That surprised a laugh out of me, but I came across a message that killed that quickly enough. In fact, I suddenly felt sick to my stomach.

I showed her the screen of her phone.

Daryl: I miss your sweet p.u.s.s.y, baby. Come over here. I need to be inside of you again.

“Does he say s.h.i.t like this to you often?” I bit out.

She cringed, her cheeks flushed. “You tell me. You’re the one reading all of my messages. And don’t get mad at me about what he’s saying. You think I have any control over that? I wish he’d forget I even existed.”

“Well, you’re about to get your wish. This is off Flamingo and Pecos, right?”

She was watching me warily. “Yeah it’s close to there. You aren’t planning to do something crazy, are you?”

I started driving again, the last words I’d read feeling like they were permanently scarred into my brain.

It was the most hypocritical thing in the world, but the thought of Danika having s.e.x with another man, the idea of someone else being inside of her, even in the past, made me crazy.

“Tristan! You aren’t really going there, are you?”

“I am going there. This guy is going to stop hara.s.sing you.”

“Tristan!” She sounded genuinely distressed. “You’re going to get yourself arrested!”

“Relax. I won’t. I’m just going to talk to him.”

“You promise? He’s not worth getting arrested over.”

“I promise,” I told her, fully intending just to scare the s.h.i.t out of the creep, but thinking that it would be totally worth it to get arrested to put the guy who’d been inside of her sweet p.u.s.s.y in the hospital. “I promise that I’m just planning to talk to him, but I’m going to need you to stay in the car. If he said some s.h.i.t to you like he put in that text, I can’t be held responsible for my actions.”

“That’s ridiculous! You don’t even know what he looks like. How will you even find him?”

“I’ll ask. Just promise me you’ll stay in the car, and I will take care of this. I just need five minutes in there. Can you do that for me?”

She let out a noisy, frustrated breath. “I can. But you have to swear you aren’t going to do anything crazy.”

“I swear. Again.”

The house was easy enough to find, once we got to the street. It was so crowded, some idiots had even gone so far as to park on the lawn.

“This Dig’s house?” I asked Danika, parking several houses away.

“Yes. Be careful in there. He’ll be surrounded by his friends. If something happens, you’ll be outnumbered.”

“I’ll be careful,” I rea.s.sured her, stepping out of the car. What I didn’t tell her was that I hadn’t lost a fight in my life, outnumbered or not. I was twice the size of most guys, and knew how to throw a mean punch.

“Five minutes,” I told her before shutting the door.

I barely noticed how the rain pelted down as I went to the house, that text still bouncing around in my brain, making me crazy.

The house was not as packed as I would’ve thought, considering all of the cars parked out front, but the place reeked of pot.

There was a group of skinny white guys pa.s.sing around a bong on a sofa in the first room, and that’s where I started.

Lucky for me, there was only one Daryl in the house, and I was directed to the backyard by the group of potheads.

“Thanks,” I called, knowing that just the sight of me had scared the paranoid b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

The second I stepped outside, I spotted a Daryl in the small covered patio, sheltered from the rain.

He was a skinny guy, covered in tattoos. He had one side of his head shaved, the other dyed black and styled emo. He had silver flesh tunnels in his ears, and a tattoo of a crow covering most of his neck, and he was wearing f.u.c.king skinny jeans. Somehow, I just knew it was him.

He was playing on his phone, and smoking a joint.

My hands curled into fists, and I strode right up to him.

“Daryl,” I addressed him.

He glanced up at the name, reaffirming my suspicions. “Yeah?” he asked, his tone insolent. He had guts, for a tiny little thing.

I didn’t beat around the bush, stepping close, lifting him up by the front of his shirt. I still towered over him. He tried to shake me off, but I barely noticed, letting him get a load of the look on my face. It was really easy to put murder in my eyes. I just had to think about that last text I’d read.

“We’ve spoken before. On the phone. I’m Danika’s friend. Remember me?”

“f.u.c.k you, man!”

He had a nerve, I’d give him that, but that’s all he would get.

I turned, slamming his back into the house. He barely weighed a thing. “I seem to recall warning you to leave her alone.”

“Who the h.e.l.l are you?” he wheezed.

“I’m Tristan. I’m the guy that looks out for Danika, and I’m going to do you a really big favor. I’m not going to put you in the hospital tonight. I’m feeling nice, so I’m going to give you one more warning. Listen carefully, because I won’t be telling you this again. Are you listening?”

I waited until he nodded.

“No contact. No calls. No texts. Nothing. If you do any of those things, you won’t be hearing from me, you will be seeing me, and I won’t be talking, I’ll be putting your skinny a.s.s into a body cast. Are we clear?”

“Why are you doing this? Are you f.u.c.king her?”

“None of your f.u.c.king business. But hear this, I see any of those dirty f.u.c.king texts again, that’ll be a different story altogether. You’ll be missing a pair when I’m done with you.”

