I hardly cared.

“Um.” Noah crinkled his eyes in confusion at me. “I thought the blonde was one of your bar bunnies.”

“My what?”

Lowering his voice, I guess so Luce wouldn’t overhear, he explained, “It’s what Ellie calls the girls you screw around with regularly. You know, like Luce and Chelsea…and maybe that brunette named Allie, too. I don’t know how many of them you fuck.”

Bar bunnies. Groupies. Whatever you wanted to call them. Noah was kind of right. Luce and I weren’t regular anymore, but he was right about Chelsea and Allie. Although, after Green Eyes, I never wanted to see another woman again. I was done for a while.

“No.” I took a sip at the bottle of Bud I’d been palming since Noah walked into Chancy’s. “This girl was different. She was more than just sex. I spent the entire day yesterday going to every business from Nags Head all the way up to Duck searching for her. Nothing. I met her here first. So after yesterday’s mad search, I decided that I’d probably have better luck staying in one place. I’m not moving from this seat until they kick me out.”

“And what advice did you need from me?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. You’ve always got your shit in control. I need some of that to rub off on me right now because I feel like I’m spiraling out of control. I’m trying to ignore the possibility that I might never see this girl again.” I tipped my beer back and guzzled the remainder of my drink. Noah finished his drink with me.

“Let’s play a game,” Noah suggested, nodding at Luce for another beer. “Every time a girl walks in the front door and she isn’t your girl then we take a drink. Sound fun? We’ll see how drunk we can get before she shows.”

For the first time in several days, I laughed. “Game on, Noah.”

* * *

Noah was hammered. We’d been drinking since lunch, but somehow I’d managed to stay semi-sober. Exhausted, maybe, but my thoughts were coherent and my emotions rather level considering everything. Still, it was nearly closing time at Chancy’s and we needed a ride. I called Ellie. She was going to bitch and whine, likely hold this against me until the end of time, because everything was always my fault with her. But when it came down to it, I could always count on her to come pick me up if need be. And vice versa. She knew I was there for her, too.

A quick half hour after calling, there Ellie was in all her lesbian, short-haired, tattooed glory. Like a little pissed off poodle, ready to bite at my ankles, she stalked into the restaurant in her pajamas and sunglasses. A blinding flash hit my eyes as she approached. What the hell? I think she’d just taken a picture of Noah and myself. And as fast as that device she’d used to take that surely incriminating photo had come out of her bag, she was already putting it away.

Ellie was so random sometimes.

“What’s up with the camera?” I asked.

“Yeah, what’s up with the camera?” Noah slurred like a drunk parakeet beside me.

“Nothing,” she grunted. “You two fools ready to go. I was in bed. Asleep. You all owe me for this.”

“We’re ready. No need to get your boy-shorts all twisted,” I said, shooting her a wink.

“Ew,” she groaned. “I wear boxer briefs.”

“Oh, really? Me too.”

“Can you just shut up and help Noah?”

Noah—and his dead weight—fell into me. I helped him walk toward the door. He kept muttering the name Georgie, which I assumed was short of Georgina, in my ear. Yep. I’d been totally and completely right. He was all about Ellie’s younger sister. Ellie heard him say it a few times, but she ignored it. Which, if I had a younger sister, I wouldn’t ignore that sort of thing. But whatever. Not my business.

Ellie and I helped Noah into the car, where he instantly passed out in the back seat, and then she drove the three of us back to the house. The streets were dark, the car awkwardly quiet, and the mood suddenly too depressing on this sticky, hot night. What little buzz I had going died as I realized tonight made two nights since the night I’d taken my green-eyed girl home. Every day that slipped away felt like more and more distance between us. I hated it.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Ellie observed. She drove slower than a grandma. “And where’s your normal bimbo ride-along? Usually there’s always a stray following you home.”

“I’m done with girls for a while.”

She clicked her tongue, probably not believing me.

“It’s true,” I argued. “That blonde I had over the other night, I might be in love with her. Or I was until she ditched me the next morning. I’m done until I figure out whatever that means. Hey—” It occurred to me now that I had a lead that I had yet to follow. “She knew your brother. Did you recognize her?”

“No. I’d never seen her before in my life. What was her name?”

I thumped my head on the back on my seat a couple times. Why couldn’t I have gotten her name? My life would be so much easier if only I had. “I don’t know.”

Ellie chuckled. “Oh my God. Of course you don’t know her name.”

This conversation wasn’t helping my wounded heart. But I wasn’t giving up, so I tried another angle. “The other night wasn’t the first time I met her actually. The first time was a couple years ago and she was with this older guy. Like late twenties or maybe early thirties.” Surely not her boyfriend if she’d never kissed a guy before me. But I still had no explanation for who he might have been. “Anyway, he was covered in tattoos. I mean covered. And he knew my name for some reason. Any idea who he might have been?”

Ellie turned down our street and into our driveway. She opened her door, but before getting out and ignoring my question, she laid into me. “Because everyone with fucking tattoos knows everyone else,” she snapped.

I shot her a nasty look. Why did she always have to be so damn difficult? We were constantly bickering, while she and Noah were chummy as hell. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Whatever. Was this guy skinny?” she questioned. “Dark hair? Piercings?”

“Yes! You know him?” Finally, something!

“Maybe. He might this guy, John Michaels. He owns Inked in Kill Devil Hills. It’s the only place I go. He’s done like ninety percent of my work. He did the octopus.” She lifted the edge of her shirt to show off the giant octopus tattoo that covered her stomach, the one with the legs disappearing into places I didn’t want to think about. I’d seen it a million times. She was constantly showing that thing off to whoever would look. I didn’t need to see it again. “He has a younger sister,” Ellie continued on, pulling her shirt back down. “He’s her guardian or something. She lives with him. I’ve never met her, but he talks about her a lot. She’s Georgie’s age. So…bingo. There you go.” She gave me a high five, all proud of herself. “Did I just solve your little mystery?”

The relief that hit me was something amazing. “I think you did,” I whispered.

“I got one better then.” She smiled. “I know her name. Her name is Sydney.”

CHAPTER 9:

SYDNEY

Apparently, I’d broken Rhett’s heart. I’d heard this from a few different people now. Rhett had a lot of friends around this town and people were quick to tell me how miserable he was. Some were more politely than others. I had to harden my skin, put up a mask of indifference, and pretend like I felt nothing for him. But I did feel something and that made the last week torture. The worst moments had been my conversations with his roommate, Noah.

Our first run-in happened a couple days after my night with Rhett. John had taken me to play miniature golf, claiming that I needed to get out of the house and stop hiding, that I’d done this to myself and couldn’t avoid the consequences. And to say John hated Rhett now more than ever…well, that was the understatement of the century.