“My girl’s getting married next month,” Callie yells as she drags me into the bar.

  Dozens of people look in our direction, and my cheeks flame from all of the unwanted attention. A few men glance over at us, one of which looks a lot like Stefan. Because it is Stefan.

  What the hell?

  My heart sinks into my stomach when I see Nate, Reid, and Parker lined up at the bar, pounding shots next to Stefan. Ollie, the owner, is behind the bar, filling five shot glasses as the guys slam the ones in their hands down on the counter. Stefan and Dylan have girls hanging on their arms. Nate is ignoring the blonde who’s trying to talk to him. He pretends not to hear her and drinks another shot, his body turned away from her. At least he’s keeping up his end of the deal.

  Why are they here?

  I doubt the girls knew they would be here. Jules sounded pretty annoyed with Reid. There’s no way she would willingly hang out with her new boss outside of work. Callie’s mouth turns up into a wicked smile when she spots Reid. She nudges Jules in the side with her elbow.

  Jules frowns when she locks onto Reid. “What is he doing here? Let’s go somewhere else.”

  “Jules,” Ollie says with his hand in the air. “Where you been hiding, girl?”

  Reid glances over his shoulder at Jules and scowls. Her expression mirrors his tenfold. I can feel the sexual tension dripping from them, even from a distance. A good hate fuck might do both of them some good.

  “I’ve been around,” Jules tells Ollie. “Working more than usual,” she says with disdain as she locks eyes with Reid.

  He glares at her and then turns his back to her to chug another shot. From the looks of it, the guys have been here for a while. A collection of glasses and beer bottles are scattered across the bar in front of their group.

  “I see what you mean,” I say to Callie. “Jules and Reid are like oil and water. I can feel the tension from here.”

  “You have no idea.” Callie hooks her arm around my back, leading me toward the bar. “They go at it for hours. I’m like just fuck already and get it over with already, but they won’t admit they have feelings for each other.”

  We stop in front of Nate’s stool. He’s all smiles when our eyes meet.

  “Hey, wifey.” Nate almost falls off the bar stool when he leans forward to kiss my cheek.

  I cup his shoulder to stabilize him. “Someone’s trashed. And that’s future ex-wifey,” I whisper so only he can hear.

  “Not if I can help it,” he mutters under his breath. Nate slings his arm over my shoulder and pulls me closer. “What are you drinking, my beautiful bride?”

  “A margarita.”

  He raises his hand to flag down Ollie. “Margarita for my wifey,” he slurs.

  “And for the lovely ladies?” Ollie asks, looking at the girls.

  “The usual,” Jules says. “But make mine a double.”

  “Is that wise?” Reid challenges.

  “Don’t you dare start with me, Mr. Grayson,” Jules shoots back. “I’m off the clock.”

  “Mr. Grayson,” Stefan howls.

  Reid punches Stefan in the arm. “Stay out of this.”

  Jules and Reid get into a heated discussion, most of which is spoken in angry, low voices that are too hard for me to make out. They are definitely lusting after each other. Their bodies are angled toward each other, clearly interested in the other, making eye contact the entire time. The palpable chemistry between them is so electric it sizzles the air.

  “I have to use the ladies’ room,” I tell Callie. “Save me a seat.”

  I set off toward the bathrooms in the back of the bar, dodging drunken idiots on my way. For a Wednesday night, the place is surprisingly filled to capacity. A group of guys wearing Flyers jerseys are crowded around three high-top tables in the middle of the room. The flat-screen televisions mounted throughout the bar all have the hockey game playing on them.

  After I wait in line for five minutes, I do my business and get the hell out. I chuck the paper towel in the trashcan and step into the hallway, slamming right into a hard body. Someone grips my shoulder, and when I look up, I gasp.

  “Nate. What are you doing? Did you follow me?”

  Nate inches me toward the wall, out of the way of oncoming traffic into an empty hallway, he pushes my back against the cinderblock covered with rock-and-roll posters.

  “You walked away before I could talk to you,” he says against my lips.

