See?
Total fucking creep.
Well, Dean, you’re an averagely intelligent guy—don’t you think the logical solution would be to avoid Millie Blackwell like the plague she is instead of crawling into bed with her, night after night, and waiting for her to fall asleep so you can drag her across the mattress, because you’ve become so addicted to the weight of her over the last 96-hours that you can’t fall asleep unless you can feel her pressed against you?
Logical?
Absolutely.
It’s also impossible because I tried. I fucking tried and I can’t do it. Tonight, I was so desperate to get rid of her, I evenconsidered hooking up with someone else, because maybe that’s what I need. Maybe it’s not Millie. Maybe I’m just horny. It’s been weeks since I’ve been with anyone. Maybe I just need to bang it out with some random chick for a few hours. Maybe if I did that, I’d be able to stop thinking about her.
We don’t even get ten seconds into theso,what brings you heremating dance before I know it isn’t going to work. That I’d rather jerk off in the shower and crawl into bed next to a woman who can’t stand me and drives me absolutely batshit crazy, than fuck a total stranger I won’t even remember tomorrow.
Because she broke me.
Millie Blackwell ran down that aisle in her wedding dress, straight for me, and fucking broke me.
Standing at the bar, stupid smile plastered across my face, I go through the motions while starting to formulate my exit strategy when I see her.
Millie.
Or at least I think I see her.
On the other side of the bar, looking at me. In a sheer white dress that is very much like the dress she wore to her rehearsal dinner. More than a few men are staring at her. One of them—a frat boy turned finance bro with slicked back hair and for fuck’s sake, is he wearing sunglasses?—starts moving toward her.
Fuck that.
AbandoningMs. Never-gonna-happenat the bar, I walk away from her without looking back, weaving myself across the packed dancefloor, gaze zeroed in on the place where I saw Millie but when I finally get there, she’s gone.
Fuck.
“Ready to go, Mr. Mercer?”
Turning, I see Mateo standing a few feet away.
Shaking my head, I scan the bar, still looking for her. Theguy I saw approaching her is talking to some other woman—a redhead in a black dress.
“Did you see Millie,” I ask him rather than answer his question. “Ms. Blackwell—did you see her in here?”
“No, sir. Ms. Blackwell isn’t here.” Looking at me like I might be losing my mind, Mateo shakes his head. “Are you ready to go back now?”
“Yeah.” Giving up, I look down at him and nod my head in defeat. “I’m ready to go.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
I’ve spent the last four days alone.
I wake up to a note tucked under my phone and an empty bed, the sheets beside me cold enough to tell me that wherever he is, Dean went there hours ago. This one reads:
Macbook,
Took the golf cart.
Be back later.
Dean
I tell myself I don’t care. That he’s doing exactly what I wanted him to do. What I asked him to do the firstnight we got here. He’s staying out of my way. Making an effort to be pleasant and civil. Doing his best to avoid me so I can do what I came here to do, which is drink champagne by the beach while I lick my wounds in peace.
