I lay motionless on the bed, staring into the dull light breaking through the curtains. I was numb with grief. I didn’t know how long it had been since Harlow had left me but going by the constant ringing of my cell I gathered it had been a while. I didn’t bother answering it.

At first I had hoped it was Harlow ringing me to tell me she had calmed down and was willing to talk things through. But it wasn’t. And the fact I’d even thought that told me what a delusional fuck I was. Harlow would never talk to me again. I didn’t deserve her talking to me again. In fact I had never deserved anything from her. She was right. I should have left her alone right from the very beginning, because she was so much better off without me fucking up her life.

The ache of her absence was overwhelming. Everything hurt and I wasn’t sure how I was going to cope without her in my life.

It was crazy everything could turn upside down within a blink of an eye.

Only forty-eight hours ago my life had been a dream. I was a king, living the dream. I was in a band that was growing in popularity, surrounded by good friends and with the most amazing girl for a girlfriend.

Now I was a cheating loser, alone in an unfamiliar hotel room in Vegas with a bottle of bourbon for comfort, and a big fucking hole in my heart.

I’d done a good job confirming what I’d known all along. That I was an asshole who didn’t deserve her. She was too good for me. And I had just done a brilliant job in proving it.

A knock at the door bought me back to my gloomy reality. My first instinct was to ignore it and disappear even further into the bottle of bourbon. But the idea that it might be Harlow threw me off the bed.

But of course it wasn’t Harlow.

Because she hates you now. Remember asshole?

It was Piper and Jesse.

I hesitated, wanting to be left alone to drink myself stupid and indulge in my very own pity party for one.

“We know you’re in there Heath,” Piper called out.

I opened the door and let them in. “Have you heard from her?”

“She’s at the airport waiting for a flight back to John Wayne. Her flight leaves in an hour.” Piper dumped her bag on the table, walked over to me and slammed me in the chest with both palms. “You’re an idiot! You fucked a random girl? In an airplane toilet?”

“Piper—” Jesse started, but was cut off by a warning look from his feisty girlfriend.

She shook her head and thrust her hands on her hips.

Ashamed, I looked down at my bare feet, ready to cry, ready to punch the fuck out of the walls. This misery was like nothing I’d ever known and even though I knew I deserved it, I was desperate for it to stop.

“I fucked up Piper. I fucked up real bad.” I had to raise my eyes to the ceiling to stop the tears and exhaled deeply. “Tell me what to do and I will do it. Tell me how to get her back. Should I go after her?”

Piper was projecting four foot nothing of pure disgust. She glared at me but then she shook her head and sighed.

“Give her a chance to cool down. If you go after her now you’re just going to upset her more.” She looked at the almost empty bottle of Jack on the bed. “That’s not going to help.”

“It’ll help get me through tonight.”

“Piper’s right, Heath. If you want to fix your fuck up, annihilating a fifth of bourbon isn’t going to help. You need a clear head to work out your game plan, man,” said Jesse.

“Yeah? And what’s that? She’s never going to forgive me.”

“Probably not. But it doesn’t mean you can’t try,” Piper said. She was looking at her cell phone and for a moment I thought she might be reading a message from Harlow. But then she looked up. “There is a fight out of Vegas tomorrow morning at six. I suggest you be on it.”

* * * * *

HARLOW

I landed back in California just after seven and took a cab to the apartment. I hadn’t cried but my face was stiff with unshed tears and I felt like someone had punched a gigantic hole through my chest.

When I let myself into our apartment I was relieved to find it empty. Bridget would be doing her shift at The Palace so I’d have the place to myself for another few hours.

At least I could fall apart in privacy.

I dumped my bags on the floor by the front door and headed straight for the wine rack and pulled out a random bottle of red. Not even bothering with a glass, I popped the cork and drank straight from the bottle. The plan wasn’t to get drunk; but if that happened … fuck it. I needed to slow down the tornado of thoughts working its way across my brain.

I took the bottle with me and settled into the wicker egg chair overlooking the beach. It was still light outside but an indigo dusk was settling across the sky. As I took another swig of wine the phone in my jeans pocket vibrated against my hip. Heath’s name lit up the screen. But just like the other ten calls from him, I hit decline and shoved it back in my pocket.

My chest felt hollow. But I was too dazed to cry. The wine would help calm me but I knew it wouldn’t erase the awful mental images I had of Heath and that girl with the bright blue eyes. I didn’t think anything could erase them. Not wine. Not even time.

I exhaled deeply in an attempt to still my thundering heart.

When I had discovered Colton was cheating on me I had just felt mad. Maybe a little let down but more angry than anything. I was also a little insulted that he’d thought I’d never find out. I mean, he was running around with my so-called best friend, Cassandra, so what were the chances I wouldn’t eventually stumble across the truth?

But at the end of the day I’d been able to see it was time to move on from him. Our relationship had run its course and I’d recognized that. I didn’t cry over it. I didn’t even get angry at him. I just broke up with him.

Oh, he had tried to convince me otherwise. He promised to never have anything to do with Cassandra ever again. Which would be easy because Cassandra was moving away. But I had already decided to spend the summer in California and realized I was truly over him. At the end of the day, his cheating on me was my perfect exit strategy.

But with Heath … his cheating on me was a sword straight through my chest. It tore the ground from under me and left me numb.

I tried some deep breathing exercises hoping it would calm the pain I felt swell around my heart. But it didn’t and my urge to cry was palpable. My chin quivered and I inhaled air through gritted teeth to calm the tide of heartache as it pushed and pulled throughout my chest.

I wouldn’t cry. I was afraid that if I started, I wouldn’t stop. So I stared out the window at the beach across the road, watching the sun move lower into the horizon and the shadows grow longer across the sand, and prayed the pain would go away.

Bridget arrived home sometime after eleven. Taking one look at me and the empty bottle of wine at my feet, she curled into the wicker chair next me and waited for me to explain what was wrong.

I chose my words slowly. Although my mind rushed to explain everything to her so she could perhaps come up with the answer to why? Why had this happened?

“Do you want to know what I think?” she asked finally, after I’d explained what had happened.

“Please.”

“I think he made a mistake. He fucked up real bad. But not because he wanted to. I think he overreacted to what he saw. And because of who he is, and how he looks, it’s far easier for him to fuck up so badly. You’ve said before, there is always some girl waiting to have her way with him. Unfortunately, this time it worked against him and it made it easier for him to make a mess of things.” She unfurled her legs from under her and leaned forward. “Heath isn’t a bad guy. I actually like him a lot more than I thought I would. I don’t think he’d ever try to hurt you deliberately.”