Vanessa was already measuring the bedroom wall in my guest house when she casually announced that she would be living there for an entire year.

Rent-free.

My fiancé, Colin, was holding the other end of the tape measure.

I stood frozen in the doorway with a curtain rod under one arm and a bag of hardware hanging from my fingers, trying to understand why the man I was supposed to marry and his ex-girlfriend were discussing furniture placement inside a building I owned.

Vanessa looked over at me as if nothing about the situation was unusual.

“Colin said I could stay here for a year,” she said. “No rent.”

The curtain rod slipped from my arm and hit the concrete step with a sharp metallic sound.

“A year?”

Colin released the tape measure. It snapped back into its case.

“Please don’t make this awkward,” he said. “She already told her roommate.”