Micah took his time nursing the rest of his drink – he was looking to get pleasantly plastered, not blackout drunk. (Mostly, he just wanted to be numb.)

Still, it wasn’t much later, that he was ordering another vodka soda.

As Micah sipped his drink, he read the labels of the liquor bottles showcased behind the bar, counted the number of grooves in the wooden bar top by running over them with his fingers, made up stories for the bartender’s tattoos – basically anything he could think of so he didn’t actually have to think.

It was dark by the time he ordered his third vodka – the sunset was painfully early in the winter – and the bar was slowly filling with a surprisingly boisterous crowd for a Sunday night.

Micah didn’t really want to be surrounded by people he didn’t know (or even those he did know, to be honest, unless their name was Damon), but he didn’t want to go home either, so he flagged the bartender down and ordered another drink.

Micah’s lips were tingling pleasantly, and his smile felt a bit more genuine when the woman handed him his fourth vodka soda. “Here you go, sweetie.”

Maybe it was the constant pet names or maybe it was the concern shining in her eyes, but for whatever reason – even though she looked absolutely nothing like her – the woman reminded Micah of Tessa.

That, combined with the amount of vodka he’d consumed, was what probably made him blurt, “My boyfriend hates me!” when she went to walk away.

The woman’s eyebrows shot up in surprise before she realized what he’d said, and her brow crinkled in consternation. “Who could hate a sweet thing like you?”

And just like that, the whole story came spilling out. Well, not the whole story. Micah wasn’t quite drunk enough to reveal the fact that Damon was a mafia don. He didn’t feel like telling her he worked for the police either.

So he wound up spinning a tale about how his friends had dared him to dress up like a hooker for a night, and how Damon had beat up some pervert who’d tried to assault him. Micah even told her how he had ditched him by squeezing out the bathroom window of a restaurant Damon had brought him to afterwards.

Micah described how they kept running into each other, despite the fact that millions of people lived in the city. Then he explained the deal they had made – about Micah working as Damon’s escort – and how the man lived in a huge penthouse and showered him with ridiculous gifts. He told her about Italy.

But then Damon had found out what an unconscionable liar Micah was – that he wasn’t a prostitute who needed help getting off the streets – and he’d had to describe, in excruciating detail – how the man had unceremoniously dumped him.