, no, it's fine." She pushed off the couch. "Sorry. Just had a bad day and I'm a little cranky." She gave Eric a small smile.

"No worries. Besides, if you think that's cranky, you should see Van when he's in a bad mood. The whole kitchen staff braces to dodge flying butcher knives."

Alyssa gaped. "That never happened. Did it?"

Eric snickered. "I heard a story once, but it's probably an urban legend."

"I'm so telling him you said that." Eric's expression froze, and Alyssa chuckled despite her bad mood. "Come on. Let's get this done."

"Okay." They stepped out of the lounge and Eric grabbed a cart that would carry the chafing dishes back to the kitchen. "You won't really tell him, will you?"

Alyssa bumped him with her elbow. "You know, between the Star Trek obsession and this comment about Van, I'm gathering a lot of dirt on you."