This room is too crowded, too hot, too bright. I manage to park my ass in one of the fold down chairs and try to blend in.

I feel like a Where’s Waldo cartoon, in my plaid coat and beanie while news reporters and tourists buzz around me.

On the platform at the front of the room is a long table with microphones set up. News anchors gather like flies near the front, all jostling for the best position to cry out their questions while their camera operators all try to capture the ultimate angles and most flattering lighting.

I shouldn’t be here. I look down at my calloused hands and wonder what I’m doing. This isn’t where I belong. This is Ashley’s world. A world with no place for me.

The crowd begins to cheer and clap, many of the people around me rise to their feet as Ashley and a group of men walk onto the stage. The people around me settle back into the folding chairs as Ashley and her entourage take their seats on stage.

I can barely hear the hotel manager make his speech. Even when the doctor reassures the crowd that Ashley is physically and mentally sound, it barely registers.

All I can see is her. The crowd around me evaporates and the noises fade into oblivion as I watch her face. She looks lost. Her stunning features are covered in caked on makeup again, making her look older and more serious than when she was with me.

Her long hair is pulled back into a high ponytail and her pouty lips are painted blood red.

She looks too severe. Too contorted by lighting and cosmetics. I barely recognize the face that only hours ago, I was kissing.

I can see her scanning the crowd, but it must be hard to see us with all the flashes exploding in front of her eyes. Ashley looks down at her hands, like she can’t face all the strangers anymore. I want to run to her. To wrap my arms around her and tell her she doesn’t need to play their games. She doesn’t need to do any of this. But I stay put.

Suddenly the skinny man with slicked back, dark hair and an expensive suit that is sitting next to her, decides it’s time to make a speech.

“Ashley, you’re the love of my life. When you were gone, I thought I’d lost you forever. I knew, somehow that we’d be together again. That our love would bring us back together, because you’re my soulmate,” he mugs at the cameras without even looking at her.

That must be Dan.

I watch as the douchebag that cheated on Ashley wipes non-existent tears from his eye.

“Fuck you, Dan.” Ashley stands up abruptly and the crowd gasps like she just declared she has a bomb. “You can’t have a soulmate when you have no soul.”

She storms off the stage and a smile pulls at my lips. While the crowd of people throw their hands over their mouths in mock horror, I can’t help the laughter spilling out of me.

That’s my girl.

Dan follows her off the stage and I expect the show to be over.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going you ungrateful bitch?”

I can hear his voice over the speakers in the room. We all can. That moron never turned off his microphone pack.

“Go away. I’m not doing this anymore. We don’t love each other, Dan. Let’s not pretend that what we ever had was real.”

I sit a little taller, my smile growing as I listen to her.

“Who fucking cares? It’s not about that, just think of the opportunity you have here, Ashley. They’ll probably make a movie about us. You’ve never been more relevant, you were trending on Twitter. Trending.” He emphasizes and I roll my eyes.

“I don’t care. This is over. I’m shutting down my social media. I’m done with all of this fake shit. I’m done with fake relationships and fake love and my big, fucking fake life.”

The crowd gasps again. Apparently, these people have never heard someone swear before.

“Don’t you walk away from me,” Dan’s voice drops as he growls at her. “I made you what you are.” I hear her cry out in pain.

The crowd gasps again and I jump to my feet. I race down the aisle and storm the platform, dodging behind the curtains and down the hall where Dan has got his hands on my woman.

“Let go of her now, you fucking creep,” I boom.

“Sawyer?” Ashley twists her wrist from Dan’s grasp and rushes over to me.

“Who the fuck are you?” He juts his jaw out at me, like he’s offering me a target.

“Don’t worry about who I am, you just worry about keeping your hands to yourself.”

“Get the fuck outta here, hillbilly,” Dan sizes me up and tries to push past me to grab Ashley.

Except I don’t move.

He might have had better luck getting the wall to budge out of his way.

I grab him by his expensive shirt and crack him across the face with my meaty fist. In the conference room, I can hear the gasping crowd again. I swear, they’re probably fainting on the floor by now.

Dan falls against the wall and holds himself up as he gets his bearings. “Whatever, I don’t even care about that bitch anyway,” he shakes his head and stands up like I didn’t just hand him his ass.

Dan glares at Ashley and then at me before walking down the hall as nonchalantly as he can manage.

Douche.

“I thought you left.” Ashley looks up at me with tears in her eyes.

“I couldn’t go without you,” I admit, pulling her into me. I crush her lips with my desperate kiss. A kiss I never thought I’d get to experience again. A kiss I’ll never let these lips miss for another moment.

“I love you,” I murmur.

“I love you too, Sawyer.” She breathes.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” I pull on her hand. She looks up at me knowingly and follows my lead. She knows that I’ll take care of her. That I’ll keep her safe. That as long as we’re together the rest of the world can slide away behind the setting sun.

A world of two is all we need.