Dammit, my heart. I don’t think it was equipped to deal with a guy like him.

I looked up and watched him. His phone was by his side, but he was engaged in a casual conversation with a beautiful brunette. My chest tightened. At the same time, I reminded myself that Dean could do whatever the hell he wanted.

I looked away, even though my eyes kept begging for me to steal another glance. The rehearsal went smoothly until this point, and I wanted to get it over with and go back home, preferably to a corner in the mansion where my parents couldn’t find me.

It was Trent’s turn to make a toast. At that point, it seemed like every living member in SoCal was required to wish something to the happy couple. I wondered if it was because Vicious didn’t have any parents to toast for him. His father died a little over a year ago, and his stepmother wasn’t in the picture. At least I had an excuse to let my eyes roam toward Dean and the mystery brunette. They were no longer talking, and my phone vibrated next to my plate.

Dean

If looks could stab, this chick would be dead now. This is happening. We are happening. We can take the long, frustrating route—but you will be punished for that. In bed. Or we can make it pain-free. Your call.

I didn’t answer his text. Again. My eyes rose to Trent Rexroth, who flashed a shallow smile and started talking. He was mid-sentence when his phone chimed and he looked down to read a text message, frowning.

The champagne glass slipped between his fingers before he caught it midair—killer reflexes, but I wasn’t surprised—and placed it down on the table. He then picked up the phone, turned around, and rushed to the entrance door.

Dean immediately followed him, and before I knew it, Jaime and Vicious were gone, too.

Murmurs bubbled from every corner of the table, and Daddy tried to calm the storm by yelling louder than necessary for everyone to stay cool.

Interesting approach.

I looked down and texted Dean.

Rosie

What happened?

He didn’t answer.

Panic ran marathons in my veins, and my thoughts wandered to the worst place possible. Did something happen to Luna, Trent’s daughter?

“Go see what’s going on.” Mama read my mind, elbowing my ribs. “Your sister is worried. I don’t want her upset.”

I rose to my feet and light-jogged to the entrance. I didn’t particularly feel like snooping around, but I felt like arguing with Mama even less. Besides, someone had to check on them. It was just unfortunate that I was the nosy one.

The outside area was vast, with a white, soft aisle that was ready for the weekend, a wild garden, two vineyards from each side, and artificial waterfalls enveloping the picturesque scenery.

And there, on a stairway leading to the ballroom, sat Trent Rexroth. He looked pale and shaky and nothing like his strong, poised self. An empty shell of the football hero turned self-made millionaire hottie. His eyes glittered with unshed tears, and he kept repeating himself, his face buried in his hands.

“She can’t fucking do this to me. What the fuck!”

“What are you doing here?” Vicious asked when he saw me, his hand on Trent’s back, squatting down next to Dean and Jaime. “Get back inside.”

“Don’t fucking talk to her like that.” Dean bared his teeth, lashing at Vicious more aggressively than necessary.

Rooted in place, I said, “Millie’s worried. I came to check that everything is okay.”

“Nothing is okay.” Jaime paced, his body radiating rage, but refrained from adding any more information. Dean stood up to his full height and sauntered toward me, clasping my arm in his warm hand and ushering me back to the empty hall leading to the ballroom.

“Mama and Daddy sent me to investigate.” A blush crawled up my cheeks, and who the hell was this girl and what had she done to my old self? I wanted the latter back. She wouldn’t take any of Vicious’s crap, either.

“Ignore that idiot. You haven’t done anything wrong.” Dean ran his palm up and down my arm, making my flesh sizzle. “Tell Millie that everything is fine.”

“Is it?” I lifted my eyebrows, tilting my head to the side.

“No,” he admitted, his jaw flexed. He looked so breakable at that moment, I wasn’t entirely sure it was him I was looking at. He normally carried himself with an invincible halo, the kind of self-assurance him and his friends exhibited like an American Express black card.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, leaning into him without even meaning to.

“Val left,” he said, his head hanging down as he twisted his fingers inside his hair and tugged, his skull probably stinging with the force of his hand. “She fucking left, Rosie. The babysitter found Luna all by herself, in an empty apartment. No clothes or shoes or mother anywhere around. Sitting in an overflowing diaper, crying her fucking lungs out. Fuck knows how long it’s been since she ate something. She was crying so hard she lost her voice. The sitter took her to the hospital to get checked. Trent’s boarding a plane in an hour to bring her here.”

