“I thought you’d given up on alcohol.”

Cane studied me over the bottle I’d bought and put down between us. The bartender had given me two highball glasses, happy to have somebody else take over the job so he could go back to leaning against the counter and flirting with the only waitress in the joint.

“It’s a goodbye party, right?”

He eyed me through the lingering haze of smoke, a faint smile on his face. “Some goodbye party.”

“You said you wanted to keep it low-key.” I twisted the cap open and poured us both two fingers. The scent of it teased me, and my mouth was already watering. I’d been craving a drink for two days, ever since I’d stormed away from Florence’s house—and Maya.

I still couldn’t believe she was here. That I’d seen her.

The need to get up, get out of here and hunt her down was so strong, I tossed back the whiskey. It hit hard and fast, burning a way down my throat. It had been months since I’d had a drink and immediately, I wanted another one. I was in trouble already, and if I was smart, I’d stop.

But if I was smart, I never would have taken the first drink.

Grabbing the bottle, I refilled my drink.

“You don’t need to be tossing it back so fast.”

I just eyed him over the top of my glass and took a satisfyingly burning gulp.

Cane sighed and reached for his glass. “This is going to be a fun night, isn’t it?”

“Why the hell you gotta go to Vietnam?” Swirling the whiskey in the glass, I stared at him over the top.

“I was drafted.” He shrugged, looking unperturbed, but for the first time, I saw a bit of uneasiness in his eyes. For the past year, he’d been stationed here in the states. This was going to be the first time Cane went into a war zone. Seeing the nerves made me feel a little bit better. At least he realized there was something to be worried about.

I didn’t bother pointing out to him that there were ways he could have worked around that. Hell, plenty of guys had found ways to serve their country without going into combat.

I had mentioned that to him, once.

He’d looked disgusted. Sure, man. While others are out there doing the hard shit, I’ll go around and tell jokes or do tours or something. Is that what you think I should do?

Right then, I didn’t know what I wanted, but I didn’t want to think about my friend living in a war zone.

I didn’t want to think about what happened if…

Stop it, I told myself.

“You’ve seen Florence?” I asked. “Told her goodbye?”

“Yeah.” He nodded and shifting restlessly on the chair. “We had lunch, talked a bit. She’s…not happy.” Cane lifted a shoulder and looked down into his glass, swirling it around before lifting it to his nose to breathe in the scent.

I opened my mouth, the question burning on my lips. But before I could ask it, fate intervened and a man approached, smiling broadly at Cane in his uniform.

I tuned them out as the man began to ask Cane questions about his upcoming deployment. I finished drinking my second whiskey and was well into my third when the server appeared with another bottle.

“Enjoy it on me, boys, with my compliments.”

I looked up as the man who’d been chatting with Cane nodded at us before stepping away. Studying the bottles with bemusement, I slanted a look at Cane.

“He was in the Great War.” Cane lifted a shoulder. “I keep getting a lot of that.”

“People in the Great War?”

“No.” He laughed. “People coming up and talking to me.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t look so friendly.” Tipping the glass toward him, I gestured toward my face. “Look at people the way I do and they’ll be less likely to talk to you.”

“It’s not just the way you look at people.” He shrugged again as he pushed back from the table. “It’s the fact that you’re an asshole, even on your best days. On your worst?”

He snagged the bottle of scotch and said, “I’m going to go shoot some pool. You want to come?”

* * *

“Ain’t like anybody is really going to miss me.”

The sound of the balls breaking was an almost violent rejection in my mind. But not violent enough. I was tempted to hurl my cue stick across the room, then follow it up with the empty bottle of scotch. We’d gone through the second bottle, and I’d been deliberating on order another when Cane told me it was a good thing he’d been selected for the draft.

We’d been talking off and on about anything and everything and nothing in particular. Vietnam had come up more than once.

“Shut up,” I said, grabbing my glass and staring into the last two remaining inches of whiskey. Did I ask for another bottle?

The answer should be no.

Somehow, I knew that wasn’t going to be the case though. When the waitress poked her head into the door not even a minute later, I didn’t try, not for a second, to resist temptation. “Yeah, bring another bottle,” I told her.

Cane hadn’t said anything else about whether or not I should be drinking—and it was probably a good thing because we’d likely end up fighting over it.

I knew I shouldn’t be drinking.

Most of my life could be measured in shouldn’t.

No point in changing things up now.

“I mean, come on. Why shouldn’t it be me?” Cane gave me a self-righteous glare and shook his head. “It’s not like I’m one of these poor slobs who’s got a girl waiting around for me and I’m sure as hell not planning on going to school to be a doctor or something like that. I’ve got one thing I’m good at, and I’ve already made a couple of movies. I’m not even the best Hollywood has to offer.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

I spun away and hurled my glass at the way.

It shattered, sending tiny little splinters flying out.

A startled cry rang out a second later and when I looked back, it was to see the waitress standing in the doorway, the scotch I’d asked for on a tray. She was pale, eyes big and dark in her face as she looked from me to Cane.

Cane gave me a dark look before moving toward her. “Excuse my friend, ma’am. He’s upset because I’m shipping out soon.”

Face hot, I averted my gaze, but that didn’t help. I saw all the tiny bits of glass lying on the ground like diamonds, and my face went red.

“Here.”

Cane shoved the bottle at me and I caught it out of reflex, but now I had no desire to open it. No more desire to lose myself to a blanket of a drunken dog.

“Cane, I…”

“We can’t spend the rest of our lives partying like we did when we were nineteen years old, Glenn,” Cane said, ignoring me.

