Yes, this was more than obsessive and bordered on stalkerish, but if I couldn’t be with her, what harm was it to imagine her as she made her way through her day? Or to take it a step further and imagine myself waiting for her in that Charleston single, all the windows and doors thrown wide to let in the crisp autumn evening air, and that big copper soaking tub filled with her favorite bath salts and oils, just waiting to soothe her work-weary body?

It had been damn near five months, but I was still struggling to settle back into my normal, everyday life. I mean, shit. Did I even believe normal life was possible anymore? Everything felt too harsh, too sharp, razor-edged since I’d been home. Life, before I made love to Darcy, was only occasionally interrupted by brief bouts of daydreaming about her. Life after making love to her wasn’t a daydream anymore. I knew her taste. Knew the tone and vibrato of each of her moans. Knew how her pussy gripped my dick when she was close to coming. All of this, in addition to the things I already knew and loved about her? This knowledge of Darcy MacFarland was going to be my undoing.

I was never more certain of that than when Jared swung open the door to welcome me into his new home.

How fucking twisted was it that when I looked at my best friend, I saw the shape of his mother’s eyes and the slope of her nose? Because I did, and it made me miss her even more.

“Finally!” Jared bellowed, stretching his arms wide.

I laughed at my friend as I stepped across the threshold and accepted his hug. Jared thumped me on the back and dragged me further into the front hall of his home.

“Calm down, bro. It hasn’t been that long,” I said, pushing him away with an awkward laugh.

“Are you serious right now? I’ve only seen you like a handful of times since the wedding.”

“Because I wanted to give the newlyweds room to settle into married life.”

Jared pulled a face and narrowed his eyes at me. “Bullshit. You’ve been avoiding me.”

I froze. Guilt rendered me stiff while I grasped for an explanation. Did he know why I was avoiding him? Did he suspect that it had something to do with Darcy? No. He couldn’t. If he knew, he would have confronted me… Unless this was the confrontation. Had my best friend of almost fifteen years invited me to dinner, a few beers, and an ass whooping for fucking his mother?

Jared leveled an unreadable look at me. That was even more disconcerting. It was bizarre to see my long-time friend make a face I’d never seen before. Was this his murder face?