I shook my head, throat tight. "I don't want to do this with you right now."
"Then when?"
I let out a harsh breath, chest burnin' as much from the whiskey as the weight of his stare. "I don't know, man. Maybe when I don't feel like such a complete and utter asshole and I'm not drownin' in self-pity."
Rhett leaned back, arms folded across his chest. His eyes didn't waver. "Self-pity?Youlefther."
I stared at the ring of condensation on the wood, wishing I could seep right into it and vanish.
And that's when the air shifted.
The front door creaked open, lettin' in a draft of cooler night air and the scrape of boots on old floorboards. My head turned before I could stop it and my fuckin' brain stuttered.
Raven-black hair, tattoos climbin' her arms, septum ring catchin' the light. Confident in a way that made the whole room bend around her.
I froze, the noise of the bar droppin' to static. My pulse hammered like I'd just been caught doing somethin' I shouldn't.
Rhett clapped me on the shoulder, mistakin' my silence for surrender. "See you, man," he said, slidin' off the stool.
I didn't answer. Couldn't. My gaze was locked on the stranger at the end of the bar, every part of me unravelin' under the weight of a desire I had no business feelin'.
But maybe that was the point. Maybe I needed to want someone who wasn't Sassy; someone who wouldn't look at me with her eyes or remind me of what I'd thrown away.
Fuck.
Why couldn't I stop lookin' at her? She was so fucking pretty.
And a little scary, TBH.
She was giving some seriousfuck offenergy, which was probably why half the assholes in this shitty little bar looked the other way. The other half—me included—stared, but seemed like we were all too chicken shit to do anythin' about it.
Reality slammed into me.
This was my life now.
Oglin' pretty girls from across the bar and knowin' fuck all about how to actually talk to them. Because there'd only ever been one girl. One girl whose hand I'd held. One girl whose lips I'd kissed. One girl whose pussy I'd fucked.
And I'd ended it.
Sure my reasons were noble, but what did I actually fucking know about any of it? About love or women? Maybe I didn't deserve the happily ever after my parents had, after all, if I'd been so quick to throw away my one and only girl.
I needed another drink.
"Hank!" I tapped two fingers on the bartop. His cloudy eye cut to me, makin' me squirm. Thing freaked me out.
"Haven't you had enough, homewrecker? Don't need your sorry ass pukin' on my bar."
The sexy stranger looked up from her phone and our eyes met. Then she granted me a seductive little smirk.
I nearly choked on my own tongue.
She raised a dark, questioning brow and mouthedhomewrecker?
Was this it? My opening? My chance to talk to the raven-haired beauty at the end of the bar? Did I deserve to? Part of me—the part of me that truly fuckin' hated seeing Sassy cry when I'd called things off—thought I should go into some sort of self-imposed celibacy. Become a monk or some shit. That's probably what I deserved for screwin' it all up.
The other part of me was so hard up, I had a raging fucking boner just from looking at this woman. After livin' with your girlfriend-turned-fiancée for ten years, you got kinda used to regular sex.
Because, for Sassy and me, sex had never been a problem. It was good. Frequent.
