A/N: Hi! For those who knew me as starkidgleek12: After a really long hiatus where life got in the way, I had to create a new account. Please R&R. Especially leave a review. And feel free to follow me on tumblr if you haven't at:

Enjoy!

Prologue-4 years ago

"Marley! Come on, you'll get over him. But you can't let him win by sitting here in your dorm and watching "The Time Traveler's Wife" for the millionth time and eating your way through your entire mini-fridge." Marley's roommate and best friend Kitty said as she tried to get Marley to go out to some seedy college bar with her and their friends.

"What if he calls? I know he will," Marley argued.

"Sweetie, no he won't. In fact, he's probably sleeping around even more now that he doesn't have to worry about hurting you. Why do you even want him back?" she asked as she got Marley some clean clothes.

"Because he's the Danny to my Sandy. And this always happens, he'll come to his senses. And it's just a little difficult now that we're in two different places. I can't just give up on our relationship every time we hit a rough patch." she replied stubbornly.

"Look, you've done nothing but go to class, and come right back to bed for like a month since you found out. You can't stop living your life waiting for him to realize what he wants." Kitty continued.

"You sound like my mother, stop it. And fine, I guess I can go out for maybe just a little bit." Marley relented as Kitty gave a little squeal of excitement.

"Who knows, maybe you'll find someone more handsome and charming and better for you than Jake." Kitty said as Marley begrudgingly got up.

"You don't even know Jake. There was no one like him. He's my soul mate and one day, he'll come here and we'll forgive each other and we'll be happy again." Marley insisted.

"No, no, no, no. You need to forget about Jake. New city and a new life means a brand new guy. You may not meet "the one" tonight, but he'll come along. But for the love of god, don't scare every available guy on the market by being the clingy ex-girlfriend with obvious daddy issues." Kitty groaned in frustration. "Here, wear this shirt and do you even own a decent bra? Oh well, this one will do. You're not exactly in the right state of mind for a one-night stand, so I guess we try and stuff it to make it look like you actually have boobs?" Kitty continued as she dug through Marley's drawers.

"Kitty, shut up." Marley shot back.

A little while later, the two girls were on their way to one of the downtown bars. Marley was a little worried because she didn't have a fake I.D., but apparently the bouncer wasn't too worried by this. He just stamped their hands but Marley mentally forced herself to just drink water. And she wasn't going to give anyone the opportunity to drug it. She didn't want anything bad to happen the first night she goes out with her friends. Marley had expected at least one of their friends to stay with her at the bar, but all of them had hit the dance floor. Marley just pulled out her phone and turned on the book app. She knew this wasn't what she was supposed to be doing when going out, but Kitty couldn't expect her to change in one night.

"Hi." she heard as someone slid into the seat next to her. He looked vaguely familiar. He had light brown hair and a very muscular build. He was in a couple of classes with her, but all the other girls threw themselves at him, so she never exactly concerned herself with introducing herself to him.

"Hi." she replied tersely. She was waiting for him to be a total douche bag.

"You know, I had a really cheesy line I was going to use, but I got distracted by your beauty." he said nervously.

"Who needs a line when that was already in your back pocket?" she replied sarcastically.

"Yeah, you're right. That was actually really awful. I guess it's time to stick my foot in my mouth. I'm just not good at this." he admitted.

"Me either. It's just not a good time for me to get hit on at a bar by a stranger." Marley confessed.

"Yeah. I just got out of a relationship with this girl I had been dating since high school. My friend told me to just sleep with someone else and I'd be over her. And I think I might've overshared." he continued as he hung his head in shame.

"It's fine. I just got out of a relationship myself. Look, you seem like a really nice guy…" Marley started, hoping he would get the hint.

"I'm sorry. I'll go." he sighed in frustration. Marley felt sorry for the poor guy.

"Okay, wait. I'll help you." she said as he turned back around to face her.

"How?" he asked.

"There has to be some girl here that's right for you. Just play it cool. Just stay here, and we'll act like we know each other and I'll introduce you to someone if you seem interested. My name's Marley, by the way." she said to him.

"Okay. My name's Ryder." he said as they shook hands.

"Hey, Marley! I didn't know you would be here tonight!" a girl said loudly as she pushed her way through the throng.

