The bathroom door opened, and a gaggle of women crowded in, talking about a sexy man in a superhero shirt that was sitting close to the door. Meaning I needed to go or I just might get into a fight.

Especially when I knew the sexy man to be Booth.

Fucking Booth and his superhero fetish.

I slammed out of the bathroom, the door colliding with the wall as I went.

All eyes turned to me, even the bitchy little cheerleader.

"What are you looking at?" I snapped at the girl as I walked past her.

She sneered. "A slut who won't stop looking at my married father."

"Bitch, I will fuck your dad and make you my stepdaughter. Back the fuck off!" I hissed at the girl.

The girl's eyes widened in shock that I would use such crass language in front of her and her parents.

Her mom didn't look too happy, either. Her dad, on the other hand, looked calculating as he thought about the possibilities.

I wasn't saying that I wouldn't do him, because holy shit the man was hot for an old man. However, I didn't do married men. Ever. Period. End of fucking sentence.

Which was why knowing Booth was married really gutted me.

I'd always harbored a secret hope that one day he would come back and let me explain. Let me try to grovel my way back into his life.

But now, with him married, that was never going to happen.

Never.

Ever.

The alcohol wasn't cutting it.

Neither was the ignoring him.

I had to get out of here.

I looked at my watch.

It was thirty minutes past eight, and our dinner hadn't come yet.

I'd promised Mia a girl's day out, but there was no way I could make it through the rest of dinner with that man in the same room.

What were the chances that he'd pick the same exact restaurant that we were in?

My stomach felt queasy as I made a decision.

Stopping behind the bar next to the jukebox, I stood on tiptoes and surveyed the room.

I could just barely make out the top of Booth's red hat he'd been wearing declaring him the newest member of KFD.

Mia sat at the bar with a plate of food in front of her, and I started to feel a wave of guilt.

I roughly pushed it back, though, instead pulling out my phone and texting Mia.

She'd understand.

If there was anyone in this world that would, it was her.

Then, without another word, I slipped out the delivery door and hurried across the parking lot to my Jeep.

It wasn't much to look at.

In fact, it was pretty boring.

I'd gotten her when I turned sixteen and hadn't looked back since.

I didn't spend much time in my car, and, when I did, all I needed it for was to drive me less than two miles to work and or the grocery store.

I was a homebody.

I read.

I wrote the occasional review for a blog, and I worked.

That was the extent of my life.

I was as boring as boring could be.

And my Jeep proved it.

Opening the Jeep door without bothering to unlock it since it didn't lock anyway, I started it up and backed out of the parking spot, unaware of the eyes that watched me the entire way.

My eyes stayed looking ahead as I ignored the motorcycle that I knew was his.

He'd had it for a long time, now.

It'd been in my parent's drive enough, and I'd been on the back of it so many times, I'd know that bike anywhere.

I'd done things on that bike that were inappropriate, and there would never come a time that I didn't look at that bike without remembering the infinite possibilities that Booth had shown me were possible on it.

My drive home was short, thankfully, because by the time I arrived in my driveway I was crying so hard that I couldn't see.

Sobs wracked my frame as I opened the door of my Jeep, then promptly busted my ass on the concrete due to the slickness of it.

And so I sat there, in my driveway, with rain pouring down on me, and cried.

Chapter 3.

Real men don't have beards. Beards stop their masks from sealing properly.

-Firefighter's do it better Booth "She's the one, isn't she?" Emily asked softly.

I looked up from the bottle I was peeling the label off of.

We were sitting at a booth in the Applebee's on the main drag in my hometown of Kilgore, Texas.

It was exactly like it used to be eight years ago.

Fuck, but even the booth we were sitting in still had the same shit up on the walls as it did the last time I'd been there.

I looked down at the table and saw the scarred wood where I'd carved mine and Masen's initials into it on our first anniversary.

We hadn't been the first, and we hadn't been the last.

But I knew the instant that the hostess sat us in the booth that it wasn't a good idea.

Too many memories had been made in this booth.

"You should go talk to her," Emily said.

I looked up at her and grimaced.

"I don't want to," I lied.

I did.

Very much so.

We'd both been young and stupid when that thing with her sister had taken place.

Emily laughed, catching the attention of a very pissed off woman that was sitting at the bar next to Masen.

Mia. Her best friend.

I was only married because Emily was pregnant with my best friend's baby and was losing her insurance coverage. To help her out, I offered my name and my benefits. Both of which she took me up on while she had her baby and then got back on her feet after losing her boyfriend to an IED.

One of my very good friends that I missed with all my heart; a day didn't go by that I didn't think about him.

And, had I been in his shoes with a baby on the way and leaving behind a woman that struggled to pay for my funeral costs, I would've hoped he'd do the same for me.

There was no love between Emily and I.

In fact, she'd divorced me the moment that she didn't need me anymore. Which was fine with me.

The whole 'hubby' thing she did was a joke, and she'd been doing it for a very long time now because she thought it was funny.

She only did it sparingly now, though.

Ever since she met her new man.

A man that treated her like she was a piece of spun glass, and loved her daughter like she deserved to be loved.

And I was so happy for her.

I watched as Masen got up from the table, giving me a full unencumbered view of her attire.

She'd changed since we were together.

Before I'd gone on my deployment that led to the worst time of my life, she'd dressed as girly girl as one could get.

Dresses. Skirts. Heels.

She wore it all, then piled jewelry on top of that.

Now, I didn't see a single piece of jewelry on her.

And she was in sweats.

At a restaurant.

I'd never once seen her go out of the house in that.

Not that she didn't look good in the sweats.

They were tight and cupped her ass nicely, which had rounded out beautifully since the last time I'd seen her, but she still never would've been caught dead in that when she was seventeen.

What hadn't changed, though, was her temper.

A temper that was clearly on display as she slammed out of the bathroom moments later, anger tight on her face.

Masen had always had a temper.

And I'd missed seeing it, even though she'd used it on me, which had backfired on me in more ways than one.

Emily laughed.

"What?" I asked, turning my attention back to her.

"Oh, you have it bad," she giggled.