I STORMED OUT of the restaurant, blindly walked down the boardwalk, and ignored Will’s yells.

Cameras flashing.

Whispering.

Pointing.

I tripped on my flip flop again.

And ran like hell.

I ran until my legs burned.

Until the threat of people taking pictures of me faded as my legs created distance between me and them.

The minute my feet hit the sand, I grabbed my sandals and ran harder.

The salty ocean air hit me in the face, mixing with the mist from the waves. Two years ago, my only goal had been to reinvent myself and ruin friends in the process. I was willing to do anything to be on top again.

Two years ago, I wouldn’t have just kissed Will I would have seduced him for the cameras.

I would have taken body shots and laughed while he licked tequila and salt off my stomach.

Now the idea of doing any of that for anyone other than myself, made me sick.

My toes squished into the white sand.

I was finally able to breathe. Finally able to think.

I fell to my knees.

The tears came.

Because it was impossible to hold them back anymore. What the hell was I doing? Maybe I didn’t belong in the industry anymore. I wasn’t tough enough for it. Because the minute I wrapped that hard shell around myself, all of the other bad things came with it.

The lies. The drugs. The late nights. The jealousy. The competitiveness. The ruthlessness.

I didn’t know how to separate the two because they’d been so closely intertwined for such a long time.

My tears dropped onto the sand, only to be washed away by the tide as it slowly crept past my body, soaking into my clothes, pressing the drenched fabric against my shivering skin.

“If you’re thinking about drowning yourself, might I suggest a pool? A hell of a lot warmer,” came Demetri’s familiar voice.

My head jerked up.

His blond hair looked sticky against his sweaty forehead. He was wearing tennis shoes and shorts, and had sweat running down the middle of his ridiculously tanned and built chest.

“You run now?” I blurted.

He grinned. “Yeah well, apparently when you get older you can’t eat shit every day and not see it turn into more shit on your body, plus it helps with the anxiety.”

“You hate exercise.”

“I hate birds too, but actually threw a fry to one this morning. I think of it as my first steps toward peace.”

I laughed through my tears. “Well, you’ve officially shocked me. I never thought I’d see the day where Demetri Daniels would run on purpose or actually get close enough to a bird to feed it.”

He knelt on the ground next to me. “It was a really small bird, pretty sure it had a broken wing, I would have kicked its ass in a fight.”

A smile tugged my lips, “You’re making yourself sound worse, you get that right?”

He shrugged and sat down in the wet sand next to me. “So, you thinking about going out there?”

“I’d survive maybe two minutes. I’m more of a drowner than a floater, and the water’s frigid.”

“Not to mention the jellyfish.” He nodded seriously and then cracked a smile. “Hey wait—”

I rolled my eyes and gave him a shove.

“That’s it!” He snapped his fingers. “Isn’t this the exact spot where you got stung by a jellyfish and Jay offered to piss on you?”

“Yeah,” I croaked. “I think he was looking forward to whipping his impressive appendage out more than peeing on me.”

Demetri laughed. “Yeah, probably.”

The tide continued to creep toward us. “You don’t have to sit with me.”

“I know, but I figured it was time for our moment.”

“Our moment?”

“Oh, wow, did I totally misread this?” The goofy grin came back. He’d chilled out a lot since getting married. Time used to be this thing with Demetri; he was always doing something, always busy, always buzzing from group to group, place to place, until he met her. It’s like she was the calm to the storm of everything inside of him.

The lighthouse to his crashing ship.

Must be nice.

“It’s been a hard day, that’s all.”

“Most days are hard when you don’t have drugs, let’s be honest.” He elbowed me, smile gone. “But if I could make a guess, I’d say you staring sadly out at the horizon has more to do with a certain person than drugs.”

I nodded, more tears slipped free, and then Demetri’s arm was wrapped around me as I sobbed against his chest. “I ruined him.”

“No.” Demetri squeezed me so hard it was difficult to suck in a breath. “He let you.”

