2.

Zara couldn’t take it anymore.

She stood in her kitchen, pacing back and forth with her pen clutched in her hand, glaring at the crumpled pieces of paper scattered on the counter. Each one was a failed attempt at saying what she really wanted to scream in Cade’s face.

All morning, she had been forced to step over his damn garbage bag sitting right outside his door. Again. It was full of pizza boxes, beer cans, and God-knows-what-else. The stench had already started creeping into the hallway. The man had no shame.

“Disgusting,” Zara muttered under her breath as she sat down again, smoothed out a fresh sheet of paper, and slammed the tip of her pen against it.

She wrote in bold, angry strokes:

“Cade, you’re not twelve years old. Stop leaving your trash in the hallway like an animal. People live here. Do you have any idea how inconsiderate you are? Some of us have standards. Try developing some.”

She stopped, read it over, and snorted. Too soft.

She crossed it out with furious lines, gra