Somewhere between the second pitcher and the third, it hits me. I’ve been trying to be patient with a man who’s never promised me anything. And I don’t know how long I can keep waiting for him to become the person I need him to be. He might never be able to. He did warn me he wasn’t good for me, and I’m the idiot who rode that red flag until I couldn’t walk.
I tip my glass back and finish what’s left. The liquor burns, but I welcome the sting. My head’s already swimming, warm at the edges, thoughts folding into each other too fast to separate.
Neve laughs at something I just said, maybe about Damian, maybe about us both being idiots. I can’t remember the words, only the sound of her laughter and the weight that’s slowly starting to lift.
This feels good. Getting things off my chest. Putting actual words to my fears.
Neve sets her glass down and squints past me, blinking like she’s trying to be sure of what she’s seeing. “Uh-oh. There are men approaching,” she mutters, then leans in slightly. “Okay, wait. One of them is looking at you like he already knows where this night ends.”
I turn, half-laughing, and then I see him. Nathan. My ex. He’s got that stupid smile I used to fall for. Easy, smug, and just the right amount of practiced charm. There’s a tall guy behind him, a friend or maybe coworker, polished and handsome, but background noise compared to the familiar ache standing in front of me.
Nathan sticks his hands in his pockets, eyes locked on me. “Hey, Lo. I’ve been texting. Calling. Did I piss you off bad enough to get blocked?”
My brain stalls. This isn’t what I imagined for myself if I saw him again. In my fantasies, I was never drunk and I’d have a witty comeback. Something cutting. Cold. Instead, I turn wide-eyed to Neve and drunk-whisper, way too loud, “Oh, no is right. It’s my ex. Nathan.”
Neve’s face lights up like it’s Christmas. “Thisis Nathan? Shit. He’s hot. You didn’t say he was hot.”
“I don’t have bad taste.” I giggle. “I just make bad choices.”
Nathan shifts, watching the two of us, amused. His friend gives a small wave, clearly entertained as well.
I look at him, and for whatever reason, maybe those aforementioned bad decisions or just too much sangria, I say, “You guys want to have a drink with us?”
Nathan grins like he’s already won something. “Yeah, okay. One drink.”
He and his friend pull up chairs. Neve leans back with a drunkenly wicked smile, eyes raking over Nathan. “Sure, come join the table where you get to sit and stare at the best thing you ever messed up. Now,” she bops him on the nose with her index finger, “be a good boy and tell me what your kink is. I bet it isn’t disappointing at all.”
I shoot her a look, but she just wiggles her eyebrows and signals the bartender for another pitcher.
And just like that, we’re in it.
I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know why I invited him to sit down. Maybe it’s the sangria. Maybe it’s the ache not knowing where Damian is or what he’s doing with Reese. Either way, the words are out, the chairs are pulled up, and the line’s already been crossed.
One drink with Nathan can’t hurt.
Unless it does.
And right now, I’m not sure I’d stop it even if it did.
Chapter Six
DAMIAN
Isit in the silence, my knee tapping a restless rhythm against the hardwood, eyes locked on the door like it holds the answer to everything I tried to bury this weekend. The apartment feels untouched, as if it hasn’t been lived in since she left. It’s too still, too clean, like when she walks in, she’ll know I was gone too.
Guilt settles over me, thick and unshakable. It clings to the walls, to the quiet, louder than any scream. I sent her away. Paid for every second of it. Told her to let go, to breathe, to forget about the bakery and the weight she carries alone. A spa weekend. Facials, massages, warm towels, detox tea—whatever the fuck else they do at those places. I made Neve tag along to keep her distracted. Just to make sure she didn’t look too closely at me before she left.
She has no idea where I’ve been or what I’ve done.
I wonder if this guilt is the only real proof that I’m human. That somewhere, buried under all the rage and violence, I’m still trying to be good. For someone. For her.
Vegas was chaos—rooms without windows, names I’ll never speak aloud. I paid one man for documents that don’t exist, handed another a folded slip of paper with a name I’ve hatedsince I was old enough to understand betrayal. I don’t regret it. Not a fucking second. That’s not where this guilt is growing from. I’d burn the whole city down if it meant Marlowe never had to know what it feels like to live in fear.
I shove it down, stuffing the guilt into the corners of my chest where every sharp thing I don’t want to feel already lives. What’s left is the ache only she can answer. It coils low and sharp—constant, impossible to ignore. I don’t even try to hide it. She’s all I want—all I can think about. Her mouth, the way it moves when she says my name. The soft breath she lets out when I slide inside her. The way she completely surrenders to me. I’ve spent the last two nights hard and wide awake, my thoughts wrapped in the memory of her voice, the taste of her skin, the way her body fits against mine like it was made to come undone beneath me.
Marlowe is a hunger that never quiets—one that settles in the bones and makes everything else feel dull by comparison. I want to crawl inside her. Fuck her breathless. Fill her so completely she forgets what it’s like to feel empty.
She’ll never know what I’ve done. That’s the point. That’s why I sent her away: to keep her clean, untouched by the kind of things I’ll never be able to scrub off. I told myself it would be enough just knowing she was safe. That maybe when she came home, she’d be smiling. Loose. Free. And maybe then I could let go of this knot in my chest that’s been tightening since I found out Clay was out of prison.