  “So, you thought hanging outside the bathroom would be less creepy?”

  He laughs. “You’re going to be my wife, Harley. Get used to me following you around.” Nate threads his fingers between mine. “Because I’m never letting you go.”

  His confession drains the air from my lungs. Never. What game is he playing at? If he’s only being sweet to win the bet, he can kiss my ass. I have no intention of falling in love with him by our wedding or having sex with him that night. But what if there wasn’t a bet? I wonder how I would feel about Nate if he had nothing to gain. Could I see myself falling for him? Yes, most definitely. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  I raise a curious eyebrow. “What are you doing, Nate?”

  “Spending some time alone with my favorite girl.”

  “Stop sucking up.”

  He gives me the cutest smile. “Is it working?”

  A commotion breaks out at the end of the hall. Nate holds my hand while we people watch, and I can barely hear myself think over all of the noise in this place. In some ways, this is nice. I lean into Nate’s warm body, and he hooks his arm around me, pulling me against his chest. This feels more like old times. It’s so easy for us to fall back into old habits, but I’m afraid of getting hurt again. I won’t survive the heartbreak a second time. California won’t be far enough if this doesn’t work out.

  The rush of traffic dies down after a few minutes. When we’re completely alone, Nate moves our joined hands over the front of his pants. He’s hard as a rock.

  “Are you kidding me?” I pull my hand away from his. “Just because I let you kiss me doesn’t mean it will happen again.”

  “It will,” he growls. “And you know it.”

  “Because you’re drunk, I’ll pretend this didn’t happen.”

  “C’mon, baby,” he whines with one eye open. “Don’t be so mean.”

  “Sober up,” I say as I take one last look at him. “I’ll see you at home.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Nate

  I find Harley in the living room, curled up in the corner of the sectional couch with her sketchpad resting on her thighs. She doesn’t look up at me, too busy blending charcoal into the paper with her finger. I love watching her when she’s in her creative zone. For as long as I have known Harley, I could expect to find charcoal or paint somewhere on her body. Right now, her fingers are black, stained from hours of drawing.

  Harley left The Fox Hole not long after our brief encounter. I stayed behind with my friends, but I took her advice and sobered up. Once she gets inside my head, I can’t get her out. Every time I took a sip of bourbon, I swore I could hear her yelling at me. Telling me I’m an idiot who drinks too much. Reid gave me shit for chasing down all the bourbon with water, and then announced to the entire bar that I’m a “pussy-whipped asshole.” Yeah, maybe I am, so fucking what. Jules already has his balls in her purse. Reid just doesn’t know it yet.

  Harley’s blonde hair looks wild, piled on top of her head into a messy bun. A few loose strands spill down her face, brushing against her rosy cheeks. She looks gorgeous without even trying, and not in a hot girl kind of way. If I didn’t know Harley, I probably would walk past her on the street without noticing her. Which would be a massive injustice. Because once you discover what makes her tick, it’s impossible not to find the beauty in her slight imperfections. She’s like a painting or a sculpture.

  Her jaw is soft, cheeks round and smattered with freckles like the rest of her skin. When we were kids, I would trace the tiny dots up her arms, pretending to connect them with my finger. She hated her freckles, said that pretty girls don’t look like her. I wanted to kiss her that day, and every day after that, because she was so fucking wrong. “Pretty” girls are mean and vain, ugly on the inside. I’d never met a model who didn’t try to suck the soul from my body, while Harley never did anything but breathe her life into me.

  I drop my keys onto the entryway table and move toward Harley. She doesn’t slow her flow, swirling her fingers across the paper. My eyes fall to her booty shorts that ride up her sweet thighs, hugging every inch of her milky skin that’s dusted with freckles… and ink.

  When did she get a tattoo?

