An hour and a half later, I was sweaty and realizing how desperately out of shape I was. Also, how bad a dancer I was.

Ajax was all rhythm and soul—even three sheets to the wind. I was like one of those giant wind-machine-dancing-Gumby things they kept at car dealerships. It wasn’t pretty.

“I need a drink,” I shouted at him. He wrapped his arm around my back and yanked me against him. Sensing he was about to kiss me, I turned my head just in time and his lips landed on my neck. Not that it was a less intimate kiss, but at least I’d been saved from his whiskey breath and slug-like tongue.

I felt eyes on me, glaring holes in my head. It could have been my friends since I’d abandoned them on my one night out of the house in months for a guy I was trying to avoid. Or it could have been the entire rest of the town, crammed into this tiny space, sensing I didn’t belong.

It was probably Kristen March, to be honest. I’d caught her looking my way and whispering to her minions all night. I liked to pretend they weren’t talking about me, but I’d gone to school with these girls since kindergarten. I had their number.

My saving grace in staying in this awful town was that none of the people I went to school with had kids yet. So, while I had to deal with the other moms of young kids, they had all been old enough for me to avoid their high school games.

Now we were all on a level playing field. For the most part anyway. Our days were busy and filled with messes and cartoons and fighting for kids to eat their vegetables. There was most certainly drama whenever women were together, but I was able to ignore it better now that I had bigger priorities.

It was definitely possible they still talked about me. They just usually did it behind my back.

Even though I’d told Ajax I needed a drink, I bypassed the bar on the way to the bathroom. I needed a break from the sticky heat of the dance floor and a breather. I couldn’t say I was having a terrible time. Ajax was fun to dance with. And it felt good to act like my age for once. I just didn’t want him to think this would end up being more than it was.

“His parents want him to settle down,” a girl was saying when I pushed through the bathroom door. It was much cooler in here and I sucked in a deep breath. “Apparently he got a little wild. I heard it was an ultimatum.”

I recognized the girl immediately—Kelly Fink. In high school, Coco and I used to call her Kelly Pink because she was obsessed with the color. Every single day, from freshman year to the day we graduated, she wore something pink. Not even an exaggeration.

She gave me a look that wasn’t exactly friendly before turning back to the mirror to finish reapplying her lipstick.

“Do you think it’s true?” a voice in one of the two stalls asked curiously.

Kelly shrugged and then realized the girl she was talking to couldn’t see her. “My dad heard it too,” she explained. “Said he got into some crazy bar fight and almost got arrested. His mom said he had to come home after that or she would cut him off.”

Clearly, they were talking about Levi, but I didn’t know how true the story was since I was pretty sure Levi made his own money. If the rumors were true, he’d had a good job on a gigantic ranch. They weren’t exactly going to pay him in hayseed.

I ducked into the second stall just as the other girl stepped out of hers. “Kristen will be happy to hear he’s on the market.”

Kelly snickered. “She’s not the only one.”

The second girl gasped, and I was afraid to pee, lest I remind them of my presence and they stop talking.

“You would really go after Levi Cole?” she asked.

“I’m not an idiot.” Kelly laughed. “I would never cross Kristen. But hey, it didn’t work out for them in high school. Why would it work out now?”

“She’ll never admit it, but he dumped her ass so hard back then.”

Kelly laughed again. “And she’s never gotten over it.”

“She would kill you, you know,” the second girl warned Kelly.

Kelly sighed wistfully. “I know.” Then she added coyly, “But it might be worth it.” They left the bathroom giggling about what it would be like to bang Levi Cole and I suddenly felt sick to my stomach.

I wanted nothing more than to go home and curl up in bed. Suddenly, I missed Max fiercely. I hated that I’d chosen this place over hanging with him.

It was all smoke and mirrors, promising fulfilment and delivering nothing real or enjoyable.

Those girls were supposed to be Kristen’s best friends and they didn’t even respect her enough to stop talking bad about her in front of strangers.

