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“Fuck.” Jake lifted his hand to spear into his hair. His movement stuttered when his fingers tangled in the pulled back strands. Instead, he ran his palm down his face, exasperated. ”I swear that isn’t it. I was here to talk to you already. You told Kase you were comin’ here, he told me. I just want to explain what happened. That’s all. You wanna walk away after that, I can’t force you to stay.”

“Jake, seriously, there’s nothing to explain. It’s fine.”

“It’snotfuckin’ fine.” I sensed his control was close to snapping before he stepped back and took a deep breath. “Look, I’ll leave and you go have your fun with your girls. Just… call me tomorrow, yeah?”

I nodded, but I wasn’t sure if I’d call. My mind was in no place to make a decision right now.

He brought his head down and pressed a light kiss to my lips, though I stayed still. He raised his head to look down at me, searching my face. Lowering his mouth to mine again, he kissed me harder.

Fisting my hands so hard my nails dug into my palms, I resisted the overwhelming desire to return his kiss. I refused to open myself up again. Instead, I stepped back and pulled away from him.

His grip on me tightened briefly before he dropped his hands.

I started walking down the hall with a thoughtfully silent Ray. I needed a second to get my head together, and I knew she got that. When the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, I tilted my head to look behind me.

All I saw was Jake, his back against the wall and his head turned away. Even from a distance, I could see the rigidness of his body as he bit out a curse.

I knew my reprieve was over when we returned to the bar and Ray ordered a round of stronger booze.

“So, what the fuck was that?” she started as soon as we got our drinks.

“What was what?” Marcy asked, looking to Lily who shrugged.

“Piper has been holding out on us. Big time.”

“It’s no big deal, really.” I took a couple large gulps of my drink.

“Oh, yeah, totally. I go to see if you fell into the fuckin’ toilet, and instead find you with Jake Hyde.”

“Dude, were you hooking up with Jake?” Lily asked, her face an almost laughable mix of interest and envy.

“No, not our Piper. She had him flippin’ in a way that was tortured hero hot. And she’s getting all feisty instead of her usual sweet.”

Marcy’s eyes went wide. “What? Why? I need details. Like what was he wearing? Was he shirtless? Can we pretend he was?”

Because my drama was more interesting than dancing, we went to a quieter VIP area so they could hear the goods while we drank.

“So, Jake was your mystery man?” Ray asked.

I nodded. “Yup.”

“Well, that explains why you were the only woman in the place that wasn’t looking at him when he walked in.”

“When were you together?” Marcy asked.

“We weren’t. We were, I dunno.” I moved my hand around, spilling some of my drink as I tried to find the right words. “Friends who made out a few times?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. You kissed Jake Hyde?” Lily screamed.

“Jeez, Lily, hop on the MC mic and announce it to the bar.”

“Hell, if I kissedtheJake Hyde, I would totally be on the mic announcing it. I’d tweet it, status it, Instagram it, whatever I could. I’d probably even take out a full page newspaper ad or get a billboard,” she declared, to the nodded agreement of the other two.

“Okay, so were you friends with benefits with him?” Ray asked.

“We weren’t even that. We hung out a couple times.” I looked around to see them all wearing the same shocked expression. “What?”

“Honey, Jake doesn’t do long term.”