The pounding in my head was so intense I thought my skull was going to split open. You would’ve thought with years of building my skills as I drinker the hangovers would’ve gotten easier to handle.

It took me a second to realize that it was the annoying-as-shit ringing of my cell phone that woke me up. Taking a second to get my bearings, I noted a weight settled across my stomach—the weight of an arm, to be exact. Glancing to the side, I saw a woman passed out in the bed beside me. I didn’t even remember picking her up at the club last night, but that was nothing new. It wasn’t the first time I’d woken up beside some random one-night stand, and I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be the last.

“Hey,” I muttered, my voice rough and scratchy from a night of binge drinking and fucking. Tossing her arm off my abs, I gave her a little shake. She let out a muted grumble as she burrowed her face deeper into the pillow.

“Yo. Wake up.”

My phone stopped ringing as I threw my feet over the mattress and propped my elbows on my knees, scrubbing at my face as the drums in my head reached the crescendo.

“What time is it?” the chick mumbled, sitting up and pulling the sheet around her naked body.

“Time for you to go.” Pushing to my feet, I snatched my underwear off the floor and pulled them up.

“Huh?”

With a frustrated huff, I turned to look at her over my shoulder. “Jesus, you deaf? Get up, get dressed, and get out.”

“Jeez,” she snapped, climbing from the bed in sharp, jerky movements. “You’re such an asshole.”

“Never claimed to be anything else. Also never promised you anything but a couple orgasms, so I don’t see what you’re bein’ so bitchy about.”

I was hungover as fuck, and so not in the mood to deal with her shit.

“Prick,” she continued to gripe as she quickly got dressed, but my cell had started ringing again, so she’d already lost my attention.

“Keller,” I answered on a grunt.

“Mace?”

Holy fucking shit.

My back went straight as a board, every muscle in my body locking tight. “Lyla? Christ, is that really you?”

The woman storming out of my room that I’d just spent the better part of a night fucking was all but forgotten—as was my hangover—at the sound of my Goldie’s voice.

Even though I hadn’t heard from her in years, that hadn’t stopped me from thinking of her at least twice every goddamn day. And having her on the phone now… my desire for her hit me in the gut like a sledge hammer.

“Mace, I—” A sharp cry rang through the line, causing my blood to run cold.

“Baby, what’s going on? What’s the matter?”

“I-it’s… Will is… he’s…”

“He’s what? Baby, talk to me.”

“He’s… he died, Mace.”

It was as if the floor fell out from under me. My world collapsed, and I did right along with it, my knees giving out until I hit the ground. “No.” It wasn’t true. “No, that’s not….” It couldn’t be. It couldn’t. I’d just talked to him two days ago. “No. Lyla—fucking no!” It was like someone had reached into my chest and ripped my heart right the hell out, leaving a gaping black hole in its place.

Her voice was a barely there whisper as she said, “I’m so sorry. I wish I didn’t have to tell you over the phone like this. I wish it wasn’t true. I’m so, so sorry.”

I could barely recognize my own ravaged voice as I asked, “Wha—how?”

“He was coming back from picking up a car in Redding, and a drunk driver was going the wrong way down the interstate.”

Silence enveloped us, our mutual grief overwhelming both of us through the phone line. My head fell as I fought back the overwhelming urge to yell and curse and rage. I pinched the bridge of my nose, my eyes burning like fire as the tears built.

Finally Lyla broke through the miserable quiet. “Do you…? I know you guys are busy, but—

“I’ll talk to the guys. We’ll be there later tonight.”

She sniffled, and I could just picture her beautiful face with tears trickling down her cheeks. I’d never felt such an acute, agonizing pain in all my life, both for her and for the loss of the best friend I’d ever had.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Why are you thanking me, baby?”

Another sniffle. “I just… I don’t know… how to be. I can’t do this.”

And the hits just kept on coming. “Oh, Lyla, baby. I’m so sorry. I’ll be there soon.”

“Okay,” she continued, her voice still so soft and quiet. “See you soon.”

“See you soon, sweetheart,” I replied, returning her whisper.

* * *

Lyla

Two days later

The second I walked through the front door of my brother’s house, I knew it had been a huge mistake. I hadn’t been back there since I got that middle-of-the-night call from my father. I’d spent the past couple of nights sleeping in my old bed at my parents’ place, too afraid of the emotional impact Will’s house would have on me.

But after spending every waking moment in my childhood home for the past two days, the air so thick with our sorrow that it was a struggle to breathe, it all became too much.

