Cassie falling apart in his arms.
Cassie laughing on his kitchen counter.
Cassie playing Uno with Junie.
Cassie sending him straight to voicemail.
Cassie apparently deciding he wasn’t even worth a goddamn conversation after everything that’d passed between them since she came home.
And beneath that was Luanne’s jab.
For a while he resisted it on principle alone, because fuck Luanne and fuck her knowing little smirk.She wasn’t even his goddamn type.But the longer he sat there, the more her words kept needling at him, twisting into places he didn’t want them to go.
Because maybe she was right.Maybe when things got hard, he still reached for the quickest escape.
And maybe after yesterday—after Addy and that whole goddamn mess—Cassie had looked at him and seen the same hotheaded bastard who’d mocked her dreams instead of supporting them, then gone and stuck his dick in her best friend and blown their whole world straight to hell with barely any coaxing at all.
And if that was the man she thought he still was, why would she come back for anything more than sex?
A couple half fell onto the couch beside him in a tangle of arms and legs, too drunk and worked up to bother finding a room, and within seconds they were going at it, the cushions shifting and dipping with every movement until the whole damn couch had started rocking.
“Jesus-fuckin’-Christ,” Nash muttered, shoving to his feet.
He made his way down the side hall, the noise dulling a little more with every step.Inside his office, he locked the door behind him and stretched out on the sofa.Lighting a cigarette, he watched the smoke curl slowly toward the ceiling while the muffled bass from the clubhouse thudded low through the walls, distant enough now that for the first time all night felt the quiet begin to settle around him.
Then his phone buzzed in his pocket.
“Margie,” he answered thickly, noting the time—ten after twelve.
“You got Cassie there with you?”she asked.“You tell her she forgot to bring me my bacon.Would’ve gone an' got it myself if I knew she weren’t comin’ back.Can’t be makin’ a decent breakfast without my bacon.”
Nash was upright before she’d even finished.
“No,” he said, all traces of sleep and bourbon gone at once.“She ain’t here.”
There was a brief pause on the other end, the kind where he could almost hear Margie frowning.
“Well,” she muttered, sounding more put out than worried, “that’s strange.I tried callin’ her twice.Hell, maybe she’s out with Luey…”
But Nash was already moving, his heart kicking hard.
“Lemme call you back,” he interjected, ending the call before she could answer.
Stubbing out the last of his cigarette, he shoved open the office door and jogged back into the commons, pushing through the crowd and cutting toward the pool room where he’d last seen Luanne disappear.
He didn’t see her right away.Then he caught sight of Crusher up against the far wall, a pair of denim-clad legs wrapped around his waist.
Nash grabbed a fistful of Crusher’s collar and hauled him bodily back.
“Jesus—Nash!”Crusher barked, stumbling hard enough to smack the wall with his shoulder.“What the fuck?”
Luanne slid down after him, one palm slapping the wall to steady herself.“What the…”
“Nice tits,” Nash growled.“Now call Cassie.”
Luanne blinked up at him, then glanced down at her disheveled camisole and hastily tucked herself back in.“What about…Cassie?”she slurred, shaking her head.
“Call her,” he demanded.“Text her.I don’t give a shit which.Just do it.”
