I didn’t like this bed. It wasn’t nearly as comfortable as Jax’s bed, and the sheets were rough. And sticky with something. And cold. And it was shaking…

No, I was shaking. Or, rather, someone was shaking me.

That was weird.

Why was someone shaking me in my bed?

And why did my bed smell funny?

“Syll! Wake up!”

I knew that voice, but it wasn’t one that I wanted to hear. I was mad at Billy. I couldn’t quite remember why at this moment, but I knew that hearing him say my name made me want to throw up and hit him, or maybe throw up on him and hit him.

“Syll! If you don’t wake up, I’m going to call 911.”

It was the urgency in his voice that finally made me realize that something was seriously wrong.

And then I remembered.

Someone had come into the bar and hurt me.

It was odd, but I hadn’t even realized I was in pain until the memories came forward, and then it was like everything hurt all at once. The pain forced my consciousness up through the darkness that I’d been swimming in.

“Fuck,” I groaned as I tried to open my eyes. The right one felt gummy, like something was trying to glue my eyelashes together, but I managed to get it open. The left one, however, felt hot and swollen, and no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t see a thing out of it.

“Thank God,” Billy said. “I was afraid I was going to have to call an ambulance. What happened?”

I pushed myself up, taking note of how my entire arm felt bruised but not broken. That was good, because every breath felt like someone was stabbing me in the lungs, and I had a bad feeling I’d cracked some ribs.

And I didn’t even want to see if my face looked as awful as it felt.

When I was eight or nine, we’d had this crazy snowfall that had closed school for an entire week. We’d never been able to take vacations when I was a kid, both because of money and because of not having anyone to cover the bar, but that week, Dad had left one of his friends in charge for a couple days and took me somewhere outside of Boston where there were huge hills covered with snow. We’d taken his old sled down dozens of times, and at the end of the day, I’d begged him for just one more time. He’d given in, and on that pass, we were a bit further to the side than we had been before, and we caught a rock. It sent us into the trees, and I’d hit the trunk of a pine face first.

This felt worse.

“Let’s get you up,” Billy said as he bent over and wrapped one arm around my waist.

It felt wrong, him touching me, but my head was throbbing, and I couldn’t exactly remember why it was wrong. Besides, I wasn’t sure I could get to my feet on my own. When I was standing, however, he didn’t let me go.

“Babe, you look awful. What happened?”

I leaned against the bar, sucking in a breath at the pressure on my bruised back. He kicked me. The bastard who’d broken into my bar had punched me in the face at least twice. And then he’d kicked me. That was why my ribs hurt.

Dammit.

“The guy who trashed the place came back.” My mouth tasted like blood, and while my cheek hurt with the movement, I didn’t feel any empty spaces in my gums.

Hooray for me. I got the shit beat out of me, and I still had all my teeth.

“Everything looks fine.”

Billy’s inane comment had me turning my head to look at him, and now I recalled why I didn’t want him touching me.

I managed to take a step to the side, so his arm fell away from me. “Fine? Do I look fine to you?”

“You know what I mean.” He scowled at me. “The bar looks fine.”

Except the blood on the floor where I’d been laying. That was going to be a bitch to get out of the wood grain. “I need ice.”

“You need to go to the hospital,” he said. “Come on, babe, let me take you.”

“Babe?” I echoed as I remembered why I didn’t want him near me anymore. “You lost the right to call me that anymore.”

“Don’t be that way.” He reached for me, and I slapped his hand away.

“If you want to do something for me, then get me some ice, but don’t touch me.”

For a moment, I thought he was going to tell me to fuck myself and walk right back out the door, but after a second, he headed for the kitchen.

Had he come here to talk to me about what happened? He hadn’t called or texted, so I didn’t think that was it, but then again, he’d probably realized that I wouldn’t answer any calls or texts from him. Anyone who knew me would understand that I wouldn’t want to see him yet, and definitely not by ambush, but being clueless really wasn’t a good enough reason for him to be here.

Especially since I’d told him a few years back that I’d cut off his balls if I caught him cheating on me. Granted, I’d been plastered at the time, but it still seemed like the sort of thing a man wouldn’t forget, considering the usual attachment men had to their balls.

“Here.”

He shoved a towel full of ice at me, the expression on his face something that would’ve been at place on a tantrum-throwing preschooler.

I took the ice and held it to my face, hissing at the pain the contact brought with it. I was going to need some heavy-duty painkillers to get through work tonight. Tequila would probably work just as well, but after the unwise choice I’d made last night when inebriated, I was going to lay off the alcohol for a while.

“Thank you,” I mumbled, closing my eyes. I let the cold seep into my battered face, numbing those screaming nerves. I would’ve loved to stand there and enjoy the ice’s effects, but I could hear Billy breathing from where he was standing next to me.

“Are you sure you don’t need to go to the hospital?”

I sighed. “No.” I didn’t bother to explain to him that I didn’t have the money for a hospital visit. If he’d been paying attention at all, he would’ve known it.

