Twenty four hours. It had been twenty four hours since Abby had sent Mason her book and she hadn’t heard a thing from him. She’d barely slept for worrying and now she paced the hotel suite, wringing her hands like some fretful, historical woman waiting to see if the man she fancied would call on her. She threw her hands in the air, angry at herself for being such a ninny. She should just go to him and demand to know what he thought.

That’s if he’d even read the thing. Maybe he’d seen her name in the address bar of his email and simply deleted it without giving it another thought?

Crap. Crap. Crap.

Maybe she should go and see him.

He thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door and she drew in a quick, startled breath. Was that him? Had he come to have it out with her? She looked down at the dowdy dress she was wearing. His rejection of her had pushed her back into her old habits and all her lovely new clothes were still back at her apartment. It hadn’t felt right to wear them since they’d broken up. She’d bought them to wear for Mason and it felt like a betrayal to wear them now that he was out of her life. Another misguided notion, but one that she couldn’t seem to get past. Those clothes had been for the new woman that had been developing because of Mason’s love. Now she felt like the old Abby, the one who had no style, no confidence.

There was another knock at the door, reminding her that she was still standing in the middle of the room ruminating instead of opening the door to see who was there. She swallowed thickly, smoothed her hands over her dress and walked hesitantly over to the door. With a last deep breath, she opened the door and blinked.

“Oh, don’t look so disappointed,” Harper said, pushing passed her and into the suite, Piper’s hand clutched in hers. Bailey followed them in, giving Abby a small, sad, smile.

“Hey, hun,” Bailey said, “How’re you doing?”

Abby felt tears prickle behind her eyes and sniffed. Bailey folded her into a hug and then the dam broke. No one had ever been there for her to cry on when she felt rattled by the world and now, in the space of twenty four hours, she’d had two. First Declan had let her sniffle all over his expensive suit coat and now Bailey.

“I’m sorry I’m such a mess,” Abby sobbed, “I just don’t know what to do.”

Bailey pulled her over to the couch and they all sat down. Harper set Piper up with some colouring and a juice box and then went to the bar and made the three of them a drink. When she came back over and shoved a glass in Abby’s hands, she gave her a stern look.

“Spill the beans,” she said, “Brooks would only tell me that you and Mason broke up, but not the whys and wherefores. I need details.”

“Exactly,” Bailey said, “If you don’t tell us what happened, then how can we help?”

Abby didn’t know where to start. These two didn’t know about Mason’s past and it wasn’t her place to tell them, but she did want their help on what to do, so maybe she could explain without breaking Mason’s trust.

“I’m an author,” she said, starting with coming clean about herself. She had lied to her two friends and she felt bad about it now and hoped they wouldn’t hate her too. Both their eyes widened at her confession. “I write under a pen name and for the last few years I’ve been writing horror.”

Bailey blinked and it was almost comical. The shock on their faces was plain to see and Abby took a breath to continue.

“I don’t tell people what I do because, well, there’s some protection in being behind a pen name. Most people don’t understand why I write what I do and it’s just easier to treat that part of my life as belonging to someone else.”

“So Mason found out…?” Harper urged.

“I told him, almost at the very beginning. It turns out that I was one of his favourite authors.” Abby smiled shyly. “But, you see, he had this weird effect on me. Whenever I was around him, I’d get really inspired to write, even before we were a couple. Just seeing him in the hallway would have my brain spinning storylines. He became my muse.”

“Like in Xanadu?” Bailey breathed.

Abby smiled at her, “Sort of.” She sobered. “The thing is, I had begun to write a profile of Mason, just cataloguing the little things about him that I’d gleaned. As our relationship developed, he opened up to me and told me some really private things, which I put into the profile.” Her friends gasped and she couldn’t look at them. “I was never going to use it for anything public. The profile was merely for me, a way of capturing my muse so when the writing got tough, I could look at it and feel inspired again. Mason found it on my computer and felt betrayed. He thought I was writing about him, that I was going to expose all his secrets.”

“Understandable,” Harper said.

