I shake my head. "Nah. We're good."
"Well, you've spent weeks having unprotected sex with your ex. I think we need to."
I roll my eyes. "Harper is different. She isn't a random girl in a bar I'm taking home."
Even saying her name sends a pang through my chest. I glance over at Monica, who's watching me with that hunger in her eyes.
"Jett will have some," Hunter tells me.
I nod.
"Her friend gave me your cell. Said you left it up on the bar. Don’t leave your shit places, they don’t belong, Ace." Hunter holds out my phone.
Relief washes over me. I check the notifications. Nothing that remotely interests me. No missed calls. No messages. Nothing from the only number that matters.
I pocket the phone and grab the condom Jett apparently keeps in his wallet like a man who's permanently optimistic. He winks at me from the dance floor when I wave it at him. Colten just shakes his head.
"You don't have to do this," Hunter says quietly, and for a second the big-brother voice cuts through the bar noise.
"I know."
"But if you want to?—"
"I know, Hunter."
He nods. Steps back and lets me go.
I walk back to Monica. She stands, slips her hand into mine, and we head for the door. I stop just before when I see the guy in the corner, looking in my direction but not at me.
He’s got a hat on, a dark beard. I’m sure I saw him in town yesterday when I went to pick up some ice cream for Wyatt.
I’ll store that for another day.
The drive to my place is fifteen minutes of her talking and me nodding. She's telling me about her roommate's dog, or her roommate's boyfriend's dog, or something. I'm not listening. I'm watching the road. The same road I drove Harper down. The same fence posts. The same stars.
I pull up to my house and cut the engine, just sitting for a second. Working up the courage to have sex with someone who isn’t my Harper.
"This is cute," Monica says, looking at the porch. "Very cowboy."
"Thanks."
We go inside. The house is dark. I flick on the kitchen light, and it casts a warm glow across the open plan, the living room, the couch where Harper used to curl up against me, the blanket she left draped over the armrest that I haven't moved.
"Drink?" I ask.
"Sure. What have you got?"
"Whiskey. Beer. More whiskey. Or water?"
She laughs. "Whiskey is fine."
I pour her a glass. My hands are steady, but my chest isn't. There's a tightness behind my ribs that won't shift. I've had it since the bar. Since before the bar. Since the day Harper walked down an aisle to a man who wasn’t me.
I hand Monica her glass, and she takes a sip, looking around the room. Her eyes land on the photos on the shelf. The rodeo trophies. The hat rack by the door.
"You want some music?" I ask because the silence is deafening, and if I don't fill it with something, I'm going to fill it with her name.
"Yeah. Love some."
