He's dressed in head-to-toe black. And she's just the opposite. Powder tangerine booty shorts and a creamsicle orange crochet top—sunshine showing as much skin as a woman can get away with without violating any indecency laws.

After Hades opens the door, she carefully averts her eyes toward the floor, like a dog who’s been told to heel.

“Thanks for the advice,” I say, vowing on the inside that I’ll do whatever it takes to help her get out of this toxic mess she’s in with Hades.

Persy doesn't answer, just nods.

And Hades eyes me up and down with a hard look before telling me, “Waylon's waiting for you outside.”

He doesn’t look or appear anywhere near as friendly as he did last night.

But I don't have any luggage to fetch. So, I edge past him with a murmured, “Bye” for Persy.

When I reach the steps, though, the memory of what happened two days ago flashes across my mind. The tumbling down the stairs and waking up in a world of pain. On the morning I was supposed to get married.

My mind feebly takes a stab at processing everything that's happened since I woke up yesterday morning. Tries and fails.

So I’m pretty much a traumatized, confused mess as I walk down the stairs into the now quiet bar part of the roadhouse.

Not to mention sore as hell.

Too few hours of sleep on a hardwood floor was the worst thing I could've done after getting pushed down a set of stairs and punched by one guy—then roughly taken against the wall and forcibly placed on a motorcycle by another.

“Man, you look like death warmed over!” a cheery voice calls out, interrupting my walk of pain.

I look up to find Doc exactly where she stood last night behind the short end of the bar—just no longer topless. She’s dressed in a T-shirt with her long weave piled on top of her head in a messy bun. She holds up a to-go cup of coffee in one hand and something fisted inside the other.

“Coffee and four ibuprofen to go,” she explains. “I know yesterday had to be rough—I figured you could use an extra dose.”

“Thank you,” I whisper, gratefully accepting the black gold and pills.

She scans my face with those intelligent brown eyes.

I don’t realize she’s examining me until she says, “It looks like a lot of the swelling has gone down from where that guy hit you. I gave Waylon an ice pack to put on it—sorry I didn’t have a chance to give it to you last night. I figured you should eat first. But that and the ibuprofen should still help. Maybe do a warm compress too when you get to where you’re going.”

“Thank you,” I say again, even more grateful this time.