The meaning behind her words was a punch in the gut. Despite my intentions, as far as she was concerned, I’d just proven her right in thinking the worst of me.

“Have a good night, Nancy,” Annie said as she stepped up next to me, curving her fingers around my bicep possessively.

Something flashed in those navy blue eyes, a sadness that stole the breath from my lungs. “You, too,” she offered, not bothering to correct the leech who had just attached herself to my side like she belonged there. Navie’s eyes flittered to where her hand was wrapped around my arm and the look on her face nearly broke me. It was entirely my fault. If it had been possible, I’d have kicked my own ass.

“Now, where were we?” Annie purred once we were alone, moving in front of me to wrap her arms around my neck. The heavy, suffocating scent of her perfume suddenly hit me like a punch to the face, and I wanted nothing more than to get her out of my apartment as fast as possible.

“You were just leaving,” I answered shortly, reaching up to pull her arms from around me.

Her brows drew down in disbelief. “What?”

“My assistant’s name is Navie. Not Nancy. You knew that already, seeing as you used her name to request something from her at least three times today.”

“Yeah, so? What does it matter?” She laughed, running her fingers along my chest. “She’s just your assistant.”

I grabbed her wrists, holding tightly enough for her to get the hint that she needed to stop touching me. I was already pissed at myself, and her blatant disregard for Navie was doing nothing but fueling the fire. Using my hold on her wrists to pull her closer, I hissed in her ear, “The only reason I paid you any attention today was to make that assistant jealous. If you had been lucky enough to get my cock, it would have been her face I was picturing as I fucked you. And I would have come, moaning Navie, not Nancy. Now, get the hell out.”

She yanked away from me, disgust distorting her features, features that required makeup for her to look attractive. Navie didn’t need anything to make her gorgeous. I’d seen her in sweats, her hair in a messy bun at the top of her head, and not a speck of makeup on her face. And I still got harder for her than I had for any other woman.

“You’re an asshole,” she seethed as she stuffed her camera inside its bag.

“Nice working with you,” I responded dismissively, not bothering to watch her storm out as I grabbed my phone and began dialing.

It was time to do something I hadn’t done in a very long time.

It was time to grovel.

“Oh, my God,” Harlow gasped, grabbing my phone from the table. “He’s calling again!”

“Damn, I’ve never seen that boy act so needy before. This is hilarious!” Pepper giggled as I let out a drunken groan.

It took extreme effort not to slur my words as I said, “It’s not hilarious. He’s a jerk-face and I hate him.”

After everything that had gone down at Rowan’s place with that slutty photographer, I was in desperate need of a drunken pity-party. Fortunately for me, I had two of the best girlfriends a woman could ask for. Unfortunately for them, I had passed buzzed four drinks back and was well into shit-faced territory, meaning I had lost all control over my emotions and had spent the past two hours going from angry to mopey and right back to angry again. I was currently sitting at angry. And I was pretty certain the only reason Harlow and Pepper hadn’t ditched me yet was because they were both equally as drunk as me and found my mood swings utterly hysterical.

“I can’t believe he made plans to fuck that photographer right in front of your face!” Harlow shouted. Whereas I was an overly emotional drunk, Harlow was a loud drunk. I was pretty sure every single one of the bar patrons knew every sordid detail of what was going on with me and Rowan, starting from the night at the Neon Room, all the way up to my humiliation just hours ago. Add in Pepper being a giggling drunk and all three of us were Urban Dictionary’s living example of ‘White Girl Wasted’.

It wasn’t pretty.

Hysterical, yes. But not pretty.

“You know what you should do?” Pepper declared as I swayed from side to side in my chair. Damn thing was wobbly as hell. “You should have sex with someone else!”

There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I’d never be able to go through with Pepper’s suggestion, but I was ashamed to admit that, in my alcohol-addled brain, I considered it for a few seconds. That was, until some skeevy guy with a rapist goatee sidled up to our table with a creepy grin.

“Ew, gross! Not you!” I all but shouted, shoving at the man who’d obviously overheard Pepper’s idiotic suggestion. “Go away.”

Taking my not-so-subtle hint that there was no way on God’s green Earth he was getting his P anywhere near my V, he slinked away with a dejected expression on his pervy face. Reaching for my gin and tonic, I downed the last of it and slammed the glass on the table as Pepper and Harlow fell into peals of laughter. I didn’t hesitate in waving over a waitress for a refill.

“Why’s he have to be so friggin’ pretty?” I pouted, my southern accent becoming stronger the drunker I got. “Stupid Rowan with his stupid pretty hair and his stupid abs and his stupid perfect penis and delicious man buns.” I was so into my drunken rant that I hadn’t even realized what I let slip until my friends suddenly went silent.

After several seconds of silence, Harlow asked, “Uh, babe? How did you see his penis?”

Fuck my life.

Pepper giggled into her drink. “Man buns?”

“Oh, God,” I grumbled, dropping my forehead to the table and banging it against the wood a few times before Harlow slid a stack of napkins underneath to cushion the blows. “I walked in on him naked in the kitchen one morning,” I answered, still in my slumped position. “The image is burned into my brain.”

“And you got a good shot of his penis and… man buns?” Harlow asked, trying—and failing—to choke back a laugh.

“Yes,” I answered as I sat up straight, pulling off one of the napkins that had stuck to my forehead. “And it’s so hard to hate him when I know what he’s rockin’ in his jeans. And I really, really wanna hate him.”

“Men suck,” Harlow voiced, holding her drink up in solidarity. It was at that moment I realized I hadn’t gotten that refill I desperately needed.

“Yes, they do,” Pepper added, clinking her glass against Harlow’s hard enough to spill most of its contents onto the table. “Locklaine men, in particular,” she continued, unfazed by her party foul.

Had I been in my right mind, I would have jumped on that breadcrumb, demanding she give us all the dirty details of what was going on between her and Griffin. At that moment, though, I was too focused on getting as liquored up as possible.

“Where the hell’s our waitress?” I asked no one in particular before finally spotting her across the crowded room. Waving—quite possibly flailing—my arms excitedly to get her attention, I yelled, “Hey! Can I get another drink?”

I could have been seeing things, especially considering everyone in the bar seemed to have a twin as the night progressed, but I could have sworn the waitress rolled her eyes before making her way over to us. Well, there goes her tip.

“Sorry, sweetheart. You’ve been cut off.”

“What? By who?” I demanded indignantly to the triplet waitresses standing in front of me—or were there four of them? It was so hard to tell with my chair being as wobbly as it was.

“Bartender’s orders. You three have had enough. You’re starting to make a scene.”