I’m not sure if she’s real or if she’s just part of my imagination. I turn to let the blonde kiss my cheek. I’m not in the mood for real kisses. Not from this random girl anyway. There’s only one girl on my mind, and I could swear that’s her.

It’s definitely Olive. Her hair, her frame, the pained look in her eyes.

I cringe, trying to pull myself away from the women I’m entangled with on stage, but it only makes it look like I’m wrapping my body around them even more.

I’m definitely a bit drunk. Fuck.

Then the blonde babe plants a big kiss right on my mouth. Right in front of Olive.

Fuck me!

I try to run after Olive, but my legs are wobbly beneath me, and I actually fall on my ass as I watch Olive run out the door. Dimly, I think I see a familiar face trailing after her. But before I can make this a coherent thought, the burning in my stomach roils up to my throat.

I gag, try to calm myself, urge my body to calm down. I can’t vomit right now. It’s not that I care if other people see me; I just need to get to Olive.

Sadly, I can’t control it, and I get sick, unleashing a noise I couldn’t even recognize as coming from me.

I should have listened to Coach and stuck with the water. I sense, more than see, the girls around me scampering away as I vomit, and I hear someone call for Coach. He’s going to have to deal with me and my shit.

Fuck …

Olive!

“Congratulations on passing out after your first match back.” Barry is clearly displeased, tucking his phone back into his pocket. I wonder if I was interrupting some booty call of his, and then I remember who exactly I’d seen him tangled up with: Selena.

And Selena’s best friend, who I’d last seen …

The whole nightmare that is my life comes flooding back to me.

I lean up on my elbows, but fall back, clutching my pounding forehead. Damn. I’ve been fucked-up before, but this is a record hangover I’ve got.

Barry is mumbling about some girl something or other. My head kills too much to listen. My throat resembles sandpaper. I open my eyes to slits and try to figure out where I am.

There’s a couch beneath me, but it might be a bed … I don’t know. It’s reasonably comfortable and there are a lot of blankets. I sigh, but it turns into a cough.

“God, I don’t know if you’re still drunk or actually getting sick.” Barry shakes his head. “I don’t know what to tell you, Romeo. I brought you to my place last night.”

I grimace, but he keeps talking, assuring me that it wasn’t his idea. “It was all Coach Parker, who insisted on taking care of things with the press after you slipped and puked yourself.”

I remain still, not even nodding.

Barry scowls at me again, telling me I’d better not consider this a bonding experience.

I don’t give a crap about that. My only question is whether I want to beg for a glass of water or a cup of orange juice or if I should just die.

In the end, I do none of the three. Instead, I choose sleep, drowning out the sound of Barry’s voice as the world goes black around me.

The next morning I feel so much better. Coach Parker is back, and he convinces me to shower before I run off to Olive, which is exactly where everyone knows I’m going. Apparently, after the fiasco at the match, there were some still pics taken of Olive and me and a history of what’s been going on between us made the news. The rumors are confirmed, except now there are photos of me with some groupies, so I look like a cheater now, too.

Not that this is a new thing for the media to say, and not that it’s true. It’s never been and never will be. All that matters is I’m the bad boy again.

Barry comes to tell me that his phone is blowing up with meetings to arrange, and congratulates me on somehow falling so far that my fuckups have become successes. I don’t respond, just shove past him on my way to the shower.

I’m beyond disgusting and can’t even find a towel, so after I shower I just grab one of the extras off the rack and wrap it around myself. Hopefully, no one’s used this to dry their hands, and hopefully Coach has some old clothes lying around I can change into.

Coach brings out a bag he found stuffed in my locker—fuck yeah—and I pull it on. Gym shorts and a T-shirt. I don’t care what I wear as long as I get to Olive.

I pay no attention to the two men behind me telling me to take it easy, nor do I listen to the one bastard urging for me to focus on “more important things, like my career.” Instead, I run down the stairs into the street.

My stomach lurches, reminding me to slow down a little bit, but it’s not as bad as it was just a night ago and I refuse to let it get the best of me. I heave, gasp, and try to make myself feel a bit better, but I don’t slow down.

I can’t slow down.

I need to explain myself.

I run up and down the street until I find a taxi. I’m missing my motorcycle right about now, thinking how easy it would be to just jump on it and drive over the sidewalks in my desperation to get to Olive.

But it’s back at home in the garage, where I left it. I regret it now as I flag down the taxi, shouting, almost screaming as the taxi almost passes me by.

The taxi cab driver stops, rolls down the window to ask me where I want to go. His voice stalls out when he realizes whom he’s talking to. He must recognize me. Without going through the whole thing, I run to the other side of the taxi and throw open the passenger side door.

Olive’s address falls out of my mouth, and I’m surprised I even remember the numbers since she never told me it. I’d seen it, though, and briefly wonder if that makes me creepy that I immediately memorized it.

No. Not creepy, just devoted.

“Get me there fast and there’s an extra twenty in it for you,” I say. He doesn’t say anything in return, just puts his foot on the pedal. I’m pretty sure we speed through a few red lights and break a few traffic laws on our trip, but I’m not bothered.

All that matters is that I get to Olive. The driver pulls up right next to her apartment building, as close as he can get with the cars parked everywhere, and lets me out right by the doors.

I pay him, sign a quick autograph, and once I get inside the building, I run up the stairs. My heart pounds, more from nerves than from exertion. As crappy as I feel, I’m still in tip-top shape.

But when I knock on the door, it’s not Olive who answers. It’s Selena, and my heart drops back down to where it belongs. I sigh, but at the same time …

“Great, it’s you,” I mutter, trying to sound more bitter than I am.

Selena’s given me more time to compose myself by answering the door, and my girl is somewhere behind her anyway. I’m about to joke with my girl’s best friend, a girl I’m starting to consider one of my own close friends, when I see she’s been crying.

“Whoa, hey.” I wasn’t expecting this and I don’t know how to deal with it, because I don’t think Selena wants the type of comfort I have to offer, and Olive’s the only girl I want in my arms. “Did you get in a fight with Olive?”

She just shakes her head. “No.”

I’m confused. Something must have happened. This isn’t the usual playful, arrogant Selena I’m used to. I try to move past her to get in the door, but she puts both her arms out, holding the doorframe so I can’t get past without moving her.

I don’t want to put hands on a girl, much less my girl’s best friend.

“Selena,” I say, as casually as I can. “Tell me what’s going on.”

She just shakes her head again, tears blossoming over her eyes and streaming past her cheeks. She says nothing, and this time I move toward her, taking her arms and moving them so I can get past the door. She doesn’t fight me as I expect her to and I go to the foyer, searching for the sound of Lark’s laughter and my Olive alongside her.

But I don’t hear anything. Maybe they’re still asleep. It’s early.

Selena grabs my arm again, trying to stop me, but I shake her off.

“Where’s Olive?” I demand. My Olive.

Selena just shakes her head again. And again, she simply says, “No.”

My questions go unanswered.

“Fine,” I sigh, finally, deciding that Selena’s just choosing to be difficult. “Then what about Lark? Is she sleeping?”

“Axel.” Selena reaches out to stop me. “Lark’s not here.”

“Okay,” I say, refusing to think what she might be trying to say to me.

“Axel,” Selena says again, slower this time. “She’s gone. They’re both gone.”

And Selena drags me to the couch, and she tells me everything.