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I shook my head and scoffed. I’d clearly had too much because there was no way. No way that voice was anything but my liquor-soaked imagination messing with me.

“Ask that guy,” the bartender said, placing a glass of ice on the sticky bar top. “He’s got the bottle.”

Slowly, I lifted my gaze, and my entire world tilted.

Eleanor.

Live and in the flesh.

Standing there with her hip popped, her hand resting against the curve, looking like every damn dream I’d had of her since we met.

My eyes dragged down her body—same outfit as the first night I saw her. Red boots. Tight jeans that hugged every inch of her.

“Eyes up here, Cowboy.”

My gaze snapped back to her face, and there it was. That smirk. Like she hadn’t just shattered my world all over again by standing in front of me.

I was stunned. Speechless. The woman who had consumed every thought, haunted every sleepless night, was suddenly here.

Real.

Breathing.

Looking at me like she hadn’t left me in ruins.

“Are you gonna say something?” she teased. “Kiss me? Throw me over your shoulder and carry me out of here?”

Her tone was light, playful. I was feeling anything but.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” My voice came out hard, sharp with anger I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding.

She was back. To taunt me? To torture me when I was finally trying to move on?

How the hell could she be so calm? So put together when I had been coming apart at the seams?

“Can I take a seat?” she asked, nodding toward the barstool beside me.

Déjà vu slammed into me like a freight train.

I grunted, turning back to my drink, bringing the glass to my lips. I wasn’t ready for this. For her.

Eleanor grabbed the bottle and poured her own.

“Colton,” she nudged after a few beats of silence, her voice tentative.

I refused to look at her. Refused to let her in.

“Say whatever it is you came here to say and leave, just like you did before,” I muttered, staring straight ahead at the mirror behind the bar with bottles lined against it.

I saw her through the reflection—the way her expression softened, the way her shoulders fell slightly as if she wasn’t sure she had the right to be here.

“Please,” she whispered. “Look at me.”

My eyes fell shut as I sucked in a deep breath through my nose. The bourbon had worked its way into my veins, numbing me at the edges, but not enough. Not when she was sitting right next to me, saying my name like it still belonged to her.

Eleanor reached out, her fingertips brushing under my chin, gently coaxing me to face her.

I let her.