“She’s never going to take me back.”
“Do you want her back?” Mav asks. “You told me before you aren’t ready for a relationship.”
Xavier laughs. “No one’s ever ready for a relationship. Do you want her back?”
I stare at the glass I’m drying and imagine my life without Blue’s smiling face or her wise ass remarks. “Yeah, I want her back.”
Xavier whoops just as Nick Grove walks in and sits down next to him. “What are you so happy about?” Nick asks.
“We’re going to help Garrick win back Blue.”
“Win her back? When did he have her?”
I wait on other customers while my brother and Xavier fill Nick in. For the first time in days, I feel something other than broken-hearted and sad. I feel hope.
But by the time I’m closing down the bar an hour later, that hope is dwindling. Blue doesn’t want a relationship, and she’s never going to understand why I did what I did.
She thinks she can do everything on her own. She won’t understand me wanting to take care of her.
And, yeah, I get maybe I didn’t go about it the right way, but I can’t undo what’s already been done.
“You almost done?” Mav asks. “I want to hit Jack Frost’s before it closes. I don’t want to go home alone tonight.”
Thankfully, my older brother is renting a condo downtown and not staying with me. “You go on without me. I’m beat.”
“Nope.” Mav’s eyebrow piercing winks in the overhead lights. “I’m taking you with me. You need to be reminded there are other women in the world than that Blue chick.”
My hackles rise at him talking about her that way. “What happened to me winning her back?”
Mav snorts. “Man, you don’t really believe those guys, do you? You tried to get the woman fired. The chance of her taking you back is about as good as you ever speaking to mom and dad again.”
He’s only saying what I’ve been thinking, but he’s my brother. He’s supposed to believe in me no matter the odds. “I have to at least try.”
“Fuck that, brother. There are a million hot women in the world. Why waste your time moping over the one you’re never going to have? You’ve never been the settling down type, anyway.”
My brother doesn’t know me any better than the rest of my family, not really. I know he’s just projecting his own view of the world onto me, but I’m also not sure he’s wrong. “I’m not ready to hook up with anyone new.”
“Now’s the perfect time. Getting onto a new woman is the best way to get over the last one.”
There’s no way in hell I want to even look at another woman, but going home sounds worse than hanging with Mav as his wingman. I’m sick as shit of this ache in my chest and the awful feeling that I’m the one who broke my own heart. And who hurt the last person in the world I ever wanted to hurt.
Mav must see it on my face, because he grins. “That’s the spirit.”
I finish up with the nightly closing procedures and join Mav by the door. Outside, the wind blows hard and the cold is bitter.
Jack Frost’s is packed, even though it’s after midnight, and there are beautiful women everywhere I look. None of them appeal. I’m scanning the bar for pink hair.
The last time I was here, Blue was trying to pick up a tourist.
Does she have the same idea tonight? Is she out looking for someone else to take home in Vegas? Or has she already foundhim? Are his hands on her naked body? Is his cock in her mouth?
My stomach roils at the thought. How quickly will she move on from me? Has she already?
I grab onto the nearest table to steady myself, my knees going weak at the thought. I don’t want her to be with anyone but me, and I sure as hell don’t want to be with anyone but her.
I catch up to Mav at the bar. “Sorry, man. I’m heading out.”
He shakes his head in disgust, but I don’t care. I’m not going to do anything that might risk my chances of winning back Blue. Because winning her back is the only option. I’m going to try, even if I’m doomed to fail.
