Yup. Ashton looked higher than an airplane. I remind myself yet again to tell Ryner he needs to send Ashton to rehab after this project is over. It’s obvious things have gotten way out of control.

“I need to go back,” Mal repeats his usual mantra.

“You do? Awesome. I’ll meet you there in three days.”

I read Summer’s last messages again and again and again. I’m tired of being kept in the dark. Mal stares at me with wild, white anger that I haven’t seen on him before. Heat rolls off of his body in waves that crash at my feet.

“Fine,” he spits.

“Fine.”

He grabs his suitcase, which is already packed and zipped, and blazes to the door. I’m still in bed when he stops, sighs, and comes back, looking wasted and empty. It’s like those ten steps away from me drained him completely.

“Please,” he says quietly.

I know what he is asking.

He is asking me not to make it any harder for him. To come without question.

I think about Callum sleeping with Summer.

About letting Mal do unholy things to me while I was still with Cal.

About cheating and being cheated on. I never thought either of those things would happen to me.

But I also know they happened for a reason.

They say once a cheater, always a cheater.

But I think sometimes things do not appear broken, but they are, and through the crack, bad things slip in.

I’m screwing up my something whole because Mal is in a desperate situation. I’m starting to see I’m not being fair to him.

“Mal,” I breathe.

He slowly looks up. I see bad things have already slipped into his broken interior.

“Have you ever been in love?” I ask.

A huge smile breaks on his face. It is true and big and real, and it can keep me burning forever. I know as long as I see this smile every day, I will never be cold.

“Funny you should ask. Yes, yes, I have been. I still am. It started eight years ago, in the most unlikely event, and it has no expiration date.”

I stand and walk over to him. I cup his stubbled cheek.

He shakes his head. “Just trust me, Rory, when I say we need to go—not because I think you should give up on something for me, not because you owe me anything. But because I’m only half-alive when I’m not in Tolka, and you deserve the full experience, not just part of me.”

His mouth meets mine, but he is not kissing me. Just tracing his lips along mine as he speaks to me.

“I love you, Princess Aurora Belle Jenkins Doherty of New Jersey, you little heart slayer.”

“I love you, King Malachy Doherty of Tolka, my bigger-than-average-but-not-uncomfortably-so soul crusher. Now, let’s go say goodbye to Ashton before we leave.”

The first thing to tip me off that something’s wrong is the smell. It smells like urine and rotten meat. I push the door open while Mal loiters at the door, texting.

Brandy and the rest of Ashton’s crew are nowhere in sight, probably downstairs drinking at the bar, and I tiptoe my way toward the master bedroom, where he probably is.

Bingo.

I find Ashton asleep, with the robe open—fully naked, of course—taking a nap with a pool of piss all around him. I swear to God, I’m going to blow up this entire project and have him thrown into rehab right here and right now, no matter how much money Ryner is going to lose. I walk over and shake his shoulder gently.

“Wake up. You need to get into the shower right now and pull yourself together.”

I look around and find traces of crushed pills and cocaine on his nightstand. Mumbling “screw it,” I gather all of them and walk over to the bathroom to flush them down the toilet.

I come back into the room and do the unthinkable. I grab Ashton’s cellphone from his nightstand, place it on the floor, and smash it with my foot. That way, he won’t be able to score anything in the near future.

Not that he’ll get the chance. This is rock bottom, as far as I’m concerned. He is coming back to Ireland with us, and I’m locking him inside Mal’s house until this thing is finished. He is going to record this album sober and experiencing withdrawals.

“Ashton!” I shake his shoulder more aggressively now. “Wake up.”

Nothing.

Mal comes into the bedroom, tucking his phone into his back pocket.

“Why does it smell like the wanker pissed all over the room, including the ceiling and neighboring countries?”

“Because he did.” I turn to him, rolling my eyes. “He won’t wake up. Can you get me a bottle of cold water from the mini bar, so I can pour it on his face?”

Mal frowns and approaches the bed. He ignores Ashton’s nakedness, and runs his hand under Ashton’s nose. His face turns ashen.

“Darlin’, do me a favor and wait outside, okay?”

“What? Why?”

“Because.” My husband turns to me, his purple eyes full of misery. “He’s dead.”

The ambulance is here within two minutes. The police arrive shortly after. I don’t know how they find out, but all the major gossip websites send local journalists to cover the story, and Ryner, who is going through a mental breakdown with a side-dish of a heart attack an ocean away and lands himself in the hospital, commands us to go back to Tolka, not talk to anyone, and stay there until further notice.

After a brief interview with the police, we are released and driven back to the hotel. We pack our things, still in shock, and leave Brandy and the rest of the staff in tears behind us. There is nothing I want to do more than stay and console people and figure out what happened, but I know how badly Mal wants to go back home, and now is not the time to defy Ryner.

On the plane, we stare at nothing and stay quiet.

Mal is the first one to break the silence.

“I feel like shite for treating him the way I did, you know.”

“He really liked you.” I swallow.

I kissed the guy this week. His mouth was hot and alive, his heart beating against mine. Hell, I talked to him just a few hours ago, and he was funny and sweet and easygoing—not a care in his madman’s world. I don’t know why I’m so deeply devastated by the loss of his life, but I just want to crawl into myself and cry.

“I hate that we could have prevented it,” I mumble.

“We couldn’t.”

“He was high all the time. We let it happen.”

“You obviously haven’t met an addict before. There was nothing you or I could have done to prevent him from using. This is not on you, Rory.” He kisses my shoulder.

I feel my eyes coating with tears again. “Then why am I so sad?”

“Because you’re a good human. Because essentially, he was one, too.”

We don’t talk about the project, about the album, about the absurdity of us reuniting to work on something that will never materialize. Now that the project is officially dead—along with its star—something fundamental has snapped and shifted in the world we created together. We no longer have ground on which to operate. I don’t have a deadline in Ireland.

I tap my phone where it rests on my knee, pushing away Summer’s nonstop unanswered calls and Mom’s book-long messages begging me to come back home before something terrible happens.