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person I wanted to talk to about this. Hell, everyone was the last person I wanted to talk to about this.  
    “Shut up,” I muttered, looking around the rapidly filling room. I spotted Cari from the coffee shop. She had some nice cupcakes. And by cupcakes I mean t tits .
    “Liam!” she said, waving wildly. I shot Sam a too bad, so sad look and sauntered off, my eye on my bedmate for the night.
    “You have to pay for her!” Darla shouted suddenly, making me turn away from Cari and toward a growing commotion at the door.  
    “ If I pay for her, does she need to meet the two-drink minimum?” said a very familiar voice. A voice that made my gut clench and my neck go tight, among other body parts.  
    G od damn Charlotte.
    The bar was dark, the lights dimmed in preparation for the stage lights to take precedence when it came to commanding attention. My contacts had started to dry out and my vision was already blurred a little. Bad genetics from my dad. Myopia was handed down like a curse between men in the generations of my Irish ancestors, and right now I couldn’t squint enough to make her out.
    It didn’t help that I was on month three of cheap monthly contact lenses, but when you’re broke, you do what you have to do. Can’t exactly get on stage wearing geeky glasses.
    “She looks like she can hold her liquor,” Darla said in a high, giggly voice. Who the hell were they talking about? I took a few steps forward and raucous laughter filled the room.
    A s if on cue, Darla and a group of women around her parted to reveal Charlotte, some chick with bright green hair, and another woman who seemed pretty stiff and formal. Dark brown hair. Bright red, painted lips and a nice flush to her cheeks. Man, she was short, and wearing some kind of bright pants.
    Charlotte stood on one side of her, hugging the woman to her like she was a life raft.
    “Hey, Mac!” Darla shouted toward the bar where the manager was setting up a line of shots. “Add a te q uila for our friend here. What’ser name?” she asked Charlotte, who was smirking with her lip turned into a twitching smile.
    “Esmerelda.” The green-haired chick caught my eye and went still. Who in the hell…?
    “Esmer e lda, it’s so nice to meet you,” Darla said with a fake kind of formality. She shook her hand and the woman’s hand was stiff and limp at the same time. Weird. Already shitfaced before 9 p.m.
    Hmmm. My kind of girl.
    “Esme is here to see her new boyfriend,” Charlotte said in a voice made of chocolate and velvet. I tensed. Who was Charlotte’s boyfriend? I’d expected a call from her after I made that order at her party. Not that I could normally afford to blow that kind of cash on stupid sex toys, but it seemed like a great way to see if she’d see me.
    Okay, frankly, it was a wuss move. If I wanted to see her I should have just said so. Called. Emailed. Sent a message by owl. Whatthefuckever. Instead I played a little game and—
    And now here she was.
    “New boyfriend? Lucky man,” Darla said. She threw an arm around the little woman and whispered something in her ear. It made Charlotte and Green Hair howl.
    I hadn’t heard that laugh in five years. I missed it. A slow burn c rept up from my solar plexus through my scalp. Five years of being fucked over by the only woman I’d ever loved was long enough to go w i thout some answers.
    Two more steps closer and I blinked furiously, the dry air and smoke machine tests really making it impossible to see.
    “Liam!” Darla exclaimed, leaving her post to come over and give me a side hug. “Have you met Esmerelda?” She giggled.
    “Actually,” Charlotte said slowly, leaning on the little woman and taking slow steps toward me, “this is Liam’s e mail-order bride.”
    All it took was two steps for me to realize that my myopia was the biggest fucking cosmic joke on the planet.
    Darla screamed with uncontrolled, raucous sounds that brought Trevor bounding from backstage. “What the