Carefully, I put the bottle down and turned, ready to meet his eyes and apologize. Then I’d go out there and apologize to the waitress.

But Cane was bent over the pool table and in a series of methodical motions, he went about cleaning house. He was more than a little drunk himself, but it didn’t show in how he sent ball after ball into the pockets, announcing which would go where as he continued to speak.

“I’m not a messed-up, angry kid anymore, Glenn. And my life doesn’t suck half of much now that I’ve figured some things out.”

Another ball.

“Sure, it would have been nice if I could have found a girl, fallen in love, settled down…” He laughed a little as he moved around the table, then indicated the red ball. It went sailing smoothly across the green surface and he raised his eyes to meet mine. “Gotten married. Hey, even bums like us can have that dream, right?”

Oh, fuck.

He sent two more balls home when his next move and lined up another. “Spent too many chasing after things that didn’t matter. Lived harder, lived faster. Chased one woman after another. Life just sucked. Then I crashed and burned.” He sent two more balls home, then lined up the final shot. Cane looked up at me then, a sardonic smile on his lips. “You hit rock bottom, that’s supposed to be the worst. You start climbing back up, right? That’s what I did.”

He finished up the game and laid his cue stick across the table.

“But you, my friend…” Cane shook his head and started toward me. “You find new ways to hit a new sort of bottom. It’s like you rediscover rock bottom over and over, time after time. And even when you’re given a fucking rope to climb back up? You ignore it.”

“This ain’t about me,” I said, glaring at him.

“The fuck it ain’t.” Cane shook his head. “You’ve been sober for how long? Then out of the blue, you decide to get wasted. Why is that?”

“Because my best friend is about to ship out to Vietnam!” I bellowed.

“It’s more than that.” Cane grabbed the front of my shirt. “You’ve been a mess ever since you found out that Maya came back. You just won’t admit it!”

I jerked away from him. “Don’t.” Pointing at him, I shook my head and backed away. “I don’t want to talk about her. That’s…she’s…we’re over. That part of my life is over.”

“If you were over, you wouldn’t have gone storming over there and gotten so worked up that Florence’s guy Harrison almost had to toss you out on your ass. He’s so laid back nothing gets to him, but you pissed him off. You seriously pissed him off.”

Guilt nipped a bite out of my ass, but I shrugged it off. “What, did Maya complain to Florence?”

“No.” Cane took an unsteady step over to the water he’d requested earlier and drained half of it. “I was over there yesterday and Astor told me about it. Those two are likes peas in a pod.”

“Astor and Maya?” Jealousy was the next emotion to bite me, and it was harder to ignore that demon than guilt.

“No, you dumb-ass. Astor and Harrison. Harrison was really upset with you. If you were over that part of your life, you wouldn’t have been upset by her.” Cane gave me a taunting look. “She just wouldn’t have mattered.”

“Yeah, I should just not care about the hell she put me through.”

I went to go around him and he caught my arm, jerking me back around to face him. I was still surprised by just how much muscle those months in the military had managed to pack on him.

“If you were over her, if that part of your life was done, yeah, you should just not care.” Cane’s brows rose. “I mean, how many other girls do you know have tried to fuck you over? Plenty of them, right? I’ve had my share. Did you track them down and get them so worked up they were in tears by the time you were done?”

Another nasty, hot bite of guilt. “Enough.” I wrenched free of him. “What the fuck is your problem?”

“You’re not over her!” Cane shook his head. “You’re wasting your life with that cold-blood bitch, Kim after three years of waiting for Maya—and now she’s here and you want to act like she doesn’t matter?”

“She doesn’t.” I couldn’t let her matter. I couldn’t.

“Yeah?” Cane backed up, nodded slowly. “Well…fine. That means…”

He turned away.

“That means what?”

“Nothing, man.” He picked up his keys from the table near the door. “Thanks for the…going away party.”

“Hey!” This time, I was the one to grab his arm and jerk him around. The faint glint in his eyes should have warned me.

I shouldn’t have let him push me, I knew it. But nobody could hit the buttons the way a friend could.

“It’s okay, man. It’s cool. Actually, better than.” He smiled now. “I was pissed off you’d upset her and now…well, now I know why.”

“What in the fuck are you talking about?” I grabbed him by the lapels of his shirt and dragged him forward, shaking him.

With a crooked grin, he caught my wrists. “Hey, calm down. I’ll leave you alone about it. I just…well, now that I know you’re over her, I can give her a call before I head out.”

“A call…” Blinking, I let him go and backed away. “What is this shit?”

“I like Maya.” He said it bluntly and without apology. “I was pissed at her for what she did to you, but I talked to her…hell, you did, too. You know it wasn’t her fault, but apparently, that doesn’t matter to you. Since you don’t want to reconnect…I’m going to see if I can…” He ran his tongue across his teeth. “Connect.”

He reached out to clap me on the shoulder.

I slammed my fist into his face as hard as I could.

The impact sent him to the ground.

“You…you son of a bitch.”

He sat up, groaning. “Yeah, you prick. Tell me again how you’re over her.”

Instead, I flipped him off and stormed past him.

“You need to go and see her, Glenn. Give her a chance to explain.”

“Leave me the hell alone, Cane.”

I hit the door and didn’t stop until I was outside. That was when I realized we’d come in his car, but I didn’t turn around to go back in. I’d walk or call a cab. Anything to avoid going back in there and facing him.

If I did that, I’d have to think about what he’d said…and the very fact that he just might be right.