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ME WITH YOU. I KICK ASS AT JAIL BREAKS!”
    I laughed. Damn, I missed her. I couldn’t believe we’d really be separated when I moved to New York. I only had two weeks before I needed to move. Of course, that meant that Chelsea needed a new roommate or she needed to move too when our lease was up. There was no way she could afford our apartment on her own.
    “I’LL KEEP THAT INFO UNDER WRAPS!” I replied .
    Every time I asked her what she was going to do, she’d tell me to take her with me to New York. She’d interviewed for a few jobs in and around San Francisco, but I was seriously beginning to think she planned to move to New York. I wanted that, but I didn’t. The apartment I’d found on the Upper West Side was small with only one bedroom and cost as much as the place we had in Palo Alto.
    Chelsea: “SERIOUSLY, WHAT DOES YOUR MOM WANT?”
    Me: “I STILL DON’T KNOW. SOME MEETING ON MONDAY THAT SHE DOESN’T WANT TO DISCUSS. I KNOW IT’S TOO EARLY FOR IT TO GO TO ME COMPLETELY, BUT I’M THINKING IT HAS TO DO WITH THE TRUST FUND.”
    Chelsea: “DO YOU THINK THEY’LL SIGN IT OVER TO YOU?”
    Me: “I DON’T KNOW. MAYBE THERE WAS SOME CLAUSE ABOUT GRADUATING COLLEGE THAT I DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT.”
    The faint knock at the door made me jump. I looked at the clock and my pulse increased. It was after nine-thirty.
    “Alex, don’t let the ice cream melt.”
    I took a deep breath. Jane. I’d forgotten about our ice cream and movie night.
    Me: “I’LL KEEP YOU POSTED. TALK TO YOU LATER!”
    Chelsea: “LATERS!”
    Somehow I thought that salutation would be better coming from a hot billionaire than my best friend.
    “I’m coming,” I called as I crawled off my bed and moved toward the door.
    The locking mechanism clicked when I turned the key. The old house still had skeleton keys for each room. It was how the unused rooms could be locked from the outside. The obvious problem with skeleton keys was that most every one of them was the same. It didn’t take a jailer’s ring to open any of the doors. All you needed was one key, unless the key was in place on the other side.
    I opened the door to Jane’s smiling face. Tucked in the crook of her elbow was a basket with two visible pints of ice cream, spoons, and napkins. My grin grew.
    “I don’t think I’ve eaten ice cream directly out of the carton since I was here,” I said as I let her in. Turning the key and locking the door from the inside was habit that didn’t even register.
    “Then what have you been doing?” She narrowed her eyes. “That’s why you’re so skinny and me…” She pointed to her behind. “…I got cushion!”
    I flopped down on the bed. “Oh, I have cushion. It’s just not in the rear.”
    “Yes, you do! When did that happen?”
    I laughed. “Sometime during my freshman year. I woke up one day and boom! There they were.”
    As Jane began emptying her basket, I noticed she was no longer wearing her normal slacks and blouse, but comfortable yoga pants. “Hey,” I said, “I haven’t had a chance to change. How about you get our movie going while I go put something better on than jeans that have been in three states today?”
    “I’ve got it. Don’t worry about the ice cream.” She tried to stick a spoon into hers. “It’s still hard as a rock. Some things in this old house don’t work like they used to, but that walk-in freezer … it’s a dinosaur … a frozen one!”
    “Ice age!” I exclaimed as I pulled an old pair of running shorts from my dresser. When I stepped into the bathroom, I noticed the shower. Peeking my head back out into the bedroom, I saw Jane’s cushion as she leaned down to put the DVD in the DVR. “Jane, I’m going to take a quick shower and rinse off today’s crud.”
    She looked my way. “Hurry, child. Don’t forget the ice cream.”
    “Oh, I won’t.”
    About ten minutes later with my long hair in a towel wearing shorts and an oversized t-shirt, I opened the bathroom door. From the