CHRISTIAN
“You’ve hadseven drinks in two hours, bud.” The bartender stared at me with a dubious expression.
“And I’m ordering an eighth.” I enunciated each word with cold precision. I didn’t slur or sway. I could be blackout drunk and no one would be the wiser. “You got a problem with that?”
He held up his hands and shook his head.
“It’s your liver.”
Goddamn right.
It was my liver and my money. I could do whatever the hell I wanted with them.
I tossed back the glass he slid in my direction and drained it in a minute flat.
The alcohol had stopped burning four drinks back, and it tasted like water going down.
It pissed me off. What was the point of alcohol if it didn’t numb the way it was supposed to?
“Is this seat taken?” A blonde slid onto the stool next to mine before I could answer.
Tiny dress. Long legs. Lips that would make Angelina Jolie cry with envy.
I didn’t spare her a second glance. “Not interested.”
It was the same fucking thing every time. Couldn’t a guy drink in peace without getting hounded?
I could’ve saved myself the trouble and drank at home, but the apartment was too depressing these days. I also didn’t want to go to the Valhalla Club since everyone there was nosy as fuck. No one liked seeing a member down more than the other members.
So here I was, holed up in some shitty dive bar near the office, drowning my sorrows in equally shitty scotch.
If my liver rebelled, it wouldn’t be from the quantity of drinks. It would be from the quality of them.
The offended blonde left in a huff, clearly unused to being rejected.
Tough shit.
It’d been two weeks since Stella and I broke up.
Two weeks of unrelenting hell where everything reminded me of her. The blender she made her smoothies in, the tub where she’d bathed, the cafe where she bought her pastries. Even the fucking trees and plants outside reminded me of her.
It was enough to make me want to lock myself in a dark concrete box and never come out.
The jangle of bells above the entrance pulled me out of my pathetic self-pity and drew my attention to the door.
My heart stopped.
Dark curls. Green eyes. Warm smile.
Stella.
For a second, I thought I was hallucinating and had conjured her from my thoughts.
Then her voice wound toward me, as real and tangible as the cracked vinyl cushion of my stool and the muted baseball game playing on TV.
I straightened, my spirits lifting until I saw the guy standing next to her. He looked vaguely familiar, and he said something that made her smile.
My hand tightened around my glass as an icy black wave of possessiveness rippled through me.
Whoever the guy was, I wanted to fucking kill him.
My eyes tracked them as they sat at a table across the room.
Stella hadn’t noticed me yet. She said something else to the soon-to-be dead fucker, but she must’ve felt the weight of my stare because she finally looked up.
Our gazes collided like sparks in the air.
Our relationship had turned to ashes, but the fire between us was still there, burning up space and oxygen until we were the only people left.
My blood roared at the sweet relief of seeing her again.
She asked me to leave her alone, and I had. Us showing up at the same bar on the same night would’ve been a coincidence, but nothing was a coincidence when it came to her.
It was fate.
Stella’s smile faded. She turned away, and the sounds of the bar rushed back in a painful whoosh.
I wasn’t sure what was worse—seeing her and not being able to touch or talk to her, or knowing that seeing me had caused her light to dim.
Restlessness and the urge to rip out the throat of the man she was talking to churned beneath my skin.
Instead of ordering another drink, I slid off my stool and pushed my way through the crowd to the bathroom.
The sting of cold water against my face cleared the haze from my vision.
Giving her up was the hardest thing and the biggest sacrifice she could’ve asked for. It went against my every instinct.
She would never know if I checked her social media or blog. But every time I went to pick up the phone or pull up Stella’s profile, something held me back.
I’m asking you to leave me alone, Christian.
I yanked a paper towel from the dispenser and wiped my hands dry before I stepped into the hall.
I made it two steps before I stopped.
Stella stood at the end of the hall, her tall, slim frame silhouetted against the bar lights. Still, I could make out the way her lips parted in surprise.
We stared at each other.
Music pulsed a few feet away, but here, in this hall, there was only silence and the hum of things I wanted to but couldn’t say.
I’m sorry.
I miss you.