“But it was my fault. I chose drugs over him, I chose me over him, I chose my career over him, I chose fame over him, I chose his—” I choked on the word. “—I chose his best friend over him.”

There.

Released into the universe.

Across the waves.

All the tension left me.

“Does he know why?”

“Would it matter?” I snapped, “Pain is pain, Demetri, no matter the reason behind it, it still hurts like a bitch.”

“So,” Demetri whispered as the waves crashed against my knees. “Let it hurt.” He released me and said a bit louder. “Let it burn.”

“But—”

“No.” He pressed a hand over my mouth. “Sometimes you have to let it consume you — the bad choices, the mistakes, let yourself walk through them so you can realize the most important thing about yourself.”

“What’s that?”

He stood. “That you won. That you aren’t defeated, that no matter how bad it hurts, you can still feel. Sometimes the best days for someone who’s spent their life numb — is to hurt, because we are never more alive than when we feel pain, kick the living hell out of it, and come out on the other side.”

I blinked up at him and shook the confusion from my head. “Who are you?”

He dusted the sand off of his clothes and stretched. “He doesn’t hate you, Ang.” He put the ear buds back in and locked eyes with me. “He hates himself for not being enough — for not seeing it. He hates himself for the reminder that in the end, he couldn’t save you. It’s not you he sees when he’s angry — it’s his own damn self.”

He ran off.

Leaving me in the sand.

With all of my thoughts reeling.

Because Demetri Daniels, a guy who I’d never taken seriously once in my life, had just pulled on a shrink hat and given me more insight than someone his age should have.

Clothes drenched, I stood and walked slowly back to the boardwalk.

It didn’t surprise me that Will’s car was long gone. Just like it wouldn’t have surprised me if he was there stalking, making sure I wasn’t doing anything I shouldn’t be.

My thoughts were jumbled as I made the short trek up the sidewalk and toward the beach houses that lined the cliff.

And when I finally made it to the house I was sharing with Will, I turned the knob and was met with his body before I could even utter a hello.

“Where the hell have you been?” His cold eyes took in my wet jeans and equally wet shirt before he blew out a curse and held the door open wider for me to step inside.

“I’m going to take a shower.” I squished past him, my flip-flops making embarrassing squishing noises against the hard wood.

“I asked you a question.” His voice was calm, but I knew the truth, he was pissed, he was angry, and maybe if what Demetri said was true — he was worried.

“On the beach.” I sighed. “Thinking.”

“Okay.” He exhaled. “Okay.”

I stopped walking.

Pain overtook the anger that had earlier been boiling up inside, it even replaced the sadness.

“Don’t.” I shook my head then turned around, my gaze locking on his chocolate brown eyes. “Don’t ever touch me like that again.”

His face fell. “Ang—”

“Promise me!”

He hung his head. “I promise.”

“Good.”

“Is it?” He crossed his arms.

“I’m taking a shower.”

“You already said that.”

“Will, for one night could you just…” I closed my eyes I couldn’t look at him, didn’t want to see the anger I was so used to seeing when we talked. “Be someone other than my agent?”

“Like what?”

My feet took me to the bathroom, I needed the space between us, the certainty that he wouldn’t reach for me again, that I wouldn’t let my weakness take over if he tried to kiss me. “A friend.”

“We’ve never been friends.” He said in a low voice that had my entire body on high alert even when I hated myself for it.

“Well,” I grabbed the bathroom doorknob and twisted. “There’s a first time for everything.”

I shut the door behind me and leaned against it.

Breathing ragged.

Chest heavy.

We were two days in on a ninety-day shoot.

And already at each other’s throats. Confused. Angry.

For once in my life I had no plan of action.

And rather than feel good — I felt even more lost.

Because I’d just done something so stupid I wanted to go back in time and ask for a re-do.

I’d just asked the only man I’d ever loved if we could be friends, as if I could actually handle it emotionally.

And he hadn’t said no.

I slid to the cold tile floor and rested my head against my knees again.

It would be a miracle if I could survive him again.