“I know,” Abby nodded, “But he wouldn’t let me explain. He yelled at me and stormed out and I haven’t seen him since.”

“Have you tried again to explain it to him?” Bailey asked gently.

Abby nodded again, the tears welling again and falling over her lashes. “I sent him an email explaining what he saw and then I attached the book file for him to read to prove to him that nothing he told me was in it. But I still haven’t heard from him.”

Harper stood. “We are going to need ice cream and chocolate and cake.”

“And booze,” Bailey added.

“And possibly a baby sitter,” Harper whispered shooting a glance at Piper who was happily drawing. She checked her watch. “Let me call Brooks.”

Abby settled back into the couch as Bailey called room service and Harper called Brooks and for the first time since Mason had stormed out of her apartment, she felt hope.

Banging on his door. It woke him out of the deepest sleep he’d had since he and Abby broke up. He listened for a moment wondering if the inconsiderate arsehole who’d woken him up would go away if he pretended he wasn’t home.

“We know you’re in there,” Declan shouted through the door and he was glad that his neighbour wasn’t home.

“We have alcohol,” Jonathon added.

Mason swung his legs over the side of the bed and rubbed his eyes. A quick glance at the time told him he’d had a solid eight hours sleep, more than he usually got most nights. With a heave, he stood and stretched, ignoring the increasingly loud thumps on his door and inappropriate yelling from his friends on his doorstep.

He reefed the door open and glared at his friends. “I’m up so shut the fuck up already.”

They pushed passed him and into his apartment and he closed the door before turning to them with a raised eyebrow.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked, “Shouldn’t you all be at work?”

“We heard you needed some bro time,” Brooks said, “So we brought the bros.”

“And the beers,” Hunter said.

He wandered over and sat down. They had gathered on his couch and were already cracking open beers and handing them around. He took one, although it felt weird to be drinking when he’d only just woken up, even if it was two o’clock in the afternoon.

“Declan told you,” he said with resignation. He’d hoped to not have to do the relationship debrief with his friends. The last thing he wanted was to talk about or think about Abby.

“Yeah, he told us,” Brooks said, “And I got a call from Harper not long ago asking me to pick up Piper because the girls were going to get sloppy drunk and talk shit about you. She didn’t think it would be a healthy environment for our daughter, especially since Piper has a soft spot for you.”

Mason grunted in reply, and then played Brooks’ words through his mind again. “So where is Piper?”

“Babysitter,” Brooks said with a grin, “I figured it was only fair that if the girls were getting sloppy drunk, we could too.”

“I’m not going to talk shit about Abby,” Mason warned and the other four laughed.

“We’re not hear to talk about her,” Declan said, “We’re here to tell you what a dipshit you are for letting her go. We are all Team Abby.”

His four friends, the four men in his life that had stood by him through some of his darkest days raised a beer and chanted ‘Team Abby’.

“Thanks for all the fucking support. You can go now, shitheads.”

They laughed.

“Not until you tell us what you are going to do to get her back,” Hunter said, raising his beer to his lips and taking a long swallow.

“Seriously, dude,” Jonathon said with a shake of his head, “What were you thinking?”

Mason stared at his confirmed bachelor friend. He thought at least Jonathon would be on his side, the guy had no intention of ever settling down.

“You too?” he asked with a shake of his head.

Jonathon shrugged, “Abby’s good for you, even I can see that.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Mason said, slumping back in his chair and taking a drink of the cold ale, “I think I’ve fucked it up too completely to fix.”

“But have you at least tried?” Declan asked.

Mason didn’t answer because he didn’t know if the email he sent this morning was going to do anything to win Abby back.

“What happened, man? Everything seemed to be going so well.” This from Brooks and the compassion in his eyes broke Mason.

“I was an idiot,” he said, “I told her everything and then didn’t trust her enough. I accused her of betraying me. She’s an author, did you guys know?” Everyone except Declan looked stunned. “She writes under a pen name, A.A. Abernathy.”

