Julian arrives before I can even attempt to salvage this clusterfuck of a situation. He gives Lola a kiss on the cheek and lingers with a hug too long to be considered friendly. I want to knock his teeth out when he slaps me on the back in greeting.

He’s one of my oldest friends, but he’s always had a hard-on for Lola. Out of respect for Ryan, he never acted on it. But who’s to say he won’t change his mind the same way I did. I’m already regretting what I told her about keeping it under wraps. When I catch him eye fucking her across the dim bar, I want him to know everything.

I want him to know that she rides my dick when I tell her to. I want him to know that I’ve been inside of her in almost every imaginable way and that she fulfills every filthy request I make of her. But Lola is giving me the cold shoulder now and laughing with him like they are the best of fucking friends and I’m so goddamned irritable this isn’t going to end well.

“How have you been, man?” Julian asks. He’s eyeing the drink in front of me, the one I still haven’t touched, and Lola is too. They want me to fail. They both expect me to give in, and worst of all is that Julian is hovering too close to her, sending out the wrong body language. He thinks he needs to protect her from me, and what a load of horseshit that is.

My fingers trace the rim of the glass, and they both watch, judging me like the hypocrites they are while they imbibe their own poisons. What point would it serve to prove them wrong when they’ve already made up their minds?

I bring the glass to my lips, and it hovers there while I meet Lola’s eyes. Fuck Julian and whatever he thinks. It’s Lola that matters. It’s Lola that wants me to prove I’m still the same prick she’s always known me to be. I haven’t even taken a sip yet, and she’s already written me off. In her head, she’s tarred me as the addict and the loser.

It occurs to me that it doesn’t matter what I do or say. In her eyes, I will only ever be that Daire.

The liquid burns my lips but doesn’t pass over my tongue. It isn’t necessary because Lola dragged her attention back to Julian the second I actually contemplated draining the glass. Maybe it’s a setback, or maybe she’s right. This is who I am, and there’s no point trying to change it.

It’s been a year without a drink, but what’s a year in a lifetime of fuckups? If I throw it all away now, then that year has been for nothing. Neither of them want to acknowledge me, but it doesn’t matter. Any addict worth his salt would say you can’t get sober for anyone else but yourself.

I pour the contents of my glass into an empty bottle on the table beside us, and the rest of the night continues in a spectacularly fucked up fashion. I brought Lola here to do karaoke with me, but instead, I’m sitting at the table alone while she’s up on stage with Julian.

She hasn’t spared me a glance since she thinks I took a drink. And yet she can’t stop laughing at everything Julian says or declaring how much she misses him and wishes he’d move back to Chicago. I want to lay the fucker out, and I’ve never hated my friend as much as I do right now. When he attempts to inject Ryan into the conversation, it’s where I draw the line.

“He would have loved this, being here with the three of us.”

“He would,” Lola agrees.

I want to rain all over their parade, and I do. “He would have hated it. Let’s be fucking honest about it, at least. We don’t need to kid ourselves. Ryan would have been passed out in the bathroom.”

Lola glares at me. “Well, you would know. Neither one of you could ever control yourselves.”

“Still can’t, apparently,” I reply.

She stands up and smooths out her dress. “I’m going to the ladies room.”

When she leaves, Julian quirks a brow in my direction. “Want to tell me what’s going on here?”

“Sure,” I agree. “I just have to take a piss first.”

I leave him there alone while I follow Lola to the bathrooms. She tries the door on the ladies room first and then moves to the unisex. When the handle turns in her palm, I give her a little shove from behind and lock us both in the bathroom together.

“What the hell, Daire?” She’s scowling at me, and my dick is so hard I can’t be nice to her right now.

“I want to fuck your pretty face.”

She rolls her eyes and plants her hands on her hips. “You’re drunk.”

“It’s what you wanted. Isn’t it?”

She flinches at the vitriol in my voice, and I don’t care.

“You wanted all of this, if I remember correctly,” I tell her. “You set the time limit, and as far as I can tell the clock’s not up yet. Or is it, LB?”

She bites her lip and bows her head in submission, just like old times. She doesn’t know when to say no. She doesn’t know how to do anything other than give in to that compulsion inside of her head.

“You want to please someone, Lola? Then you can start by pleasing my dick.”

“Why right now?” she asks. “Julian is waiting for us. And we’re in a bar. In a bathroom…”

I unzip my pants and pull out my dick. “All I’m hearing is excuses. What I should be hearing is the sound you make when I’m balls deep in your throat.”

A part of me wants her to tell me to fuck off. That she’s better than this. She’s done with me for good. It would be the easiest thing and the best thing. But Lola never knows what’s right for her. She gets on her knees and opens her mouth.