They made me thankful for Coco and Emilia. My number of friends might be small, but they wouldn’t gossip about me in a public bathroom.

They wouldn’t throw me under the bus the first chance they got to snag some dude. Even if he was Levi Cole.

I finished in the bathroom and washed my hands before preparing myself to leave it. Deciding I would quickly find Coco and Em and say goodbye to them before Ajax could find me again, I opened the door and stepped into the hallway.

“Having fun?”

I jumped at the dark voice coming from the corner of the even darker hallway. “God, Levi, you scared the hell out of me.” I whirled on him, planting a hand on my hip and wondering what the hell he was doing hanging out by the girl’s bathroom.

He pushed off the wall and stalked toward me. “Is that why you didn’t want to go to dinner with me? That tool out there grinding on anything with boobs?”

“Okay, Mr. High and Mighty, let’s tone down the judgment.” I took a step backwards, so over this night.

He grabbed my wrist before I could get far and dragged me deeper down the hallway. The men’s and women’s bathrooms were in separate corridors, with the girl’s leading to the back entrance of the bar. The further we walked toward the exit door, the quieter it got. There was nobody back here. There was barely enough light for me to make out Levi’s angry expression.

But God, he was still so gorgeous it hurt to look directly at him. Especially like this. Especially with his eyes blazing green and his muscular jaw ticking.

“Woman, you drive me crazy.” he’d growled seven years ago, the day before we graduated. I’d stopped by his locker while he’d been cleaning it out and kicked over his stack of books. It had been petty and juvenile, I’d known that, but I still couldn’t help myself. He’d grabbed my waist and pushed me against the locker. His eyes had dipped to my lips for a long, lingering moment in which I thought my heart would pound through my breastbone.

“It was an accident.” I blinked innocently.

“Yeah, right.”

His gaze had flickered to my mouth again, and then lower, to the tiny bit of cleavage my scooped neck tee revealed. He had been doing that more and more, looking at me like I was attractive—like he was attracted to me. It didn’t make any sense. He had Kristen March and she was the prettiest girl in school.

But because I was a brat and I really had just made a mess of his locker, I pushed out my chest and whispered. “Promise.”

His expression twisted into a tortured version of his normal smugness and when he met my eyes again, there was a crazy look in his bright greens. Wild. Feral.

“Come to Kristen’s party tomorrow night,” he ordered.

I snorted a laugh. “Yeah, okay.”

He leaned closer and I sucked in a sharp breath. “It’ll be fun.”

“For you maybe.”

His jaw clicked together, his teeth grinding in frustration with me. “Logan will be there.”

Trying not to appear too interested, I said, “I haven’t seen your brother in forever.”

“So, come,” Levi coaxed, that wild look in his eyes practically frantic.

I’d pushed away from him and said, “Maybe.”

But obviously I’d gone. That night had changed everything.

He had that same look in his eyes now—untethered from rational thought… completely barbaric… savage. Seven years later, I still couldn’t determine what it meant, but it made my heart pound just as hard as it did back then. Maybe more so.

It wasn’t anything like Ajax either. Ajax was booze-soaked and drugged. His wildness felt scary… lethal. Levi was in control of his judgment and motor skills. He knew exactly what he wanted. And for how long he’d wanted it. Comparing the two of them was crazy. Ajax made my bones feel cold. Levi set my entire body on fire.

Levi settled me with my back to the wall, his body caging me in. He felt gigantic like this, tall and muscled and wicked. “Is he your boyfriend?”

I blinked at him, trying to figure out who he meant. Nothing existed in my head except Levi. He was the only man that was real. The only man that mattered. “Who?”

“The asshole you’ve been dancing with all night?”

I heard it then, the ragged tone to his voice, the… hurt. Levi Cole was jealous.

“He’s just a friend.”

“Ruby…” His voice dipped low with warning.

“Fine, he’s not a friend, but he’s not my boyfriend either. God, we’re not twelve anymore.”

Levi’s hand settled on my waist, squeezing tightly. It didn’t hurt, but the pressure was there, possessive and constant. “You did date him?”

