“I’m not asking you to be me,” she said.
“But you are, Eris. This is how you process things. You go out, fuck a bunch of dudes, and get over it. And I tried that, Eris. I went to the island. I snagged me a man. I had my one-night stand. And then I fell in love with him, Eris. Because it’s perfect. He’s kind, and gentle, and passionate. He’s patient, and caring, and so unlike the people he surrounds himself with. I tried it your way, and I got screwed over by the man who screwed me over on my fucking wedding day!”
Kallie trembled in the bed as she pulled the comforter up to her chin.
“Stop making me do shit I don’t want to do,” Kallie said.
“Then stop giving in to shit you don’t want to do,” Eris said.
“What?”
“Get real, Kallie. No one makes you do anything. You wanted to go on that honeymoon to get away, but you didn’t feel you deserved it. You wanted to give into Ash, but you didn’t feel it was right. I’m not someone pushing you to do things you don’t want to do. I’m someone who’s encouraging what you already want to do because you’re so stuck fighting yourself all the damn time.”
“Get out,” Kallie said.
“Come to the party.”
“Get the fuck out, Eris, or I’m catching a cab home.”
“Jeremy and I will be ready at eight to leave.”
“Get out!”
Eris got off the bed as Kallie sank herself back down beneath the covers. She felt her entire world careening out of control. She felt her emotions getting the best of her. She felt trapped and loose and unbalanced and hinged shut all at the same time. And she needed her best friend’s voice out of the equation.
“I know you’ll show up,” Eris said, “so know this. I’ll protect you at that party. From whatever comes. But I know you don’t want to coop yourself up. You know how I know this?”
Kallie buried her face into the pillow and unleashed her tears of loneliness.
“Because deep down, you don’t want to be alone right now. You don’t want to be around Ash, but you don’t want to be alone.”
Kallie groaned into her pillow and she listened as Eris shut the door. Closed her off from the world and blanketed her body in darkness. She lay there, partially clothed in the king-size bed as she turned Eris’s words around in her head. She didn’t want to go to this party. She didn’t want to be around people. She didn’t want to throw herself to the fucking sharks and she sure as well didn’t want to get dressed up to do it.
But Eris was right about one thing.
One painful truth that made Kallie feel weaker than she’d ever felt.
She really didn’t want to be alone.
Chapter 4
Ash
Ash’s pounding head pulled him from his deep slumber. His eyes were swollen and his mouth was dry. His throat hurt and his body felt useless. His hangover was rough. Worse than he’d ever experienced. He slid from bed and stumbled into his bathroom, then thrust his face underneath the faucet. He drank and he drank. He swallowed the tap water down until his tongue unstuck from the roof of his mouth. He felt pathetic. Idiotic. Useless. But he wasn’t going to spend the day moping around.
He’d done enough of that.
Ash resolved himself to the party. It was the entire fucking reason he’d left the city in the first place. And seeing Kallie once for a couple of minutes wasn’t going to take that from him. Sasha had a bottle of wonderful booze with his name on it, so he was going to make the best of the situation. Even though he felt as if there was no point to it.
Kallie was lurking around, and he felt like she would jump out at any moment. Corner him and start talking to him with her soft lips and her lilting voice. Those innocent eyes and that beautiful hair he missed fisting in the palm of his hand. The mere idea of her being in the Hamptons burned him to his core. Did she really have no regrets? Did she really not give a shit as to what she’d done to him? It was as if the consequences of her actions had no bearing on how she lived her life. She didn’t give a shit that she hurt him. Broken his heart. Broken the heart of her ex.
He sat back on the corner of the tub and closed his eyes.
He couldn’t let Kallie take this party from him. He expected her to be wilting away in her apartment, but apparently, she wasn’t going to be doing that. She wouldn't be crying herself to sleep every night over what she’d done. Over the havoc she had wreaked on him. But that didn’t mean she had to have a hold on him any longer. He would go to that party and he would have the time of his life and he’d find himself a nice piece of pussy to lie with so he could forever wipe her scent from his skin.
His eyes whipped open before he drew in a deep breath of air.
That was it.