I intentionally fuck up her pretty hair when I slide as deep as her mouth will take me. Lola doesn’t complain. She never complains. She takes it like a good girl, with mascara-stained tears leaking down the side of her face.

I really don’t need to direct her head, because she knows exactly what I like. She listens for cues and takes them well. Under any other circumstances, that would be exceptionally pleasing, but right now I want to punish her the way she’s always punishing me.

“I should come on your face,” I tell her.

She looks up at me with sad eyes and I gag her until she coughs. When I pull away, her lipstick is smeared, and her chin is covered in saliva. She’s messy and filthy and mine and I don’t know why she makes me do this.

“Stand up,” I order. “And turn around.”

She rises as gracefully as she can manage, but it isn’t necessary when there’s nobody here to see her shame. I flip up her dress and bend her over the toilet and get straight to the business of shoving my cock into her sopping wet cunt. It’s as dirty and appalling as it can get. If there’s a message to be received here, I’ve dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s as I fuck her over the dingy toilet seat, her face inches from the water.

The illicit encounter gets me off like nothing else ever has, and I make sure to stuff her full of my come. Her legs shake as I pull out and wipe my wet dick across her ass cheek, leaving my mark there too.

“This pussy is mine until you say stop, LB. Don’t forget that.”

When she turns to look at me, her eyes are a watery mess. She appears well used and well beaten down, and I swore I’d never do this to her again. But it’s what she expects. What she wants. And maybe now, she’ll do what’s best for her and never call me again.

I zip myself back up and leave the bathroom without another word. When I get back to the table, Julian studies me with shrewd eyes. “Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on now? Where’s Lola?”

“Probably cleaning herself up.”

His head looks like it’s about to implode and I’m immaturely satisfied by that notion. “I hope that doesn’t mean what I think it does.”

I smirk. “You mean that it’s my come dripping down her legs right now? If that’s what you thought, then yes.”

“You mother fucker.” He’s out of his chair and on top of me before I can give him any more ammunition.

When he takes the first swing, I let him have it. His fist hits me square in the eye, and the pain feels good. But not nearly as good as when I return and clock him in the jaw.

Security drags us out before we can really finish what we started, and Lola trails out behind the crowd of onlookers. When she looks at me, I know that she heard everything. She’s staring at me like I betrayed her. Like I’m the worst fucking thing that ever happened to her. And she’s probably right.

“I’m going home,” she says.

“Let me take you,” Julian offers.

She hugs her arms across her body. “Thank you, Julian. But I’ll just take a cab. I’m tired, and all I want to do is sleep.”

There are words I want to say, I’m just not sure exactly what they are. Nothing comes out of my mouth when they hug each other and make promises of a dinner with just the two of them later on. Lola gets into a cab and rides away without looking back, leaving Julian and I alone.

He sighs and paces along the sidewalk, scrubbing at his bruised jaw. “Ryan would fucking murder you if he knew what you were doing right now.”

“Well Ryan isn’t here, is he?”

Julian glances up at me and shakes his head. “Have you told her the truth yet?”

“She knows the only truth she needs to.”

“How long will you punish yourself, Daire?” he asks. “What will it take for you to move on with your life?”

“Why don’t you just fuck off with that bullshit. This is about Lola and the fact that I did what you never had the balls to do.”

He stops pacing and stares at me like I’m the biggest piece of garbage he’s ever known. It wouldn’t be far off, considering he was only ever friends with me because of Ryan.

“I never went after her because I respected Ryan,” he says. “That’s called loyalty, Daire. But you wouldn’t know anything about that.”

It’s time to take him down a notch. “Do you think Ryan gave a fuck about Lola?” I laugh. “The only thing Ryan cared about was getting high. Everything else was just a decoration in the landscape of his fucked-up life.”

Julian shakes his head. “I know what Ryan would have wanted for her, and it wasn’t this.”

“So what then?” I challenge. “Someone like you?”

“She doesn’t want me,” he answers. “For some reason that I’ll never be able to grasp, she’s always wanted you, Daire. But we both know that you aren’t capable of giving her what she needs.”

“I give her what she needs,” I answer lewdly.

“You can’t even take care of yourself,” Julian points out. “That’s a fact. And I saw the way Lola looked at you tonight. This isn’t just sex for her. That girl is in love with you.”

My chest feels like it’s caving in. “She doesn’t love me.”

Julian looks at me, and I know he believes what he’s telling me.

“She does. But eventually, Daire, she’s going to learn what’s best for her. And she’s going to realize that it isn’t you. So if you care about her at all, if you are even capable of that, then do both of you a favor. End it now.”