His question made me uncomfortable. No, I had never dated Ajax. That was too sophisticated of a word for anything we had done. But I didn’t want to admit that to Levi of all people.

Instead of explaining, my shoulders bristled with the interrogation and I bit out, “You don’t know how lonely it is, being a single parent. I can’t exactly join Tinder, okay? And it’s not that I ever thought anything would happen long term with Ajax, I just wanted to… not be alone for a bit.”

His hand dragged up my side until his thumb rested just beneath my breast. His fingers splayed over my ribs and reached to my back and somehow in that simple touch, I felt like he held all of me.

His free hand dropped to my hip, tugging me against him, pressing my body into his and reminding me of how very female I was compared to his overwhelming maleness.

“He’s a creep,” Levi growled.

I let out a shaky laugh. “I know.”

“Then why are you still with him?”

“I-I’m not. I just… we just danced. That’s all.”

His head lowered and I felt his breath on my lips. “I can help, you know?”

I thought he meant with Ajax at first, but his thumb started rubbing circles on my hip bone and my thoughts tangled together. “Help with what?”

His lips brushed against mine and I shivered. “The loneliness,” he whispered right before his mouth took possession of mine.

Just like the first time, we exploded with carnal need. His mouth demanded control, hungry, devouring. There were lips and teeth and tongue and all I could do was wrap my arms around his neck and hold on.

We skipped whatever soft, sweetness was supposed to be in a first kiss and went straight to the lust-curling, butterfly-blinding desperation.

Our mouths moved in sync, as if we’d always kissed, as if we instinctively knew exactly what the other person wanted—needed. His tongue dragged over my bottom lip and I retaliated by nipping at his with my teeth. He made a low rumble in the back of his throat and pushed me against the wall.

My breath whooshed out of me in surprise, but he didn’t relent. We kissed and kissed and kissed until my lips were swollen and I had to press my thighs together to survive the building need.

His lips moved against my mouth with an intimate knowledge of what I liked… what I needed. Our tongues tangled together in a dance that was so much better than anything that had happened on the dance floor tonight. He was my perfect other half in this. He was the one good kiss I could remember being totally lost in and now, seven years in the future, it was like he’d picked up exactly where we’d left off.

I wanted to kiss him forever. There wasn’t any reason to stop what we were doing. He was making me dizzy with the things he did with his tongue and the way his teeth scraped over my bottom lip, sending shivers trembling through me. His hands held onto me with such firm possession that I believed they belonged like that, believed that he should never let go.

“God, Levi,” I panted, clutching his t-shirt with two fists.

He pulled back slowly, resting his forehead against mine. “Better than I remembered,” he murmured. “Which is pretty fucking hard to top.” His hand cupped my jaw and he pressed another kiss to my lips, sweeter this time, infinitely gentler. When he pulled back a soft laugh escaped him. “I’d started to think I’d made the whole thing up. Or at least built it up in my head. I couldn’t figure out how one kiss could stay with a man for seven fucking years. Now I know. It’s you, Ruby. You’re black magic.”

I shivered again, a full body vibration that rocked me from head to toe. It was better than our first kiss. So much more intense. Filled with life and growing up and all the spaces that separated us since that night.

Son of a bitch. That night.

Was I really repeating all my mistakes from seven years ago?

What the hell was I doing kissing Levi? This was only asking for trouble.

And not just because I wanted to keep Max’s father a secret. I couldn’t tell Levi because it would mess him up to know I slept with his brother—and then had Logan’s baby.

He’d been thinking about our one kiss for seven years? What was I supposed to do with that?

I rarely even thought about losing my virginity that night. And it had led to me having a baby!

“I-I’m just—”

He pressed his thumb to my bottom lip and I bit it instinctively. “Witchcraft,” he whispered.

“Levi, we need to talk—”

“Ruby?” Ajax called from the other end of the hallway.

“Shit,” I whispered.

Levi stepped in front of me, covering me with his body. “Ruby’s not back here,” he barked.

