Great. I got my chance, and she still bailed. My heart literally fucking hurts at not having her around.

“Where’s the waitress with my drink?” I mutter, glaring at Archer and Gage. They both visibly recoil, not that I give a damn. I’m always the nice one. The easygoing guy who doesn’t give anyone much shit.

Lately, I am the furthest thing from nice and easygoing. They’re all lucky I’m holding it together because I feel like at any moment I could totally lose it.

“Hey.” Gage’s firm voice makes me meet his gaze. “What happened with you and your dad?”

I shrug. They knew Vinnie was behind this; I told them when I came home. I just haven’t talked about it since. I’ve been too busy wallowing in my misery. “I called and confronted him right after we got back.”

“And?”

“And he denied he did it at first. Kept asking why he would do something like that to his own son, but I kept throwing it back in his face. I never once believed him. I finally broke him down.”

I shook my head, offering a whisper of thanks when the waitress returned with a fresh drink. Archer waved her off when she lingered, and I held the glass up to them as if in salute. “He admitted he tipped off the reporter. They spotted Bryn and me at a restaurant in the hotel and took some pictures there. But then they somehow caught sight of us in the hotel room window and decided those were the better photos to put on the site.” I drained my glass and set it on the table.

“So your dad is responsible,” Gage says, shock in his voice. The look of disgust on my friend’s face says it all.

“Yeah. The asshole,” I mutter, sadness filling me despite my anger. That my dad could be so heartless and do something like this to me.

It sucks. Our relationship is beyond repair. At least for now. I can’t even fathom talking to him again, sharing anything personal with him, even speaking to him casually. Hell, I wouldn’t send the man a fucking Christmas card. He’s ruined everything.

He’ll have to grovel on his hands and knees before I’d consider talking to him again.

“And Bryn left,” Gage says.

“She did.” I nod, my head a little dizzy. I can feel the alcohol coursing through my blood and I wait for the numbness. I welcome the fucking numbness. “We can call off the bet you know.”

“Wait . . . what?” The confused expression on Archer’s face could almost be laughable if I wasn’t drowning in my misery.

“Call it off. I won’t collect. I can’t.” I pick up my glass, remember it’s empty and set it down again with an irritated growl. “Bryn and I had sex. Amazing, fantastic, never-to-be-had-again sex.”

“You sly, lying dog,” Gage starts, but Archer shoots him a look. Gage shuts up.

“And she left you anyway. That’s tough bro. I’m sorry,” Archer says cautiously. Funny how knowing he’s about to be a father makes a man suddenly turn compassionate. The Archer of old would’ve given me endless crap about this.

The new Archer who’s madly in love with Ivy and excited about becoming a dad has become . . . considerate of my feelings.

Yes. I’m having a total Oprah moment. I blame the vodka.

“Tough doesn’t come close to what it is.” I smile, but it feels like my face is cracking in two. “Do you know that stupid site ran the article and then they said nothing else? Some other sites picked it up, but then another scandal broke out, I can’t even remember what. Rendering me and Bryn long forgotten. That’s how much of a nonentity I’ve become. And you know what? I love that. I don’t miss the fans and the photographers and the crap. I miss playing ball. I’ll always miss that but otherwise, yeah. I’m over it. I have a new life. A new career that I love and I found a woman I could love too. Instead she leaves me.”

Damn, I sound pitiful and morose even to my own ears.

“All right. We’re calling off the bet,” Archer says, his expression full of worry. “But—”

“You’re going to let her go, huh?” Gage asks, interrupting Archer. “Just let her walk away and forget all about her?”

I glare at them both. “What do you mean?” The waitress delivers another shot glass in front of me, much to the disgust of my friends, and I smile gratefully up at her, actually looking in her eyes versus her tits. I wonder if she appreciates that.

Probably not.

“Go after her,” Gage urges. “Go to her hometown and tell her you want her back.”

I grimace, finish off the contents in my shot glass and then grimace again as the vodka slides down my throat. “You make it sound so easy.”

“That’s because it is,” Gage says with a slight smirk. I’d like to wipe it off his face with my fist. Must be the vodka still talking. “Just hop on a plane and go to that little Podunk town of hers and find her. Can’t be that hard to figure out where she lives, her address. When you see her, tell her how you feel.”

I let his words sink in and swirl around in my brain along with a heavy dose of vodka. I could do that. Maybe. “What if she rejects me?”

“Then at least you tried,” Archer adds. “Then you won’t have any regrets or what-ifs. Those what-ifs will kill you, man. Trust me.”

Huh. He’s right. I wonder how I would even get to Cactus, Texas. Fly into somewhere and rent a car, I assume. I don’t know her grandma’s name. But I bet everyone would know who Bryn James is. The most beautiful, sweetest, kindest, sexiest woman ever.

“I’ll do it.” I curl my hand into a fist and pound it on the table, making my shot glasses and the now-empty beer bottles on top of it rattle. “I’ll go make flight arrangements right now.” I start to stand, but both Archer and Gage wave their arms at me like they’re trying to flag my ass down or something.

“Slow your roll, my friend,” Gage says, shaking his head with a chuckle as I fall back into my chair, my head spinning. “You need to sober up first. Look at you, three shots of double vodka and you’re done for.”

“Whatever,” I mutter, my mind filled with images of Bryn. Smiling Bryn. Beige Bryn. Naked Bryn. Sad Bryn.

I frown. I never want to see sad Bryn again. I need to find her.

I need to go make that woman mine once and for all.

Bryn

“GIRL, YOU BETTER clean out that chicken coop and something quick! That rooster looks ready to tear into his girlfriends. He sure don’t like walking in shit!”

Sighing, I toss my phone—the very iPhone Matt let me keep despite having purchased it for work purposes—onto my mattress and exit my bedroom to see what my grandma is hollering about now.

She’s standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes. I wish we could afford a dishwasher but that’s so not happening. Staring out the window, she’s watching the chicken coop in the backyard, a fragile-looking structure one of the neighbor boys built for her a few years ago.

“What did you ask me to do?” I sound resigned. Of course, I am, when the only job I can seem to find in this godforsaken town is doing odds and ends for my grandma around the house. I didn’t get that job at the Soap-n-Snip, answering the phone and sweeping up hair. Stacy Jo Nesbitt got that job. She graduated two years after I did, and she already has two babies to take care of.

She deserves the job far more than I do.

“The chicken coop, baby doll. It’s a shit storm of epic proportions and that snotty, mean-as-hell rooster hates it when the crap piles up.” Grandma cackles again. She loves saying crazy things, shocking people. As she gets older, it gets worse and usually I ignore it or laugh with her.

But today, the very last thing I want to do is laugh. It’s hot outside, and I don’t want to be out there scooping up chicken crap.

“You want me to clean it out now?” I ask, my shoulders slumping.

“I sure do. Look at that cock.” Another cackle. “He’s gonna peck the head of every chicken out there if you don’t take care of it and quick.”