“The horror writer? That’s Abby?” Jonathon asked, his eyes wide.

Mason nodded. “Remember when I first met her and I told you she was doing some suspicious shit, like dragging Persian carpets down to the dumpster?” They nodded. “Turns out they were pig carcasses. She was butchering them in her apartment, working out how you’d go about dismembering a human body for her books.”

“Can’t you just Google that shit?” Hunter asked.

“She wanted to know what it felt like. Had a local butcher teach her how to do it.”

“Fuck,” Declan breathed, “I didn’t know that bit.”

“Anyway,” Mason said waving his hand in the air to clear the previous conversation like he was wiping off a whiteboard. “I thought she was going to use my life in her next book and I…reacted badly.”

“He didn’t give her time to explain,” Declan went on, “Just kicked her to the curb and walked away.”

“You thought Abby would abuse your trust like that?” Hunter asked, “She just doesn’t seem like the type.”

“I was wrong, I know that now, but at the time I had visions of Monique finding Abby and setting up the whole thing and then a tell-all book coming out. I flipped out, okay, I over-reacted.”

“So have you apologised yet?” Brooks asked, “Because I don’t think my fiancée would be getting sloppy drunk and talking smack about you if you’d already apologised.”

Mason heaved a sigh. “No, I haven’t apologised to Abby yet. She sent me an email explaining everything and a copy of her book, the new one she’s written.”

“And?” they seemed to say it all in unison.

“And the character in it is nothing like me. It’s a fucking good book too. She said if I thought she’d taken too many liberties she would destroy it and it would never see the light of day.”

“She trusted you with that?” Jonathan asked.

“Yeah,” Mason said, hanging his head, “I couldn’t believe it either.”

“So what are you going to do?” Declan asked.

“I’ve already done it,” Mason replied, “I sent it to her editor and told her to publish the damned book because it was the best thing I’ve ever read.”

“And what about Abby?” Hunter asked.

Mason shrugged, “I have no idea how to get her back or if she will even have me back. I was going to propose to her before all this shit went down, now I don’t know if she’ll even talk to me.”

“We’ve got to make a plan,” Declan said, all business now, “You need to win her back, apologise, grovel, promise her the world if you have to. You need to marry this woman, Mason before someone else does.”

Harper looked up from her phone. “We need to move this party to my place,” she said.

“No, that’s okay,” Abby said, “You guys go, I don’t feel like going anywhere.”

“We’re not leaving you alone tonight,” Harper said, sharing a look with Bailey. “I need to get home because the babysitter has to leave, but that doesn’t mean we can’t just continue this…” she spread her hands around indicating the remains of their room service binge, “…at my house.”

“I thought Brooks had Piper?” Abby asked, not wanting to leave the security of the nest she’d built in the hotel suite.

“Brooks called a babysitter. He and the boys went to talk to Mason.”

“So everybody knows what a fool I’ve been,” she said, picking at imaginary lint on the blanket that was wrapped around her.

“Nobody thinks you’re a fool,” Bailey said, “I’m pretty sure all the guys are on Team Abby.” She gave Abby a sweet smile, but it only made her feel worse.

“I don’t want that,” she said, “I don’t want people taking sides. Those guys are Mason’s friends, they should be standing by him, not ganging up on him.”

Bailey and Harper shared another look.

“We all love Mason,” Bailey said, “And the guys have a special bond between them that can’t be broken, not even by a woman. But we have all also come to love you. We like you and Mason together, we think you’re good for him. He’s changed so much since you guys have been together and I’m sure they’re reminding him of that.”

“And telling him he’s an idiot for letting you go,” Harper added.

“But I’m the one who stuffed up. I’m the one who broke the rules. He can’t still love me after what I did. He can’t love me if he doesn’t trust me.”

“But you didn’t actually betray his trust, Abby,” Harper said.

“He thinks I did and that’s all that matters.”

“And one mistake makes you a pariah?”