True to his word, Mace and the guys had flown in from where they lived in Seattle that same night. With them, as well as every single neighbor, friend, or employee of Will’s stopping by to offer condolences or drop off casseroles, I was dangerously close to losing my mind—well, losing what was left of it since the loss of my brother. I couldn’t take any more company or well-wishing. I just needed a moment to myself.

I didn’t fault them for making the effort. In the back of my mind, I knew they were only doing it because they cared for us, but that didn’t make it any easier. It didn’t bring him back. And every time that doorbell rang it was another reminder that my brother was gone.

He was gone.

How can that be?

It all became too much. I was coming out of my skin. I had to get the hell out of there.

Unfortunately, my car was still in the hospital parking lot. After leaving, I’d been in such bad shape that my father refused to let me drive, and none of us had thought to go back and get it since. So I needed a ride.

The phone only rang twice before Mace’s guttural voice came through the line. “Goldie? Everything okay?”

“Hey, yeah. I just… do you think you could pick me up?”

“Where are you?”

“At my parents’, but I don’t have my car.”

That was all I had to say. He pulled up in a shiny black SUV twenty minutes later, and I quietly and quickly snuck through the front door, jumping into the passage seat and asking him to take me to Will’s.

Those were the only words I spoke the whole way there.

Now I was standing just inside the threshold, regretting my decision to come back.

“You all right?”

I don’t know how long I stood like a statue inside Will’s front door before Mace’s words pulled me out of my head. “I don’t know if I can go all the way in,” I whispered, the huge lump in my throat making it hard to speak.

“Come on, baby.” Reaching down, he wrapped my hand in his large, strong one and gave it a gentle tug. “I got you.”

I wasn’t sure what it was about him calling me baby that I liked so much. He’s called me sweetheart more times than I could count, and he was the only one to ever call me Goldie, but something about the intimacy that came with him calling me baby warmed the chill that had wrapped itself around my heart over the past few days.

Holding tight to his hand, I let him lead me into Will’s living room. We stood there for several moments, taking everything in. The whole room smelled like him, like soap and motor oil, a surprisingly appealing and manly combination.

The beer can he’d left on the coffee table his last night in the house was still sitting there. His boots were resting near the wall of the entryway. The dirty socks he had a tendency to take off and throw haphazardly the second he walked through the front door were scattered around the floor.

“It’s weird. It feels like he just ran out for groceries or something and is coming back at any second.”

At my statement Mace, did something so unexpected it took my breath away. Using his hold on my hand, he turned me to him before releasing it and reaching up to cup my cheeks. “Don’t do that to yourself, sweetheart. Tell me what you need and I’ll get it. You just stay here, okay?”

“No.” I closed my eyes and pulled in a deep breath before looking back at him. “No, I can do this. But you’ll stay with me, right?”

His thumbs drifted feather light across my cheekbones, his blue eyes glistening with a riot of emotions as he stared into mine. “The whole time. You have my word.”

“Okay. I need to find a suit. The funeral home—”

His fingers tensed, pressing deeper into my cheeks. “Got it. Let’s get this over with, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Taking my hand once more, he started leading me down the hallway. When we went to turn into the master bedroom, I tugged on his arm to stop him. “Will’s clothes are in the guest room.”

Mace’s eyebrows furrowed and his head cocked to the side. “What? Why?”

“When I moved in here there wasn’t enough space in the guest room closet, so he moved his there so I could have the big one.”

I was so wrapped up in my task and how much I freaking hated it that I didn’t realize what all I’d just given away until it was too late.

“Wait, you live here? Since when? Where the fuck is Daniel?”

Oh shit.

“I, um….”

“Ly,” he said in a warning tone. “The fuck is goin’ on? I’ve been here two days and haven’t seen your husband once.”

“Well… we’re kinda divorced.”

“What?”

“Well, not totally divorced. We still have to wait for it to be finalized, but that’s less than a month away, so… I left him. And no offense, but it’s really not something I want to talk about right now.”

“You left him?”

The tone of his voice was so rough that I couldn’t decipher the meaning behind it.

“Yes,” I replied. “And like I said, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You left him,” he repeated, a statement as opposed to a question.

“Yes.”

“Fuck me,” he murmured to himself as he raked a hand through his thick, dark hair and lapsed into silence.

I didn’t have the first clue what that meant or what he was thinking, but I didn’t have the mental capacity to handle it, so instead of playing the staring game, I pulled my hand from his grip and headed toward the guest room to do exactly as he suggested: get done what I needed to and get the hell out of there.