I hid my face in my hands and waited for the blowout. Ajax would lose his shit if he knew I was kissing someone else—especially after I’d been dancing all night with him.

“He’s gone,” Levi soothed. “It’s too dark for anyone to see anything.” He peppered kisses along my cheek and jawline, down the column of my neck. He wanted more. He thought… he thought because of how good our kiss was that it meant more.

And in normal circumstances, with a normal girl, it probably would have. But I wasn’t normal.

We weren’t normal.

Our circumstances definitely weren’t normal.

“I have to go,” I told him quickly, suddenly desperate to get out of here.

His head popped up. “Are you okay?”

“No, yeah, I mean, I just need to get home. My mom is watching Max and I told her I wouldn’t be out late.” More importantly I told her I wouldn’t get pregnant and I couldn’t make any promises where Levi Cole was involved.

“O-okay. Are you all right to drive?” Concern drew his eyebrows together and he still hadn’t stepped back.

“I just had two drinks. And that was at least an hour ago. I’m fine.”

“When can I see—”

“I’m sorry, Levi. I need to go.”

He took a step back, finally getting the hint. “Sure. Fine.” I felt him shut down like it was a physical thing, like a wall had slammed between us, an invisible wall seven years high and a lifetime of being at each other’s throats wide.

I peered at him through the darkness in the hall, trying to figure out if this moment would cause irreparable damage. If this was the time I finally ruined whatever there was between us for good. I felt cold and hollow, broken and wrong. There was something damaged inside of me, something that wouldn’t let good things happen.

Levi and I could have happened once upon a time, but I’d been too focused on telling him no, on not letting anything slow me down from leaving this town. And so I’d sabotaged whatever good thing was between us in the worst way possible.

And even though it gave me Max, it had ruined so many other things.

“Why do you keep bothering me?” I’d asked him once during our senior year.

“I don’t know how to leave you alone,” he’d said. Then he’d asked, “Do you want me to leave you alone?”

I had turned my head, so he couldn’t see my eyes and whispered, “I don’t know how to want that either.”

I still didn’t know. I still couldn’t let him just be, just find happiness with someone else. The same poisonous thing that got in my way, would eventually ruin him too. If I didn’t cut the tether between us, he would meet the monster that always destroyed.

My body turned cold with dread as I looked at him now, defenses raised, prepared for battle. “I’ll see you later,” I told him.

“Maybe,” was his reply.

I pushed through the back door and ran through the gravel parking lot to my Corolla. I sped home, desperate to get back to my side of town, to what I knew and expected and had resigned myself to.

I pulled into Meadowbrooks, the life I had built for myself. I could leave the trailer park and pretend I belonged in normal society, but the truth was this would always be my home. I would always be the daughter of a strip club manager, the single mom struggling to make ends meet, the girl from the trailer park.

Max had fallen asleep on my bed and I was thankful my mom had let him. He looked like a little cherub with his unruly dark hair and his glasses placed carefully on the nightstand.

After changing into yoga pants and a tank top and washing my face clean of all the makeup I had been so excited to wear, I curled up next to him and pressed my nose onto his pillow. A minute later it was soaking wet from my tears.

Max stirred, partially waking up at the sound of my stifled sobbing.

“Mommy?” he mumbled with his sleep-roughened voice.

“I’m right here,” I told him, thankful for the excuse to pull him into my arms. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

“Are you okay?” he asked groggily.

“I just missed you. I’m glad to be home.” True statements.

He snuggled closer, rubbing his hand on my back. “It’s going to be okay, mommy,” he promised. “Whatever made you sad is going to be okay.”

I should have just let it be. He didn’t even really know what he was saying and at six he could hardly give me solid life advice. But instead, I sniffled another sob and asked, “How do you know?”

He blinked up at me, sudden clarity brightening his green, green eyes. “Because you’re the bravest person I know. You can do anything.”

He fell back asleep just a minute later and I clung to him and his words and the promise that things would feel better in the morning.