My name's Mia, and I've always been the kind of girl who knows what she wants. At nineteen, I'm in my second year of community college, living at home to save money, but honestly, it's starting to drive me crazy. My mom remarried a few months ago, and now there's this new guy in the house, Alex.
He's not bad-looking for someone in his forties. Tall, with broad shoulders from whatever gym routine he sticks to, and this deep voice that rumbles when he says good morning, but he's my stepdad now, which makes everything weird. Mom's head over heels for him, always gushing about how stable and charming he is. Me? I try to keep my distance, and we barely talk beyond polite chit-chat at dinner.
Today, though, Mom's gone. She left this morning for a business trip, some conference in Chicago that
