Off to one side, Zane was slinking through the crowd, a black semiautomatic pistol in his fist, inching toward me, one hand lifting to cup the bottom of the pistol in an easy, practiced weaver stance. I held my hand out to him, stopping him from rushing the scene and popping all these gorillas where they stood. Knowing Zane, he’d drop them all in ten seconds or less and not have a drop of blood on him, the smooth, deadly fucker.
I watched as Eva climbed into the limo.
The bodyguards remained in place as she slid in, followed by her father, and then Thomas last, who had the audacity to fucking smirk at me in triumph as he swung down into the vehicle. Bastard only had the balls to smirk at me because he had more than a dozen armed men between him and me. Pussy.
Then the bodyguards were climbing into their SUVs and pulling away one by one, leaving me standing alone, hands at my sides, as they drove away with Eva.
Zane appeared beside me. “Wellthatwas fun,” he said.
“No, it actually wasn’t.”
“You’re just pissed because you didn’t get a chance to pop that smarmy blond fucker in the nose.”
I didn’t feel the humor that normally defined most of my interactions with the world, and my brothers in particular. “No, Zane, I’m pissed because I feel like I just let a one in a million chance slip through my fingers.”
His hand rested on my shoulders. “You said your piece, Bax. She chose her path.”
“Yeah, well, I feel like she chose wrong.”
“Not up to you, brother.”
“I know.”
“You’ll get over her.”
I sighed. “I don’t know, Zane. This time, I really don’t know.”
He had no answer for that. All he could do was shrug, eventually, and shove me toward the truck. “Let’s go, bro. I got a bottle of Johnny with our names on it.” He laughed. “And I do mean that literally.”
The black duffel bag full of cash Moss handed me didn’t do a damn thing to soothe the ache in my chest, or the cold, heavy, squirm in my belly, which felt an awful lot like the burn of regret, and the sting of loss.
Which was stupid, right?
Zane drove us home, and I stared out the window, trying to figure this shit out.
I barely knew her. We had a little chemistry, had some seriously hot sex, but that was it. I’d had plenty of hot sex with plenty of hot chicks. When the time was up, I went my way, and never felt a single pang of anything as I put a door between me and the girl I’d just fucked. But this was different. Even when the girls had left me, ditching me for an early morning walk of shame out of my apartment in Calgary, I’d watched ’em go without a second thought, knowing there were countless more just like them, waiting for me to pick them up and take them home for a quick fuck and a quicker goodbye.
Somehow, I knew there wasn’t anyone else like Evangeline, and that was what made this different.
Shewas what made this thing we’d shared so different; I didn’t have to know her any better or any longer to know that was true.
Wasn’t much I could do about it, though, was there? She had, as Zane had pointed out, chosen her path. She’d chosen her life, as I’d always known she would.
I just hadn’t thought it would actually cause…you know…shit like feelings when she did.
I was starting to worry that what I meant byfeelingswas something awfully close topain.
We got back to the bar, and I let Zane shove me up to the apartment, let him push a bottle of Johnny into my hand, and I tipped it back and wondered if it was even possible for me to drink enough to forget Evangeline.
I had a feeling it wasn’t. I’d tried that once already, with someone else, and discovered, much to the regret of my liver, that it wasn’t really possible. The fucking feelings always came back while I was sober, the sneaky little fuckers.
I was gonna try, though, and thank god I worked at a bar. I should warn Sebastian that he’d have to bump up his inventory of scotch until I was over Eva.
It was a week later, I’d won three fights, and had drunk my way through six shifts at the bar. I was currently being shaken into consciousness by Mara on the floor of the foyer of Zane’s converted warehouse, seeing triple, and feeling a little pukey.
Mara was standing over me, a bucket in hand. “Baxter, you’re a fucking dumpster fire. Why the hell did you have to pickhereto pass out?”
I rolled onto my back and peered up at the six of her I was seeing. “Mara, heyyyyy.” I was feeling strangely articulate considering how wasted I was. “I’m not sure why I’m here. I don’t remember walking here.”