I dropped him to the ground and walked away, because if I heard one more word from him, I’d be breaking my promise to Danika.

DANIKA

I let out the breath I’d been holding when I saw him striding back to the car, five minutes later, as promised.

He got back into driver’s seat, hands going to the steering wheel and clenching. I could tell he was upset by the tenseness in his posture, and that grip on the wheel.

When he spoke, his voice was low and hoa.r.s.e. “Can you tell me why you stayed with him for so long? I met him for five minutes, and there’s no doubt in my mind that you can do better. Worlds better. You’re a smart girl. Why did it take you two years to figure that out?”

I didn’t look away from him, but the answer to that question made me feel delicate. Still, I wanted to give him the real answer, no bulls.h.i.t. “I guess I didn’t want better. I wanted…just what I could keep. This probably doesn’t make sense to you, since you have a family, but I wanted something like a family. Even if he wasn’t perfect, I thought he’d stick around. No one’s ever stuck around for me.

“In the back of my mind, I guess I thought that if I aimed really low, things were more likely to last. I just wanted to belong to someone, and for someone to belong to me. It turns out, aiming low only brings you lower.” I took a long, shaky breath. “I’ve learned that lesson a few times. I think it finally stuck this time.”

His hand moved from its death grip on the steering wheel to softly cover mine where it was gripped in my lap. “I’ll always stick around for you, Danika. I mean that. You’re my best friend. No matter what, I’ll always be there for you, if you want me.”

That had me torn. Completely. My sweet side wanted to melt at those words, but my bitter side wanted to call him out, because he hadn’t stuck around. Not even close.

My bitter side won out. “Like you’ve been sticking around? Taking off for two weeks, not calling, not coming by, not even inviting me to your performance. Is that what you’d call being there for me?”

“I’m sorry for that. I went off the deep end for a minute, but I’m back, okay? I, um, haven’t had any luck with relationships. In fact, the only serious one I ever had was just bad. It makes my skin crawl to even think about how much of myself I put into that mess, and it just wasn’t worth it.”

“t.w.a.talie,” I said darkly, not wanting to talk about her; the woman he’d been willing to give so much more to.

He wasn’t familiar with the nickname, and it surprised a laugh out of him. “t.w.a.talie?”

“Frankie told me about her. If someone is named Natalie, and they’re a t.w.a.t, they automatically get downgraded to t.w.a.talie.”

He squeezed my hand, his smile big and warm and all for me. “It is fitting. And for the record, I wanted you at the performance, and I knew you were coming. I was a s.h.i.t for not calling you myself, but I made sure that you knew about it.”

“You told Frankie to tell me?”

“I didn’t have to, but yeah I asked her to. She would have anyway, I see now. Frankie is good like that. Listen, I just need you to give me one more chance, okay? I won’t pull this s.h.i.t again. I didn’t know…I didn’t understand what a mistake I’d made, until I saw you tonight, but it’s real f.u.c.king crystal clear to me now, that I shouldn’t have done that.”

I still had a million questions, and I was far from done picking this to death, but my sweet side won out for the moment. “So you want to call a truce?”

“Something like that. Whatever you call it that involves you letting me back into your life, and not hating me for being a b.a.s.t.a.r.d.”

My breath shuddered out in a sigh. “I could never hate you, and you’re already back.”

He started driving, still holding my hand. “I missed you.” He said it like he had each time before, as though he was just realizing it himself.

I let us into Bev’s house quietly, going straight to my room.

Tristan was pressing himself against my back as I closed the door, his mouth at my neck.

“I need to be inside of you again,” he rasped into my ear, his tone urgent, kissing me on that spot on my neck that drove me wild.

I loved his desperation, loved feeling like he couldn’t get enough of me, and even if it meant something different to him than it did to me, I was going to savor it while I could.

He peeled my dress off me from behind, pushing me onto my stomach on the bed. I heard him working out of his own wet clothes before his hot body was pressing hard onto my back. He pushed until I was grunting under the weight of him, hugging me hard.

He eased off quickly, raising up to his knees, and using a hand on my belly to bring me with him. His hands on my hips had me on all fours, bracing for him. I heard him ripping open a foil packet before he was at my entrance, pushing just inside.

“Touch yourself,” he ordered.

I reached down with one hand, rubbing my c.l.i.t as his c.o.c.k teased at my entrance, and his hands found my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, skimming over them with a light touch. I pushed back hard, working him in another inch.

He moaned, his fingers rolling my nipples, then tugging at them. “Work that c.l.i.t faster, sweetheart. You aren’t wet enough to take all of me yet.”

“I am,” I argued, twisting my hips towards him, desperate to feel him deeper.

He pulled out completely.

“You think so?” he asked, something in his tone making me crane my neck to look back at him.