“Why don’t we sit down,” he said, “so we can talk without tiring you out.”

And any gratitude I was feeling for him finding me and then getting me ice was gone. He hadn’t gotten the ice to take care of me. He’d done it because it would get us to what he’d come here for quicker. It was still all about him.

I shuffled over to the closest table and sat down. No use in expending more energy than was absolutely necessary.

“All right, Billy,” I said. “Let’s have the conversation. Tell me why you’re here.”

He had the audacity to look hurt. “I’m here because I didn’t like the way we left things yesterday. I figured I’d give you some time to cool off, and it was a good thing I came over too. Who knows how long you would’ve been laying there if I hadn’t.”

Telling him that I would’ve eventually woken up on my own would’ve just prolonged the conversation, so I kept my mouth shut and hoped he’d hurry the fuck up and say what he’d come here to say.

When he realized I wasn’t going to thank him again, he frowned, but continued, “We’ve been together too long to let something like that destroy it all. I mean, it’s not like you were innocent in all of it. You said yourself you’d come over to tell me you’d cheated on me.”

I held up a hand. “I made out with someone else, yes, but I stopped it, and came to see you to make things right. I wasn’t fucking other people for months and only admitted to it when it was too late to deny it.”

He rubbed the back of his head. “I’m sorry, Syll, all right? Is that what you want to hear? That I’m sorry?”

I would’ve wanted to hear it if I thought for a moment he meant it. It’d be easy to accept the apology and go back to the comfortable patterns of our relationship. I could pretend like I believed he regretted what he’d done, and not just that he’d gotten caught.

But what he said after I caught him, that was stuck in my head. It had been cruel and mean-spirited. That was how he really felt – who he really was – and I refused to allow him to treat me that way.

“I don’t want you to say anything you don’t mean,” I said. “And I know you don’t mean any of what you just said.”

“This is bullshit, Syll. You can’t tell me you’re seriously going to throw away the years we’ve had together over this?”

The fact that he was reacting in anger, throwing this on me instead of taking responsibility for his behavior, and telling me that he’d do whatever it took to make things right – like I’d been prepared to do last night – just convinced me that I was making the right choice.

“I think you threw us out way before I caught you with Ariene.” I took the ice off my face to see him better, and then remembered that I couldn’t see out of that eye anyway. “Or are you going to sit there and lie to my face and say that yesterday was the first time you’ve ever cheated on me?”

Color flooded his face, and he clenched his hands into fists. “That…that’s…Syll…that’s not…”

I held up my hand. “Don’t bother. I’m not going to believe you.”

“Don’t you even want to know why?”

A chill that had nothing to do with ice crept into my blood. “You made that perfectly clear last night.”

The bar door opened, and I jerked around, ignoring the pain as adrenaline flooded me, flight or fight making my heart hammer against my aching ribs. It wasn’t the masked man though.

It was Ariene, strolling in here like yesterday had never happened.

I pushed myself to my feet. “Get out.”

She stopped half-way across the floor, her eyes widening as she took in my face.

“I want both of you out of my bar.” I looked over at Billy as he stood. “Now.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “But, I have a shift tonight.”

I stared at her. “You don’t give a shit about your shifts. You hate it here, and always make sure I know it. So, I’m going to give you a gift. You’re fired.”

Her pretty face twisted into an ugly mask. “You can’t fire me. I haven’t done shit wrong.”

I wanted to tell her that I damn well had a reason to fire her, but then I realized she was right. People liked to think that because a person owned a business, they could hire and fire on a whim, but that wasn’t true. Or, rather, they could try it, but if the former employee decided to sue, they’d probably have a case for wrongful termination. And even though Ariene had constantly complained about her job, she hadn’t been late or left early. She hadn’t taken extra breaks. And while she had been fucking my boyfriend, she hadn’t done it at work.

All of which meant I couldn’t fire her without her using her relationship with Billy as a reason to sue me.

But that didn’t mean I had to put up with having her around today.

“Okay. I can’t fire you, but that doesn’t mean I can’t change your schedule. We haven’t been getting a lot of customers the last few nights, so I think Gilly and I can handle it.”

Ariene glared at me. “You can’t send me home and let Gilly stay.”

I lifted my chin. “I can. She has seniority.”

“Bitch,” she muttered.

I let that one go, because I wanted them out. “Also, a word to the wise, if things don’t pick up, I may need to cut your hours. Again, Gilly has seniority, so her hours get priority. You might want to start looking for another job.”

Ariene took a step toward me, but Billy stepped between us. “Let’s go, babe. We don’t need this.”

He looked over his shoulder at me, and I made a little shooing motion with my hand. The quicker they got out, the quicker I could clean up. I waited until they closed the door behind them, then crossed to the door and locked it.

I locked the door between the bar and my apartment too, then after a minute, moved a chair in front of it. I wasn’t going to get caught off-guard again.