  I inch closer, careful not to disturb her while inspecting the unicorn at the top of her thigh. But it’s not some pansy-ass unicorn you’d see on the wall in a little girl’s bedroom. No, this one is dark, at least in its meaning. The lines are carefully etched, sprinkled with splashes of color. From the looks of it, Harley went to someone talented, probably our mutual friend, who owns Inkwell. Alec does the best ink in Philly. Harley would never let someone mark her body who didn’t have her skill. She respects Alec, considers him her equal, if not better.

  I sit on the couch next to her, still quiet, still staring at the artwork on her thigh. Inside an antique mirror, a girl mounts a unicorn. No, a queen. A jeweled crown sits atop the queen’s blonde head, and she raises her arm above her head, a sword pointed at the electric sky. I don’t know what the tattoo means to her, but in my case, Harley is a unicorn, rare and impossible to catch. I’ve chased after her for so many years, patiently waiting to make my move. And now that I have her under my roof, I can’t bear the thought of losing her again.

  I will never let her go. Much like the ink on her skin, Harley is a part of me.

  My first friend.

  My first crush.

  My first love.

  My first heartbreak.

  And soon, my wife.

  No one can make her happy the way I can. No one understands her like I do. They will never appreciate her for all of her quirks, or worship her like a fucking goddess. Because Harley is mine. She has always been mine. My beautiful talented artist, skillfully creating worlds with her delicate hands, envisioning a universe I wouldn’t want to live in without her. Harley is the best of us, the Queen of our company, the ruler of my heart.

  I want to tell her all of this as I watch her draw in silence, wishing I had the courage to open my heart to her. Isn’t that what keeps us from falling in love? The possibility of someone prying open your chest and ripping out your heart. That was how it felt when I lost Harley. Like she had gripped her tiny hands around my heart and squeezed for dear life. Like it would never beat again. And then she came back, years later and under shit circumstances, the same girl I loved as a boy.

  Except she doesn’t love me.

  She doesn’t want to be here.

  I slide my hand to her thigh, and not in a perverted way. My fingers hover over the unicorn.

  “Do you like?” Harley asks, eyes pointed down at the pad, still working feverishly on her drawing. “It was my parting gift from Alec, right before I moved to LA.”

  “It’s brilliant,” I confess. Like you.

  The corner of her mouth turns up into a crooked grin. “Alec has a way of bringing my art to life. I wish I had his skill.”

  “Alec says the same about you.”

  She chuckles, switching from the vine charcoal in her hand to the compressed charcoal in the box beside her. “Alec offered me a job that day, said he didn’t want to see me go. But you know how I feel about putting my work on someone’s body. I want my creations displayed for the world to see, not hidden beneath someone’s shirt.” She smudges the charcoal with her finger, the blacks thicker and darker than before. “Art is too important not to share. And if this works out between us, we can share ours with the world.”

  I don’t want to share her with anyone. If I had it my way, I would keep her all to myself. Because I’m a selfish bastard when it comes to Harley. Even as kids, I made sure everyone knew she was my friend. Mine.

  “I like the sound of that,” I admit. “We could rule the world, Queen.”

  She looks at my hand on her thigh, and then her eyes lift to meet mine. We share an intense moment, one that doesn’t require words.

  “What are you working on?”

  “Something for our game.” With her free hand, she pats the open space behind her on the couch. “I’m almost done. You can help me finish.”

  There’s plenty of room for me to slide across the leather cushion and slip behind Harley, moving her between my legs. She resumes her position, balancing the sketchpad on her thighs with the charcoal pressed between her fingers. When we were in high school, she would crawl between my legs, wrap my arms around her, and draw for hours with her head on my shoulder. It was normal, natural. Neither of us thought much about it. Not until I turned sixteen, and I couldn’t stop all of the feelings coursing through my body. I couldn’t turn off the desire that pricked my skin. My cock responded accordingly every time she was near. So many times, I wanted to pull her on top of me and kiss her until we couldn’t catch our breaths. And on those days, I disappeared for hours, desperate to find ways to hide the truth. Terrified she would never speak to me again if I made a move.

  “Is this a new world, or something you were already working on?”

