Jazz.

My favorite kind of music.

My mind was drunk the second I made it up the staircase to my apartment. I needed to clear my head and return it to the state of numbness I preferred it to stay in. Set up in my living room was a punching bag I used every day. I put on my boxing gloves and slam my hands against the punching bag, over and over again until I felt nothing.

Working out was my method of escapism, and even though I tried my best not to think, Jasmine Greene still slipped into the cracks of my mind between every kick, every punch, every set I completed.

She looked beautiful, but that wasn’t a surprise. I couldn’t get her eyes out of my head.

No. Stop, I told myself, punching the bag repeatedly.

There was no reason for me to think about her. She was a part of my past, and I didn’t live there anymore.

But that kiss…

Her lips…

Her taste…

Her touch…

“No,” I said aloud, hitting the bag repeatedly. When a knock sounded on my door, I swallowed hard. I took off the gloves and went to open it, half hoping I’d see Jasmine, half hoping I wouldn’t.

“What in the goddamn hell was that?!” Jason barked, charging into my apartment.

A sigh of relief washed through me upon seeing my best friend. I tossed my gloves back on and returned to hitting the punching bag.

“Hey, asshole! Speak up! What was that?” he demanded.

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, I don’t know—maybe I’m talking about the girl you just tongue-fucked down at the bar.”

“I didn’t tongue-fuck her,” I told him, building up a sweat.

“The hell you didn’t. You tongue-fucked her better than I actually screw my fiancée. Kelly would kill to be tongue-fucked like that!” he exclaimed, tossing his hands up in the air. “What just happened?”

“Nothing. It was just a girl I once knew.”

Jason jumped in front of the punching bag and cringed as my fist stopped inches away from his face. “I’m going to need you to stop your Avengers training and give me more details than that.”

“Remember when you were in Nebraska with your mom? And I told you I met a girl?”

“Yes, I fondly remember your hallucinations of the girl who didn’t exist.”

“Yeah, well, that was her.”

His jaw dropped. “Shut up.”

“What?”

“You can’t sit here and lie to me by telling me that was the type of girl you were pulling back in high school. No offense, buddy, but I remember you in high school, and you were just about the ugliest person I’d ever seen, besides myself,” he joked. “There’s no way in hell that girl was your girl.”

I shrugged. “She was.”

“Holy shit. She’s hot.”

I didn’t reply. I placed my hands on Jason’s shoulders, moved him to the side and went back to punching and kicking.

“Maybe she can be your plus-one to the wedding,” he joked, nudging me in the side.

“Nope.”

“Maybe she can be—”

“She’s nothing,” I cut him off. “I don’t even know her anymore.”

“That public tongue-fuck told a different story.”

“Yeah, well, I had an off moment.”

“Are you gonna see her again?”

I slammed my hand into the punching bag. “Nope.”

“Why not? Look, man, I know you got this whole ‘I hate the world and everything that exists’ emo phase going on, but…there was something there. There was—”

“Last time I saw her was right before K-Katie…” My voice trailed off, and I took a breath. “I won’t see her again.”

“Oh.” Jason frowned. “I see.” He shrugged his shoulders and gave me a pat on the back. “Well, at least you guys had one final good bang before calling it quits. What’s that like, anyway, huh? Having sex in public? I feel like I should bleach my bar tables.”

“Jason?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

“Okay.”

But of course, he kept talking, because Jason never knew how to shut up. “But you do need a date to the wedding.”

“I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. You’re the best man. How would it look having the best man not have a date to my wedding?”

“Um, like he doesn’t have a date?”

“Come on, Elliott. I can set you—”

“God, no,” I told him. “No more setups.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Is this because of Susie and her extra toe? Because I’ll be honest, I didn’t know she had an extra toe when I set you up with her.”

I smirked. “Just not interested.”

“Well, fine. You can come to my wedding dateless as long as you come to my bachelor party.”

“Dude, like I said downstairs, I’m not coming to your bachelor party.” I’d already told him that a million times, but he kept asking each day hoping I’d give in. After high school, Jason had gone off to college to join a fraternity and had some of the best years of his life. He met his fiancée, Kelly, at one of their frat parties sophomore year, and they’d been together ever since. Jason was infatuated with her. It didn’t take long for him to propose after they graduated, and ever since then, all he talked about was the wedding. He was an extreme groomzilla.

It wasn’t shocking to me, though. That was how Jason was about everything. When he did something—he did it big. When he fell in love, he fell hard. When he planned a wedding, he planned it huge—which was exactly why I didn’t want to go to his bachelor party. It was going to be extreme.

“You know your friends c-can’t stand me anyway,” I told him. “I’m not a party guy.”

“Yes, but I am a party guy, and I’ll party enough for us both. I just want you sitting right there beside me, being your lame-ass self daydreaming about macros and protein shakes.”

I wished I could agree to his request, but I couldn’t. I knew his friends would want to go hang out on Frenchmen Street, and I hadn’t been back there since the incident with Katie.

I was almost certain I’d never go back there.

“I’ll be at your wedding,” I promised him. “Standing right by your side.”

Jason groaned. “Okay, but if you could not look so hot and tempting, that would be great. It’s my time to shine, beer belly and all, okay? I better get back to work.”

As he walked away, he said one last time, “That Jasmine girl’s beautiful, though, Elliott—like, out of this world.”

I didn’t reply, but I knew he was right.