Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92972 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92972 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
My city is proud that I waited for the real thing.
That I didn’t settle or compromise.
That I trusted that the kind of love I longed for was out there waiting for the time to be right.
The time is indeed right, a fact Nix and I prove with another scandalous act in our garden later that night, when we’re tipsy on food and champagne and each other.
Always each other.
Always.
Epilogue
Jai Archer Blue
A man firmly on the path.
The right path.
Right?
The mechanical bull is wearing a diaper.
A massive, white cloth diaper, pinned with safety pins the size of trumpets.
I stare at it, swirling my melting smoothie, trying to recover my center.
It isn’t easy.
The Brass Monkey is trippy at the best of times, under a cover of darkness, with a shot or two of hard alcohol to soften the rough edges. On a stone-cold sober Saturday afternoon, with the bizarre, animal-themed décor modified for a baby shower, it feels like I’ve wandered into a surreal theater production.
Or one of Dante’s levels of hell.
Probably the “gluttony” level.
I may be sober, but most of the people here aren’t.
The rest of the Voodoo is making the most of the fact that we don’t have practice again until Tuesday morning by getting utterly blasted. Torrance has told everyone he loves them—twice—Jean-Louis did a strip routine to Elly’s karaoke song that made the very pregnant Elly “nearly pee her pants,” and Makena and Parker are giggling maniacally at the bar as they spoon lumpy food into diapers for a baby shower game, like a pair of unhinged elves.
But they’re happy.
Very happy.
I’m happy for them. I don’t judge them for being unhinged. I simply can’t afford to live my life that way.
I really can’t.
I make accidental eye contact with the taxidermied raccoon above the bar. “Is that so?” it seems to query. “If you ask me, you doth protest too much.”
I doth.
It’s right.
I sigh as I force down another sip of my Virgin Diaper Genie, the shower’s signature drink. The mixture of chocolate liqueur and banana puree isn’t bad, but it leaves an odd aftertaste lingering on my tongue that reminds me a lot of regret.
I haven’t tasted regret in years, but I remember it all too well…
“You okay, man?” Nix slides onto the stool next to me.
He looks happy. Relaxed. A man in love who has no idea his best friend did things a best friend should never do.
If he knew, would he punch me? Lash out with his fists the way he used to before Charlotte? I don’t know, but if he did, I wouldn’t fight back.
I deserve whatever he might decide to dish out.
“Fine,” I say, nodding.
He arches a brow. “You sure?”
I nod. Once.
Nix laughs, clapping me on the shoulder. “Got it. Not in the talking mood today. No worries, just wanted to check on you. And to thank you for introducing Bea to Clover. They’re having such a great time since she moved in. I think it’s been really good for her to live with a friend instead of going straight to solo life after the breakup. Catch you later, okay?”
I nod, lifting a hand in farewell as he moves to rejoin Charlotte.
They are also deeply in love, but not in an unhinged way. In a profound way. Theirs is the kind of love that spans lifetimes, eternities. It’s the kind of love that strips you naked in the dark and makes you realize nothing else really matters.
It’s even more dangerous than the unhinged kind.
I knew the second I laid eyes on Beatrice that she was dangerous, the kind of woman who…
I nip the thought in the bud.
I refuse to allow that thought pattern to dig a pathway in my brain.
Mistakes were made, but they won’t be made again. That’s the end of it. No more storytelling about the situation required.
Unfortunately, my resolve has zero time to harden before a peal of feminine laughter jerks my gaze toward the row of video games by the bathrooms.
And there she is.
Beatrice.
Beautiful, forbidden Beatrice in a loose, brown and yellow floral sundress and combat boots…
She sips what looks like a club soda as she watches Clover, the bass player I introduced her to, laugh over an old video game. Torrance looks on from Clover’s other side, clearly trying to flirt. Sierra broke up with him a few months ago, but he doesn’t seem to have done much to process the loss.
He’s too busy running.
Running into too much drink, too much exercise, too much casual sex…
Clover won’t touch him—she has her shit firmly together—but she doesn’t seem to be bothered by him, either. She laughs at something he says and appears unconcerned when Beatrice touches a hand to her shoulder and walks away from the game.
I watch her go, her hips swaying the way they did that night three weeks ago.
But she wasn’t walking away then. She was walking toward me across my small kitchen, climbing into my lap, reaching for my belt, and then…