  Harley leans her head back, resting it on my shoulder as she gets comfortable. “I started it in high school.” She flips over the sketchpad to reveal the back, her initials and the date scrawled onto it.

  “I couldn’t part with it. I had this gut feeling I would need it one day.”

  Maybe I was wrong about her. If Harley saved this sketchpad, then she must have felt something for me back then, hoping we would reunite one day.

  “I’m glad you kept it.”

  Her fantasy landscape is incredible, even without a speck of color. A castle, with high walls and impressive towers, occupies most of the scene. But like Harley, the careful attention to minor details make this piece absolute perfection. Her world is vast, with bridges suspended in the air, connecting one side of the country to the other with a network of clouds. Mermaids and other interesting creatures swim in the river that parts like the Red Sea for the knight who charges forward on his horse. She captured our ideas from high school perfectly, her world much more imaginative than the one inside my head. It’s no wonder I couldn’t code the game without her. I had to see our vision through her eyes.

  We sit in silence for a while, like old times, before I get the courage to ask her more questions about her ink. “What does your tattoo mean?”

  She flicks her wrist, focused on her landscape, adding slight pops of black across the sky. “How do you know it has any meaning?”

  “Because I know you.”

  Harley visibly shudders from my confession.

  “Unicorns symbolize freedom,” she says with a sigh. “When I was leaving for LA, I couldn’t think of anything more perfect. I was getting the freedom I had craved for most of my life. I thought by leaving that I could put everything behind me and start over. But I should have known better. I had a hard time finding a job in LA, and by the time I graduated from UCLA, I was begging my dad for a job.”

  “You could have done anything, Harley. You could have followed your dreams and pursued your art.”

  “That’s the thing,” she coos. “I wanted to be like my dad. Like you. I wanted people to see the worlds I created on their TV screens as if they were watching a movie. And I honestly thought my dad, if given enough time, would allow me to do that. I grew up reading comics and playing video games with you. I knew I could do it. There’s nothing I wanted more. Except… well, you know what happened. My dad blocked me every chance he got.”

  I lean forward, pushing the spaghetti strap off her bare shoulder, so I can dip down to kiss her soft skin. There’s nothing sexual about it. I just want to be with her. Love her. Savor every second with my favorite girl.

  “Nate,” she whispers, tilting her head to the side to give me better access. “What are you doing?”

  My lips roam over her shoulder, neck, and travel up her jaw. “Kissing away your pain.”

  Harley chuckles between moans. “I’m not in pain.”

  “Yes, you are. I could hear it in your voice. You’ll prove him wrong,” I say between kisses. “And we’ll do it together.”

  Harley reaches around to grab the back of my neck, holding my lips against her skin. We sit perfectly still, our chests rising and falling, our heartbeats synced as one. I wrap my left arm around her, my fingers digging into her side. Since the night we kissed in the limo, I haven’t touched her. I haven’t allowed myself to get this close. For as much as my body craves her, my heart stops me every time. Trying to prevent me from future pain. From loss.

  Harley turns her head, and our lips almost touch. She moves her hand beneath my chin, the charcoal from her fingers marking my skin. I want Harley to put her mark on me. Her finger touches my lip, and I don’t care that it has a burnt, inky smell. Because that scent is so familiar, scorched into the very essence of the woman in my arms. When we parted ways, Harley left a few things at my house, refusing to come back for them. I often breathed in the aroma of her charcoal set, even attempted to draw with them. Anything to feel connected to her.

  “I wish we lived outside the city,” Harley says to break the silence.

  I rest my chin on her shoulder, breathing in her mango body wash. “And why is that?”

  “I miss our treehouse,” she says, dreamily. “We had so much fun up there, lost in our own little world. In our kingdom in the sky. I did some of my best work up there. With you.”

  I laugh against her neck. “You want me to build you a treehouse?”

  She shakes her head, a smile tugging at her mouth. “Don’t make fun of me.”

  “I’m not. Some of my best memories were made in that treehouse with you.”

  “Danika wants us to have a wedding shower. I was thinking we could have it at your dad’s house.”