And there was a lot of stupid in me—a whole lot.

I was still rocking the hard-on of my life, which I told myself had nothing to do with Syd, when I stepped into the hot spray of water. Probably had more to do with the fact that I hadn’t gotten laid last night. Yeah, that sounded good. There was only one way to fix this without a cold shower. Resting my head against the slick tile, I reached down and closed my eyes.

It was fast. It was hard. And I thought about the wrong person the whole time.

Sydney

I stared at the back of the bar, eyeing the bottles of liquor like they were the only things that could cure my humiliation. And they could, because if I drank enough, I probably wouldn’t care that Kyler had seen me in my undies and laughed.

He had laughed.

The bar was packed, everyone talking about the snowstorm that was now apparently going to make West Virginia its own personal snow-bitch. It was too late to leave. All we could do was hope it wasn’t as bad as they were predicting.

Spying an opening, I squeezed myself between a girl with a lot of blonde hair and some dude in a flannel jacket. I glanced over my shoulder and sighed. Kyler was where I’d left him, attention riveted on the statuesque brunette he apparently knew from waaay back. Her name was Sasha. She looked like a Sasha.

Ah, listen to me. I was being such a bitter bitch.

I watched her place a hand on his shoulder and lean in, so that her breasts—much bigger than mine—pressed against his arm. She said something and he smiled. Not the full smile that showed off those dimples, but more like the cat that was about to eat an entire cage of canaries.

Kyler looked up at the moment, his gaze finding me across the crowded tables. I turned away and found myself staring at the bartender’s slim black tie. Fancy.

He smiled. “What can I get you, honey?”

Since ‘a brain’ wasn’t provided in a bottle, I went with the next best thing. “A shot of Jose.”

The bartender’s brows rose a little. “ID?”

I dug out my license and handed it over.

He checked it out, and then handed it back. “Barely twenty-one.” Surprise colored his voice. “I would’ve pegged you for eighteen.”

“Story of my life.” I leaned against the bar, handing over my credit card to open a tab.

The bartender laughed as he turned, grabbing a bottle off the racks. I never knew what to do at bars. It was like an awkward experience in how not to stand out and look like I didn’t belong. It didn’t help that apparently I looked like jail-bait.

“Tequila?” said a voice from behind me. “A girl after my own heart.”