I hadn’t expected it to hurt this much. I hadn’t expected Harley’s rejection to feel like such a slap to the face. I know I’m not even close to being his type, but I still hadn’t expected to feel such emotion. I’m embarrassed, humiliated and angry with myself, and I can’t help but wonder what the hell I’ve just gone and done.

Chapter 20

I woke with a hangover. At least, I thought it was a hangover. Now as I stand under the hot water in the shower, the taste of regret is still lingering on my tongue like the taste of a bad pill. I’m almost certain this is what humiliation tastes like, and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. My treacherous mind keeps replaying the events of last night over and over again, torturing me, mocking me. All I see when I close my eyes is Harley’s face when he pulled away from me, mid-kiss. The sheer look of horror in his wide eyes as if he couldn’t for the life of him believe what I was doing. The way his nose scrunched up in disgust. The way his top lip curled in a way that is like a thousand knives stabbing me right in the heart.

I can’t believe how stupid I am. I doubt I’ll ever be able to look Harley in the eye again. And now, here I am, forced to spend the next three hours alone in a car with him. I curse under my breath, allowing my head to fall forward, my forehead resting against the tile of the shower recess. I bang my head a few times in the hope it might help knock some sense into me, but I’m just tormenting myself even further.

Showered, dressed and ready to go, I wait on the porch with my overnight bag by my feet, checking the clock on my phone for the hundredth time in the last five minutes. He’s almost ten minutes late. Maybe he went on without me. Not that I would mind, or even blame him. I should never have said yes to this damn bachelor party in the first place, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Plus, if I’d said no, then Anna was going to make me join the girls. And there is no way in hell I was going to put myself through that torture. But now, with these morning-after regrets swirling around in my belly, I’m seriously beginning to think this whole thing was a terrible idea. And, in fact, the more I think about it, the more I truly do hope Harley has ditched me and gone on to South Carolina without me.

But, of course, I could never have such luck. When the thunderous roar of a V8 engine rumbles through the otherwise silent morning, I glance up from my phone to see Harley’s Ford pulling up to stop at the curb. I exhale a sigh of defeat and my heart jumps up into the back of my throat as I watch him climb out of the cab.