“I need to get them adjusted,” I would say, and he’d always respond with, “Nah. I like being your official keeper of your glasses.” Goodness, remembering that made my heart ache.

“Did I . . . did I do wrong by you, Roxy?”

I stiffened as if steel had been dropped down my spine. “What?”

Everything about Reece’s posture had changed. He was still close, his hands still on the shelves on either side of me, but the lazy arrogance that seemed to bleed from his every pore was gone. Every part of him was alert and tense. “Did I hurt you somehow?”

My mouth dropped open. Had he hurt me? Yes. He’d bruised my heart, smashed it into pieces, but I didn’t think that’s what he meant. “No. God, no. How could you even think that?”

His eyes closed briefly as he exhaled harshly. “I don’t know what to think.”

Oh God, my entire chest clenched. I needed to tell him the truth, because it didn’t matter how badly my feelings and pride were bruised, I couldn’t let him think something like that about himself. The words formed on the tip of my tongue.

“It should’ve never happened,” he continued. “You and I . . . not in that way.”

The words fizzled up on my tongue, going out like a spark in a downpour. I knew how crazy it was to be upset, because he said it shouldn’t have happened when it had in fact never happened, but it was the point behind it all. A different set of words flooded out of my mouth. “You really do regret it, don’t you?” My voice sounded too hoarse. “I know I can’t be the first chick you got so drunk—­”

“That I don’t remember being with?” he cut in. “Yeah, you’re the only girl I’ve done that with.”

I didn’t know if I should be relieved to know that or be really insulted. Shaking my head, I grappled with the mixed bag of emotions. “You . . . you wish that night never happened, right?”

“Yeah, I do.” The blunt honesty was like taking a bullet straight to the chest. “Because I wa—­”

The stockroom door suddenly opened. “Man, I have really bad timing when it comes to this shit,” announced Nick. “Sorry to . . . yeah, intrude. I just need to grab some . . . stuff.”

My escape was in the form of dark and broody, and I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I used the distraction to my benefit. Reece had dropped his arms as he faced Nick, who was grabbing the new napkins with Mona’s logo splashed across them. I darted away from Reece and hauled butt through the open door. I didn’t look at Nick and the blood roaring in my ears drowned out anything either of them could’ve said.

The odd burn in the back of my throat had to do with allergies. Probably mold somewhere in the building, I told myself as I headed behind the bar and forced a wide smile when I saw the girls sitting there.