My entire weekend was wasted, hiding out in my apartment, checking my phone. Texting Gavin and getting no reply. He’d told me things would get crazy in the final days before they left on tour, but I’d thought he’d at least hit me back with a, Can’t talk, or something.

I send an SOS and pray.

Thank God.

Now, if I can somehow make it through the rest of this workday.

My father is on my last fucking nerve after all the shit over the weekend. The calls and nonstop insinuations that Brooks and I would make a “lovely couple” had me hiding under my fluffy covers, contemplating a last-minute trip to LA. Even if Gavin and the band had already left, I could have at least hung out with my brother. Maybe I could have even met his new boyfriend.

I close my office door and power through the rest of the afternoon with earbuds firmly planted and The UnBroken playing on repeat. Really, I’d give anything to just talk with Gavin. It will be a couple of months more until we see each other again. Already, this has been so much harder than I ever imagined.

Finn has a pint poured and on a coaster for me in the short minute it takes me to cross the room and dump my jacket on the back of a barstool.

“Thanks, but it’s a whiskey night after this.” I greet the redheaded bartender with a kiss to the cheek and hug my girls before draining half of the pint. It would be a crime to waste that beer.

“You know it’s only Monday, right? It can’t be considered a rough week until at least Wednesday—unless you get puked on,” Lis says.

“Or pissed on. Why do five-year-olds still pee their pants? I will never understand that shit.” Kate drops her empty glass to the bar top and shakes her head. “Makes me rethink the whole student-of-the-week thing and having them sit on the bench with me during story time.”

“This bad week started early, but I need to escape all things work related. I love what I do, I just hate … forget it. Tell me good things. How’s it going with your mystery man? I feel like I haven’t seen you since you were on your way out to meet him.” I give Kate the side-eye because, now that I think of it, I haven’t seen her much since then.

“Mmm … he’s good. Really fucking good,” she drawls, doing the eyebrow wiggle.

“Yeah? Is he the one to break your bad luck?”

“He might have—oh, you said ‘bad,’ not bed. Because, yeah, there might have been a bed sacrificed in the sake of what that man can do. Lawd have mercy.” Kate dramatically fans herself while Lis turns a ridiculous shade of red.

“Jesus, Katelyn. You’re embarrassing sweet, innocent Lis.” I dish the shit, thankful for the reprieve from my whirling brain. “So, do we get to meet him soon?”

“Finn, we need some fried food over here when you have a minute,” she calls down the bar. “Not gonna happen, darlin’. He’s gone already. He, um … he was here, visitin’ between deployments. He took off this mornin’ for one of the ’Stans— Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan—something like that. But it was lovely while it lasted.”

Lis looks as dumbfounded as I feel.

“How did this happen? Where did you even meet him?” I ask.

Kate chuckles and says, “Y’all know how you were asking about parent conferences? And if I met any hot, divorced dads? Well, you know Jake, right? I’ve told you about that little muffin and how all he talks about is his uncle and how he’s a soldier, protectin’ us all from the bad guys.” She has talked about that little guy tons. She claims not to have favorites, but I think she’s full of shit, and she has a super-special place in her heart for him. “Uncle Jack came and had lunch with Jake, and, Gawd, the way he squished that big ole body of his into the kindergarten lunch table, y’all just don’t even know. His jeans were doin’ overtime, stretched across his ass and—”

“Here’s your fry-up,” Finn interrupts, but I’m pretty sure we all know what Kate was getting at. “Gracyn, give us the deets on the shite at your office. I couldn’t believe I missed the lead-up.”

“You were there? Hell, you probably know more about it than me. I was schlepping our new clients around before a business dinner.” I heard bits of gossip about a walk-in client getting taken out of the lobby by a cop on Friday, but I hate the drama llamas and stay far away from that noise. “What were you doing over there anyway?”

“Erm, picking up the reports for Francie. I still don’t understand why he doesn’t just have you email them over. He needs to get on board with technology, or he’s going to go the way of the dinosaurs,” Finn grumbles, wiping down the bottles below the bar. “Christ though, that fight. You missed it then? It was spectacular, but the bloody cops arrested the wrong guy. It was bullshit, the whole thing.”

I snag a mozzarella stick off the platter of deep-fried fat and drag it through the vat of ranch. “Yeah? Why is that?”

Finn pulls a pint for a client down at the other end of the bar. When he’s back, he crosses his arms over his chest before answering, “The bougie little prat started the whole thing, going on about some girl or something. Don’t really know. I mean, what girl in her right mind would choose a whiny, uptight knob like him over the guitarist for The UnBroken? Keller never should have been arrested. It was absolutely arsed up.”

The food congeals in the back of my throat, and I have to fight to swallow it down. I couldn’t have heard that right. There’s no way. How did I not know this?

“You’re sure? It was Gavin Keller? The Gavin Keller?”

Lis and Kate scramble for their phones and start the inevitable search through Twitter, theBuzz, and every other entertainment news site. Search is probably too generous a term because the headlines they’re reading, the snippets I manage to process, are scathing and full of sensationalism and speculation. Shocking.

“Holy shit, he missed the first show. Tour musician stands in for Keller. Will this be a permanent change? Oh my Lawd, listen. Gavin Keller was arrested and detained stateside on assault charges. Speculation is that Keller is taking after bandmate Kane Newton and tapping that which can be tapped. Sorry, probably should have stopped before I hit that last part.” Kate shrugs apologetically.

“I need to go. I have to … is he still at the police station? What was he doing here? Why … why didn’t he call me?” The panic is real, coursing through my body. My heart is racing, hands shaking. I feel like I can’t breathe.

Is this a panic attack?

And, like a wave crashing into me, tumbling me face-first against the sand, it hits me. “That fucking bastard! He knew. He sat at that dinner, knowing full and well how pissed I would be. He fucking had his makeup done to hide the beatdown from Gavin. Backstabbing, slimy-ass dick, hiding that shit until after everything was official between our firm and his company. He … he … fuck. I’m gonna have to tell my dad, and—”

“Gracyn, love, your da was there. He called the cops.” Finn shifts uncomfortably.

“Motherfucker. I’m gonna kill him.” I slam back my whiskey and pull out my phone.

Call after call goes straight to voice mail. None of my texts from over the weekend show that they were read.

I don’t even realize I’m shaking until Lis lays her hand over top of mine.

“Sweetie, I … look at this.” She hands me her phone with Instagram pulled up.

It’s the picture Brooks took at the restaurant on Friday night.

“Well, shit. That sure looks bad,” Kate says just before I drop my glass, shards splintering across the floor.

Fuck my life.