She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. No words. No sounds. Nothing. I waited to hear her tell me she hated me, that I’d turned out to be the horrible fuck she always thought I’d been, but she said nothing for a long time, just staring up at me with a look that made me feel like my heart was being torn out. Then, finally, she sighed and her eyes filled with tears.
“So this is what all that stuff last night was about. You were planning to fuck Lola.”
“No! No! I didn’t want to. I didn’t have a choice. Her father helps us keep the cops away so they don’t shut us down. He threatened to stop helping us if I didn’t—” I couldn’t say the words, so I just let my sentence trail off.
“You always had a choice, Stefan. So now you’ll have to live with that choice. I hope you’re happy with her.”
“Don’t do this. Don’t make any decisions yet. Please. I’m begging you.”
“Do you think I’m going to feel any better about this once a little time goes by? Do you think the vision of Lola going down on you is something I’m ever going to forget?” she screamed.
“Please, you have to believe me. I never wanted her. I want you. You’re everything to me, Shay. Tell me what I need to do and I’ll do it.”
Wiping her eyes, she said, “Leave me alone. Don’t call me. Don’t text me. Don’t look for me. Forget everything we were together.”
“No, don’t do this. You have to forgive me. You have to forgive me, Shay,” I pleaded as she pushed me away.
“Like Cassian had to forgive you? Like every woman who cared more for you than you did her had to forgive you? No. I never want to see you again, Stefan March.”
“You have to see me at work,” I said, grasping at any connection left between us.
“I quit.”
Shay moved to get into her car, but I held her by the arm, refusing to believe this was it. “No. I won’t let you go. I can’t. I love you.”
Spinning toward me, she pummeled my chest with her fists as she cried, “You let me go the minute you walked into that office and let her do that! You told me you loved me last night. Were those just words to you?” A sob overtook her, and she fell back against the car and hung her head. “They meant something to me. If you hadn’t been so goddamned drunk, I would have finally told you the truth. You didn’t lose that bet. I did fall for you. I fell hard. I believed you were that person I hung out with at the beach, who I braved going out on the water for because I trusted you.”
“Please Shay. Don’t leave me. We can get past this.”
“What happened to honesty and the truth thing we had, Stefan? I can’t trust you. You’re that guy I always knew in the back of my mind would do something like this. I let myself believe you weren’t because I wanted you to be that guy I was falling for. It was a lie. You played me. Congratulations.”
“You know it wasn’t like that. Stop talking like that.”
I felt her slipping away even as she stood there with me. I was losing her.
“I can’t do this with you. Let me go.”
Her words made my chest feel like something was crushing it. I reached out but she pushed me away and as I stood there watching her go, she drove away.
I walked back into the club to find Lola still in my office, but one look at her and all I wanted to do for the first time in my life was hit a woman. “What are you still doing here? You got what you wanted. Go home, Lola.”
“Are you with her?” she asked with an edge in her voice that only pissed me off more.
“Get out!”
For the second time that night, a woman stared at me with tears welling in her eyes, but unlike with Shay, I didn’t give a fuck if Lola felt like shit or not. As long as she got the fuck away from me.
She ran out in tears, but I didn’t care.
I rolled over on top of a vodka bottle and pushed it off the couch, hearing it shatter as it hit the floor. Looking down through bleary eyes, I pushed the glass under the furniture. Just in case I had to eventually had to leave the couch. Not that I had any plans to do that. The bottles lined up on the coffee table would allow me to stay blasted for a few more days, and after that I’d figure something out. I did own a fucking bar, didn’t I? It couldn’t be that difficult to get my hands on more.
Closing my eyes again, I tried to think of anything but Shay’s face as she stood there out on the street in front of the club, her beautiful green eyes filled of hurt, but it was no use. That’s all my brain gave me every minute of the day and night. I wanted to remember the time when she buried me in the sand. The time we ate Mexican and on a dare she took a bite of a pepper so hot tears flowed down her face as we laughed at her stupidity. The night we rode through the streets of Tampa with her holding on so tightly I thought she’d break one of my ribs. Every minute I spent worshipping her body as we made love. Her lips. Her tongue teasing me like no other woman ever had.
Her gorgeous green eyes when she looked at me like I was the greatest guy in the world.
It always came back to the eyes.
I felt something run down my palm and opened my eyes to see a stream of blood from a cut on my fingertip. It should have hurt—it might have if I wasn’t so fucking drunk. Grabbing a bottle off the table, I took a swig of whatever it was and watched the blood from my finger drip down the glass.
Lost in thought, at least I got a reprieve from thinking of what I’d done. It didn’t last long, though, and a few minutes later I was back to feeling guilt so overwhelming that it felt like something was sitting on my chest and at any moment I might smother under the weight of it.
In the distance, I heard knocking. It started off soft and after a while it seemed to be close enough that I wondered if someone was trying to knock down my neighbor’s door. I didn’t care, but it gave me another distraction from my thoughts.
“Stefan? Stefan? Open your eyes,” a voice demanded but I shut them even tighter to block it out.
“Wake up, Stefan. Why are you bleeding?”
I slowly raised my eyelids to see Cash standing over me and Kane yanking the bottle out of my hand. “Go away.”
“You need to get up. Two binges in a week? What the fuck is this?” Cash asked in that mix of concern and disgust voice he often used when speaking to me.
“I’m not getting up, so go away. Kane, help me out for once, will you?”
“Stefan, you need to sit up. There’s blood all over your hand,” Kane said in a similar voice to Cash’s.