Abby didn’t answer, but in her mind she screamed ‘yes!’. That’s all it took, one mistake, and love was withdrawn. How could Mason love her when her own flesh and blood didn’t? Her aunt used love like a carrot on a stick and it always seemed just out of reach. Abby had never been quite good enough to reach it, she would always fail, fall at the last hurdle and then her aunt would withdraw from her. As cruel as she knew it was, the fact still remained that she had never been able to earn the love of someone who was supposed to love her anyway so how could a man like Mason love her at all?

She had resigned herself a long time ago to never finding love, she just didn’t think of herself as loveable. Being with Mason over the past weeks had been a nice interlude, a pleasant dream that she hadn’t wanted to wake up from. For that moment in time she had felt loved and appreciated and wanted, but it had been destined to fail because Abby would always mess up. She never could keep to the rules and when you stepped out of those rules, people didn’t love you anymore.

“Come on,” Harper said, standing to her feet. “We’re going to my place. I have food and alcohol and I am not leaving you here alone to wallow.”

Abby allowed herself to be dragged along, even though she would really have rather stayed at the hotel and eaten herself into a carbohydrate coma. But these were her friends and if she was going to keep them as her friends, she needed to follow their rules. Losing Mason was hard enough, she didn’t want to lose these two as well. So she let them cajole her into going with them, if only to keep their friendship for another day.

Harper packed an overnight bag for her and Bailey called an Uber and then they were at Harper and Brooks’ house, a two storey mini-mansion in the posh estate outside the city. Abby was impressed as they walked into the high ceilinged foyer. She wasn’t a pauper, but she didn’t think she’d ever come this close to such effortless wealth as displayed in this house. She knew that all of the five men were billionaires, but neither Mason’s nor Hunter and Bailey’s homes had made the fact so obvious.

“Brooks built this place for his first wife,” Harper said, standing beside her and looking around the open space, “She left him before they even moved in and it sat empty for five years.”

“It’s beautiful,” Abby breathed.

“It is,” Harper replied, “But we’d be just as happy in a two bedroom cottage. It’s not a building that makes a home, it’s what you fill it with and we try really hard to make sure that this house is filled with love.”

Harper left Abby standing there while she went to relieve the babysitter and check on Piper, the words she’d spoken turning around and around in Abby’s head. She could feel the love in this home and it made her eyes prickle. She remembered this, she remembered what it was like to live in a home filled with love. When her parents were alive, they’d loved her unconditionally, but it was so long ago and for such a short amount of time that it hadn’t really stuck. She had now lived without that parental love three times as long as she had lived with it and it was hard to remember what it had been like. Her memories of being wholly and completely loved had been wiped away by the many years of having to earn even just the smallest kind word or touch of affection.

“Let’s get you a drink,” Bailey said, putting an arm around her and leading her into a large sitting room.

Before Bailey could ply her with alcohol, Abby’s phone rang. She dug through her purse to get it and slid her finger across the screen to answer.

“Juliet,” she said, surprised, “Isn’t it a bit late for you to be working?”

“You’re my last call of the day,” she said, cheerily.

“Okay,” Abby said slowly, “What can I do for you?”

“Oh, honey, it’s what I can do for you. I received an email today from someone insisting that I publish your new novel because, in his words, ‘it’s the best fucking thing I’ve read in a lifetime and if you don’t publish it then you’re a moron.’”

Abby sat heavily on a couch, not quite able to believe what she was hearing. “He wants you to publish it?” she asked to clarify what she was hearing.

“He was pretty damned forceful about it,” Juliet said, her tone breezy, “And I have to say, I agree with him. I’ve read it, from front to back and I know this is going to be your break-out novel.”

Abby exhaled long and slow. She felt like she’d been holding her breath for nearly two days, since she’d emailed the book to Mason. Juliet kept speaking, but Abby didn’t hear the rest of her words, she was far too caught up in the fact that Mason had emailed her book to her editor and given her the go ahead to publish. Did that mean he had forgiven her?

A commotion at the door distracted her and she looked up to see Mason standing there, his blue eyes boring into her.

“Juliet,” she said, “I have to go.”