“You’re not helping, Chloe,” Mason says as he takes a sip of what I assume to be whiskey. “Maybe I should go have a little chat with him.”

“Mase…”

“No, he doesn’t get to come in and make you so uncomfortable in your own Goddamn house,” he snaps and I see the fury in his eyes already.

“Just leave it. He hasn’t done anything.” I plead.

“He’s here and it’s messing with your head and your heart and while Parker isn’t necessarily my favorite person, he’s one of yours and I respect him as the man that loves you.”

Chloe rolls her eyes. “Since when are you so holier than thou when you drink.”

“The guy broke her heart, Chlo.”

“And her showing up here, looking like this,” she says, waving her hand over me. “With a ring on her finger is the best revenge. Let him pine over her. She’s moved on.”

Mason looks at me and I give him a weak smile, wishing I had as much confidence as Chloe thinks I have. “Let’s just go out on the patio and decide where we’re going when we get out of here.”

My eyes scan the room just like they’ve done over a hundred times over the past hour. It’s how it always was, whenever we were in the room together in mixed company my eyes were always looking for her. My eyes would find her for no more than a second before moving on. It was just enough time to know exactly what she was thinking, what she needed or if she needed me. Over half of the time, her eyes would meet mine. Sometimes she’d smile, sometimes she’d wink if she knew it was safe and sometimes, she’d bite her lip which was code for: get me naked now.

I stare at her through the blinds, my hands flexing into fists with the need to touch her. Her hair is longer than the last time I saw her and visions of seeing it wrapped around my wrist as I pound into her from behind infiltrate my brain.

Her, Chloe, and Mason went to the patio as soon as I entered the house and have been out there since. One of them has been by her side all night leading me to believe that one or both of them know about what happened between us.

They’re protecting her from me.

I wince at the sting that causes. I hurt her so deeply that she can’t even be around without a layer of protection around her heart. Or she still has feelings for you and she doesn’t trust herself around you.

More than likely it was a combination of the two. Either way, Mason and Chloe weren’t going to be easy and they weren’t going to back down. I down the rest of my gin and tonic before deciding that I’d had enough. There were at least thirty people here and though I’m sure Kevin and Michelle wanted to spend the night talking to me, they were polite hosts and had left me to tend to some of their other guests leaving me free to try to get Whitney alone.