"Oh, hey Celeste." Marley said half-heartedly to the girl.

"So. Who's your friend?" she asked mysteriously when she saw Ryder.

"Oh, this is Ryder. We were just talking about a term paper." Marley said right on the spot. "Maybe he'll go away if they hit it off." she thought desperately to herself.

"Hi." Jordan said as she flipped her hair over her shoulder. Marley had to hold back a laugh at how obvious Jordan was being.

"So how do you two know each other?" Jordan asked her.

"Um, we met at a charity thing." Marley lied. She was wondering why she was trying to help this random guy get laid. Oh right, she wanted to get out of there and she didn't want said random guy following her back to her place, even though this was what Kitty wanted her to do in the first place.

"Oh my god, I love to do charity work too!" Jordan said excitedly, although this time it was directed to him. Marley just wanted to be done with this conversation already.

"Yeah, it was this thing where we played music to or-orphan kids." Marley continued as Ryder nodded in agreement. Marley knew it was about time to bow out of this.

"Well, I should probably go. You two crazy kids should stay and get to know one another though." Marley said as Jordan and Ryder started making googly eyes at one another. Ryder nodded a thank you to Marley and she smiled back. Her work there was done. Now they would live happily ever after, possibly adopting orphan kids and playing music to them and Marley would probably be sitting alone every night for the rest of her life wondering if Jake was still being faithful to her when he most likely wasn't. She would begrudgingly accept this as her fate and she didn't think it was half-bad. Maybe she could adopt a cat to keep her warm during the lonely nights. Fluffy wouldn't be a bad name. "Okay, stop this Marley. Just go home, see if Jake has texted you back yet, maybe watch a movie and go to sleep." she thought to herself as she got on a train to go back to campus. After a weird night, she really needed to relax.

On Monday, after yet another weekend of her wallowing in her misery, she was determined to try and get over Jake. After class, she still had an hour before her next one and decided to go into the coffee shop. And of course, she would run into the guy who tried to hit on her at bar.

"Hey! It's Marley right?" he said brightly as she sat down with her drink.

"Hey. So I'm guessing you had a good night with Jordan, right?" Marley smirked at him.

"Jordan is her name? I thought it was Celeste. Man, that's confusing." he said with a puzzled expression. "Well, when the sun came up, we decided to mutually part but I realized something: I needed a wingman, someone to help facilitate my social life." Ryder explained as Marley looked at him in slight disgust.

"You mean someone to help you hook up with girls because you clearly have no game by yourself?" Marley replied dryly.

"Well, if you want to put it that way." he scoffed.

"Look, don't you have friends that can help make you look like less of an inept douche bag?" she said as she tried to get up and leave.

"I need a woman for this job. I can't have my buddies, who are usually considered more attractive and ambitious than me, talking me up to someone I just want to have meaningless sex with!" Ryder explained, exasperated by Marley's stubbornness.

"I thought you were like, a relationship sort of guy?" Marley asked.

"I used to be. Until Saturday night when I had my epiphany that one night stands can in fact fulfill the physical and emotional gratification of relationships without the attachment that comes with them. They're short relationships based on mutualism. We both get what we need and I don't have to worry about wondering if she's pissed off at me for something." Ryder continued as he followed her out of the coffee shop.

"You have issues." Marley stated, quickly getting annoyed at him.

"If you help me, we'll be forging a lifelong friendship and I'll forever be in your debt, and whatever crazy, doomed to fail scheme you're in, I'll do whatever it takes to help you pull it off. So, what do you say? And to show that there are no hard feelings, I'll let you walk away from this if you don't want to become my partner in crime, per se; just say the word." Ryder replied. It really was tempting to walk away, but there was something about this guy that made her want to help him.

"Fine. But I'll help at my discretion. If I don't want to go into some sleazy bar just to help you get laid, you're just going to have to deal with your libido issues, I don't care how many times you make that hopelessly adorable puppy dog face at me." Marley explained as they shook hands.

"You think I have a hopelessly adorable puppy dog face?" he asked smugly.

"Shut up." she retorted as they walked into Miller Hall for their class.

And despite the initial hesitation on Marley's part, they would form a tight friendship. Sometimes they were so close to each other that people would think they were actually dating. Four years later, Marley would eventually call in on those favors in an unconventional way.