“Jesus.” I slapped a hand over my mouth. His cut cheekbones were tainted red, and he looked wary. For a second, I thought he would say something else. Or maybe even cry. Even if one, lonely tear that would fall from his eyelash, as if jumping off a cliff. But he did neither, squaring his shoulders, fixing his halo and clearing his throat.

“Honestly? It’s for the best,” he said, mentally knocking me on my ass. What? “Not everyone was born to be parents. Good on Luna. It would have hurt more if Val fucked off when she was six or seven. Bet she won’t even be mad at her when she grows up.”

I took a second to look at him—really look at him—trying to read whatever it was that was written on his face, but it was gibberish. A mixture of too many feelings, too many regrets, too much everything, crammed into one, tortured expression.

“Don’t give me that look, Rosie. Trust me. Luna doesn’t need Val.”

“Okay.” I pushed his head to the crook of my neck in a hug. Pain seeped through his strong body, and I willingly gulped it, the need to feel him overwhelming. “It’s okay, Dean.”

“She’s better off,” he repeated, his voice strangled with agony.

I was blinded. Gone for. Torn apart and thrown to the floor like confetti.

I wanted to take what he was feeling and swallow it like a bitter pill. It didn’t suit him. Even with the alcohol, weed, and empty fucks, Dean Cole didn’t do sadness.

He wasn’t Sirius.

He was planet Earth.

He was oxygen.

He was everything.

I allowed his face to disappear inside my shoulder and embraced him until there was no more space between us. We melted into each other, his heartbeats against my skin, my hair in his nose, his fingers on my waist. Our bodies joined together, even more so than in the red truck.

Dean didn’t produce any tears, but that didn’t mean he didn’t cry. He did, and I cried with him. For Luna, who was only a year old, and was already going through something more traumatic than most people experience in a lifetime. For Trent, who was always somehow being forced to grow up, always the one to get screwed over. And I cried for me, because I knew, right there and then, that a part of me was already his despite my best efforts. I never stopped loving Dean Cole. Not even for one damn moment. I just convinced myself that I stopped caring.

Until I didn’t.

Until now.

FROM SADNESS GROWS LIFE. THAT’S what my dad always said.

That night, I slept in Rosie’s room.

We didn’t have sex. We didn’t mess around. We didn’t even kiss.

But our legs were tangled and our skin touched and it felt more real than any other shit I experienced in any bed, at any time. In the morning, I had to sneak so I could hop in a taxi to the airport, but I did leave her a note.

This is happening, Sirius.

Sincerely,

—Your Bronze Horseman

The flight to Vegas was a blur.

I was sober and conscious yesterday—the day I had spent with Rosie—and it felt weird…but nice. The high I got was natural, from imagining her dressing like a stripper, cuffing me to my bed, and sitting on my face until I couldn’t breathe and her pussy was completely numb. But then Trent got that phone call and my world had collapsed.

Val’s betrayal sweltered in my stomach along with what Trent said after he’d found out. “She’s never going to see her kid again unless she commits to being a parent first. I’ve had enough of her bullshit.”

As much as it pained me to admit it, he was fucking right, too. You couldn’t half-ass parenthood. It wasn’t a lazy Sunday morning fuck. Either you were completely in or you were completely out. Anything in-between was a mindfuck to the kid, and I had to remember that, now more than ever.

Trent flew out to Chicago to get Luna—his parents were waiting for them in Todos Santos and were going to help him pull through this nightmare—and Jaime and I immediately called off the bachelor party. It was Trent who threatened us with physical violence to go through with our original Vegas plans. His reasons:

He was going to Chicago to discharge his daughter from the hospital, where she stayed with a very freaked-out, thoroughly scarred babysitter, so it wasn’t like he was loitering around waiting for our royal asses to come hold his hand.

Vicious was only going to get married once (considering his bad temper and fuck-all attitude, we all knew that there will not be a second Millie to tolerate his shit).

#$%%VTCF#$^$^&@3. Val fucking bailed on his daughter and he had no time to deal with our first-world, white-men problems, anyway.

It was a Sunday in August, and The Strip was bustling with tourists, drunk half-naked girls, and angry, radical Christians with a mic trying to pull all the sinners back to the light. After we dumped our duffel bags in our presidential suite, Vicious toed his leather Oxfords off and said, “I love my future wife, I really fucking do, but I hope we’re not going to bump into her annoying-ass friends too many times this trip. I need to see more of her younger sister like I need a bullet to my fucking head.”