“She made six dozen–you don’t need to inhale them,” Jamie said. He approached the bar, dropped ice cubes in a plastic glass, and poured me a scotch. “You look like you need this.”

“Hey bro, I haven’t seen you all night,” Chris said as he racked the balls. “You want to play?”

“Sure.” I didn’t have anything better to do.

“Whoa H, Tenley having a hard time waiting to get home?” Chris asked.

When I gave him a blank look, he pointed to the side of my neck.

“Oh that.” I hadn’t bothered to look at it. It was sensitive to touch, so it must have been pretty bad. “No, that was payback for being an asshole.”

“You? An asshole? That’s hard to believe,” Jamie snickered.

“I guess it could have been worse?” Chris offered.

“It probably will be later.”

The upcoming conversation with Tenley was one I didn’t want to have. I’d put it off for too long and now, like always, it was biting me in the ass. Almost an hour later Tenley still hadn’t come looking for me. Irritable after losing three games, I went upstairs to find her. I trolled the rooms and ended up running into Damen.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked, checking for his entourage of wannabe tattooists and thugs in training.

“I was invited.”

“By who?” Jamie would never welcome him into his house, and Lisa steered clear of Damen at all costs. “Has Lisa seen you?”

“Not yet,” he said, apathetic. His eyes drifted to my neck. “Sienna’s here somewhere, although from the look of things you might have already found her.”

Shit. The situation was going from bad to worse. I needed to find Tenley and get her home before those two ran into each other.

I turned away from Damen, looked over the room, and came up empty. Maybe the girls had gone upstairs. The hall was roped off past the bathroom. I ducked under the rope and tried all the doors, but they were locked. Stepping into the bathroom, I closed myself in to muffle the pounding music and called Tenley. Voice mail kicked in, so I hung up and sent a text instead. I was about to go back downstairs and do another sweep of the house when the door flew open.

Sienna. She was wearing a black-corset-looking thing that didn’t begin to cover enough skin. Her massive cleavage was pushed up and in, her nipples hazardously close to showing. The sequined black miniskirt she paired it with was so short that I’d catch an eyeful if she bent over.

“Trina! Guess who I found?”

Trina appeared behind her, blocking the doorway. Her eyes lit up with the same salacious intent.

“Trina tells me you’ve been occupied all night, but it looks like you aren’t anymore.”

Trina didn’t say a word as she came up behind Sienna. Her eyes stayed on me as she licked a path from Sienna’s neck to her ear. Sienna moaned. She sounded like a porn star.

I’d seen more than enough. “Well, it looks like you girls have got a handle on things. If you don’t mind, I’m going to head back to the party.” Even I was impressed with how blasé I sounded. I was practically shitting my pants. I’d texted Tenley my location. This was not the kind of scene I wanted her walking in on.

“Oh no, you don’t.” Sienna’s seductive pout disappeared. She pushed away from Trina and wrapped herself around me, hooking one of her legs around mine, the sharp end of her stiletto biting into the back of my knee. Her other leg came between mine, and she gyrated her hips against my black pants. That would leave a mark.

“Don’t you want to fuck?” she whined.

“I’m good, thanks.”

Thank Christ my dick had the decency not to get hard. I might hate her, but I didn’t always have control over how my body wanted to react to two chicks making out in 3-D. Fortunately the connection between it and my brain must have been intact, processing the who, and not just the what.

“Get off me.” I caught her hand before it could move lower.

Trina stood off to the side, watching the altercation with perverse fascination.

“Make me,” Sienna purred.

So we were back to this again. “Your desperation is pathetic.” Disinclined to feed into her BS, I gathered up her other wrist as she tried to hold on to my neck. How I managed to find myself in such fucked-up situations was beyond me.

“Hayden?” Tenley pulled my attention away from the overprocessed harpy still stuck to my leg.

Tenley stood in the hall, just outside the bathroom. The color drained from her face. She blinked, eyes brimming.

“Shit. Tenley, I can explain.”

I shoved Sienna away. She stumbled back and hit the vanity, causing the soap dispenser to fall into the sink with a loud crack.

Icy distaste replaced the devastation on Tenley’s face. She turned and ran, skidding down the hall. I went to follow, afraid she’d slip or worse, but Sienna got in front of me.

“Just let her go, Hayden. She’ll never understand you. She’ll never be enough.”

A surge of violent hostility tore through me. I willed my hands to stay at my sides and not wrap around her throat.

“Get the fuck out of my way,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Why? So you can chase after her and hear things you already know are true? She can’t handle you, you have to know that. You can’t be faithful to her. You’ll get bored.”

Her words sparked an epiphany. I suddenly realized why I had always gone back to Sienna. On some level I had believed the shit she spewed. Her manipulation had kept me bound to my own self-loathing tendencies. Until Tenley, I hadn’t known what it felt like to be with someone who understood the pain beneath my ink. I did now.

“I need you to listen to me,” I seethed, quiet and controlled. “I hate you. Do you get that? You ruin my life every time you come back into it.”

She paled and staggered back, like I’d slapped her. I advanced on her and Trina seized my arm, but I shook her off.

“I. Hate. You. I hate what you do to me. I hate you more than the fucking psycho who shot my parents. Do you understand?”

“Hayden, stop.” Trina touched my shoulder.

I wheeled on her. “Don’t fucking touch me!”

She backed away, hands up in surrender. When I turned to Sienna, I saw my reflection in the mirror, eyes wild, jaw tight, a malignant sneer distorting my face. There was only panic in Sienna’s gaze.

“I asked you a question. Do you understand?”

Her head bobbed up and down.

“Stay the fuck away from me and what’s mine,” I barked.

I stormed down the hallway, hell-bent on finding Tenley so I could once again try to fix what I’d broken.

28

HAYDEN

Lisa and Chris stopped me at the front door. Judging by their concern, I must have looked like a complete mental case.

“Where is she?”

“Sarah took Tenley home,” Lisa said. “I tried to talk to her, but she was too upset.”

“What the hell happened? Tee was flipping out.”

“Sienna happened. She and Trina cornered me in the upstairs bathroom. Those two are a fucking nightmare. Sienna wouldn’t walk away. She just kept coming at me and running her mouth.”

“What?” Lisa looked ill.

“Are you kidding?” Chris practically snarled.

“I wish I was. Tenley walked in when Sienna was trying to hump my leg. You know how she is, Chris. I just wanted to get away from her without doing any damage.” My eyes felt wrong, weird. Like they were watering. It was getting harder to breathe. I pressed the heel of my hand against my forehead, hoping to fend off what felt like the beginning of a panic attack. “I need to get to Tenley so I can explain. Make her understand.”

As I headed for the door, Lisa got in the way. “You can’t drive.”

I started to argue but thought better of it. I’d been drinking and I was pissed, not a good combination for getting behind the wheel. “Fine. I’ll run.”

“I can take you,” Chris offered.