“I seriously doubt anyone’s ears will cry blood, but she gave me “Florian’s Song” and “Vissi d’arte”.”

“Bitch,” she hisses and then shakes her head and laughs. “Not you, but Cameron. Ugh ... that woman hates me. I think she wakes up in the morning and her hatred of me is the only thing that powers her through the day.” Polishing off the rest of her muffin, she raises her brows at me. “All right, quit nursing that scone. I need to go spend my entire paycheck to make myself feel better about failing mid-terms.”

Four hours later, after we’ve spent most of the afternoon at Short Pump Mall and I’ve scored a few new hats for my collection and a couple things to wear during Oktoberfest, Mac drops me off in front of my dorm.

“I’ve got to go pick up Eli from baseball conditioning.” She scrunches the tip of her nose like she can already smell his sweaty body in her front seat. “Text me later and maybe we can get together this week to rehearse. Lord knows I need every ounce of practice I can get.”

Promising her that I will, I return to my room. Corinne’s still out and there’s nothing but silence coming from Hannah and Lara’s room, so I assume and hope they’re gone too. Alone with nothing but my thoughts, I make an effort to take a nap to sleep away the dull headache forming between my eyes. When I wake up an hour later, covered in sweat after dreaming about Rhys Delane, I take the fact that my sheet music is the first thing my eyes land on as a sign.

Looking at the short text thread he and I exchanged nearly two weeks ago, I consider sending him a text. I could ask him to meet me or tell him that I’d like to talk tomorrow after practice, but the thought of him misinterpreting anything I might write makes me cringe. Finally, I suck it up and hit send. The response doesn’t come through immediately, like before, but finally I let out a breath of relief when my phone beeps.

6:18PM: At Ippy’s.

I take those two words as an invitation and thirty minutes later, my heart is in my throat when I walk into the bar. I shove my hands into my back pockets to stop them from shaking. Although there are not nearly as many people as the last time I came here, the place is still busy for a Sunday night. I comb my gaze around in search of him when I see that the bartender on duty is a petite girl with a shock of orange and red hair— à la Hayley Williams.

Did he leave already? I start to text him but then another thought enters my mind, and I jab my tongue into my cheek. Was he just never here and sent me that message in an effort to tell me to screw off?

I glance around once more and I’m seconds from leaving when I hear his voice as he greets someone else. I follow the sound to the bar, where he’s on the receiving side with a couple of shot glasses—one empty and the other full—in front of him. Slowly, my disappointment begins to fade away.

“I won’t screw up. I won’t wreck things this time,” I lecture myself under my breath, walking toward him. I pull my hands out my back pockets and smooth them over my hair. God, I wish I had one of my hats right now.

“You’re killing me,” he says. I slide onto the barstool. His eyes fall on mine, penetrating and unblinking, as he waits patiently for me to say something. When I don’t, he tosses back his drink and swallows hard. “So what angle are you going for tonight? Gonna tell me how different we are? Or are you—”

“Shut up, Rhys.” I move my face closer to his, a little wave of pleasure rippling through my veins at the flash of surprise on his face. I shouldn’t admit it, but I like catching him off-guard. The look is gone almost as quickly as it appeared, though. “Maybe I came to say sorry. Did you ever consider that?”

“This must be the part where you ask me to take you home?” His tone is teasing. It’s also just the slightest bit cruel. Same as his smile. “Tell me one thing, Evelyn. That whole spiel you gave me last week about being too different—you don’t for a second believe that, do you?”

The back of my mouth goes dry as I lean away to search his gaze. Maybe I’d believed what I’d said to him once, but that was before I began untangling him. Before he succeeded in getting to me. The truth is, Rhys and I are just the same—messy and fragile.

“No, I don’t,” I finally tell him. “So now that I’ve admitted that, I can leave you to drink alone or you can accept my company.”

He lifts his lips and cocks his head to one side, and all of a sudden, the only thing I can think about is digging my hands into his thick black hair. “What makes you think I’m drinking alone?”

I look around at the rest of the bar stools and then back at him. “Oh, I don’t know. Just a wild guess.”

“That would make you wildly fucking wrong. I had a parting shot with Jase before Daisy took him to the airport.”

I run my finger along the rim of one of his empty shot glasses. “Sad to see him go?”

“He’ll be back soon enough.” He signals the girl with the flaming hair and she immediately comes over giving him the smile he manages to elicit from most women. “One more fireball, Hazel, and something sweet and virginal for Evelyn.”

“Sure thing, Rhys.” She winks, but before she leaves, she stares from him to me and then back again. “She’s gonna drive you home?”

He turns to me, his dark eyebrow lifting questioningly, and I nod. As soon as Hazel scurries off, I lift my own brows. “How were you going to get home if I hadn’t shown up?”

“Hazel would’ve taken me.” I feel a stab of jealousy, wondering if he’s ever slept with the other bartender. Taking in my drawn expression, he laughs. “The whiplash is killing me, beautiful. For what it’s worth, you’re getting worked up over something that was well before your time.”

Butterflies settle in the bottom of my stomach, and I suck it in an effort to try to still their erratic flight. “I didn’t realize I had a time.”

The second Hazel places our drinks in front of us, he tips back his shot and shakes his head. “You wouldn’t have come in here if that were true.”

Thinking on his words in silence, I sip my mocktail. As soon as I’m done, he motions me close to him. “I want you to take me home, Evelyn, but before we leave I want you to know something else,” he says in a voice low enough for only me to hear. “If you get out your car and come into my place, I want more from you. I want to be inside you, taste every inch of you, and if you come in that’s what’s gonna happen tonight.”

Oh. Wow.

Panties, meet your destroyer, I think at the pressure his words build inside of me.

I swallow past the lump in my throat. Scooting off the barstool, I start for the door, glancing back to see if he’s coming. He falls in step right beside me, and I feel his fingers splay on the small of my back. I suppress a shiver as I lead him to where my car is parked in a lot a block away.

“Did you know this thing is in Forza?” he asks me once we’re both inside. I give him a disbelieving stare. Not even two minutes ago he was telling me how this night would end with me in his bed, and now his expression is calm and collected and he’s talking about my car and a video game.

“I know now,” I say, checking my mirrors as I pull onto the street in the direction of his apartment. When I park in his driveway behind a silver Impreza that I assume belongs to him, my dark brown eyes lock with his blue ones. I start to grab my purse as a slow, sexy grin forms on his face.

“God, Evelyn, I—” he begins but his words freeze when an electric blue Fiesta pulls into the spot right next to mine. I watch in horror as Cari, his ex-girlfriend, gets out. She stares over at us, a momentary flash of surprise registering on her face before she smirks, sticks her epic rack out, and then walks up the drive to Rhys’ side of the duplex.

“What the hell is she doing?” he growls as we watch her let herself in.