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I swallowed. “Is…is Jason here?”

She looked drowsily over her shoulder. “Sleeping,” she said, peering back at me.

The wind was knocked out of me.

I didn’t understand. Why would she be here? Everything we did was about keeping her from being here. We hated her. Jason didn’t want her anywhere near us, and now she was in his room?

Tucker growled low next to me, and Lola’s eyes dropped to the sound. “I’ll take him,” she murmured, reaching clumsily for the leash.

She was drunk.

I yanked him back instinctively. “No.”

I stared at the woman between me and the man I loved.

She was shorter in person than I’d expected. Prettier. She had wavy red hair that hung almost to her navel. Sharp green eyes with long fake eyelashes and perfect wing-tipped eyeliner.

Her lips were bare.

A lump started to build in my throat. “What are you doing here?” My voice shook.

She looked at me, bored, and leaned her head on the door frame. “What do you want?”

I blanched.

What do I want? I belong here. My chest started to heave.

This was the person behind all the bad things in our lives. She was the reason I’d had to ghost myself on social media, change the number I’d had when I was with Brandon. She’d had us running ourselves into the pavement to keep her from being forced on us. She was why we didn’t get days off.

And now she was in my boyfriend’s room half-naked.

A small surge of anger-fueled bravery kicked in. I pushed past her.

She made a leisurely laughing noise as she fell back into the wall, like this was all hilarious to her in slow motion.

And there he was.

I don’t think I would have truly believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. But there was Jason. He was in nothing but his underwear, sleeping on top of the bedspread.

I stood there dumbfounded for a moment before I darted to the mattress and grabbed his shoulder. “Get up!” I shook him. “Jason, wake up!”

He groaned into the pillow.

Tucker jumped onto the bed and started licking his face. Jason didn’t even push him off.

I looked around, mouth open, tears filling my eyes. A bottle of bourbon sat on the nightstand. Two glasses.

He must be shit-faced, I thought with disgust. There was no way he could sleep through this otherwise.

Was that what had happened? He was upset with me so he got wasted and slept with Lola?

The finality of the situation smacked me in the face. How was this happening? How? None of it made sense.

“You should probably go,” Lola slurred from behind me.

I didn’t need more prodding. I’d seen enough.

I turned and left without looking at her. She clicked the door closed and Tucker pulled at his leash back toward the room the whole way to the elevator as I dragged my luggage behind me, gasping.

I burst from the smoky casino and walked vaguely in the direction that I’d come in my Uber from the airport. When I felt like my lungs couldn’t give me the air I needed to continue, I stopped at a closed cafe on the strip and sat at one of their dirty patio tables. I blocked everyone. Zane, Jessa, Ernie—Jason. I didn’t want anyone trying to talk me out of what I knew I’d seen—or telling me more. I knew enough.

Then I sobbed into the phone to Kristen.

She told me to come stay with her. She said Josh was going to murder him. She told me to get off the streets of Vegas at 1:00 in the morning and that I was too good for him and I deserved better.

I didn’t want better. I wanted him.

I was alone, homeless, and devastated. And now I was adrift again, waves crashing over me, water filling my mouth.