My head is throbbing a frenzied beat against my skull. Groaning, I roll over, and a voice in the darkness tells me to drink some water. A strong arm loops around my waist and sits me up, and a cold glass of water is placed in my hand.

I take small sips, my stomach turning inside out with each bit of liquid that goes down.

“I don’t think she has anything left in her stomach to throw up, so that’s good,” someone says.

The shadows cast against the wall make me think about how much I hate being alone. A warm hand pushes the hair off my forehead when I lie back.

“You’re not alone, baby. You’re not alone,” a voice, soft and reassuring, whispers in my ear as though reading my mind.

My eyelids flutter closed as the room spins and spins and spins.

* * *

Hours later, the harsh morning light makes me wish for death. I grab my pillow and stuff my head underneath it.

“Can she breathe like that?” a male voice asks.

Another guy says, “Close the curtain. It’s bothering her.”

That voice. It teases me with the kind of familiarity that sends a flood of sadness sweeping through me.

My eyes crack open, but from this angle, all I see is my comforter and a patch of the floor.

“What do I look like? Your maid?”

Recognition jars me. Travis. Someone grunts and shuffles across the floor and then the offending light dims through the crack in my pillow cave.

My ears perk up. I thought it was all a dream.

“We need to get her to eat something.” Jax. That’s Jax. Holy shit.

Nausea rises up the back of my throat, and I bolt upright, scattering pillows across my small room. My eyes narrow on him as I struggle to not throw up by pressing my hand across my mouth.

Jax and Travis are sitting on my purple love seat across from my bed. Their clothes are wrinkled, and both are sporting dark circles under their eyes.

When I can talk, when I’m sure my stomach contents won’t come spewing up, I pin Jax with my glare and say the first thing that comes to mind.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

On any other day, I might have had a different reaction to seeing him—I can’t deny that I’ve missed him—but right now, all I can think is that he has a knack for leaving me and taking little slivers of my heart with him. And right now, with my mom gone, I have nothing left. Nothing.

Jax’s eyes widen for a split second before he nods and looks down. When he looks up again, I see the remorse in his face.

“I fucked up, Dani. I want to explain.” He runs his hands through his hair and closes his eyes.

I fight the urge to comfort him and shrink back into my bed. Travis sits next to me, and I let him hug me for a second before I push him away.

“I might throw up, and I’m saving it all for him,” I say, motioning toward Jax. “So don’t get too close.”

My best friend nods, scooting back a little. Jax shoots him a strange look, like he’s confused that Travis is on my side. Which is weird. So weird.

Unless…

I turn to Travis, afraid of what I need to ask. “Did you come here with… him?” I can’t help the hurt that tinges my voice or the tentativeness of my words.

He shrugs and gives me a sheepish smile. I bite my cheek to keep from crying. Because if anyone knows what I went through over the last three weeks, it’s him. My eyes burn.

“In that case, fuck both of you.”

The shock spreads on Travis’s face when he realizes I’m not kidding, and then I jump out of bed, ignoring the way the floor shifts beneath me like I’m rocking on a boat out at sea. I stumble into my bathroom and slam the door behind me, flinching from the throbbing pain in my head.

Having Travis get all chummy with Jax when he should be taking my side hurts. For a fleeting instant, I see my former friend and roommate Ashley hooking up with Reid, and my stomach turns. Ashley and Reid, Jax and nameless blondes. Travis taking Jax’s side. Different people in different situations, but they all feel like betrayal.

At least this time I didn’t stand there silent.

When the water in the shower pelts my back, I let myself fall apart. I hate that I don’t have any control of my emotions, but everything in me feels raw and ripped open after losing my mom.

Lost. I feel so lost, and I cry until it seems like the oxygen has been pulled from my lungs and the water runs cold.

After dragging myself out, I wrap a towel around my chest and tuck it so it holds. Using my elbow to wipe off the condensation, I stare at the girl in the mirror. A sad laugh escapes my lips. I look like crap, and I don’t have the energy to do anything about it. I let my hair sit tangled on my shoulders and ignore the way I shiver in the cold.

I don’t bother to look at either Travis or Jax when I walk back into my bedroom and grab a change of clothes.

One of them starts to talk, and I cut him off. “Get out,” I say, a few seconds before I toss the towel on the bed.

As I’m pulling a thermal, long-sleeved t-shirt over my head, footsteps pad away and the door closes. I’m too angry to care if they see me naked. Life is too short to give a shit about stuff like that.

* * *

Several hours later, I wake up with the dried tracks of tears on my cheeks, so I splash some water on my face and decide to brave a trip downstairs.

Stilling every few steps to see if I can hear anyone talking, I lean forward and listen.

Maybe they left.

For some reason, that doesn’t make me feel any better. When I get to the first floor, I hear the hum of the TV. I peek around the corner and find Travis sprawled on the couch.

I watch him flip through the channels. He rubs his eyes, and I realize how tired he looks. He came all this way only to have me yell at him. I feel a twinge of guilt. For the last three years, he’s been nothing but loyal.

“Hey,” I say from across the room. “I’m sorry for yelling at you. I don’t know what got into me. I—”

“Shut up. You don’t owe me an apology.” He pats the space next to him, and I scurry to him. The second my butt hits the couch, he yanks me into a tight hug. I don’t have the heart to tell him the pressure of his arms around me makes me want to hurl.

His arms relax, and I stay pressed to his chest. He whispers that he’s sorry about my mom, and I nod, not able to form words.

After several minutes, Travis squeezes me. “How’s your head?”

“Hurts like a motherfucker.”

He lets out a laugh that makes my temples throb harder. I grab my head, and he tells me he has something that will help my headache. He gets up, trots to the kitchen and returns with a tumbler of dark liquid. “Here, drink this.”

I eye it suspiciously and then give him a pointed stare.

“Don’t look at me like that. Drink it. Jax says it’s the best thing for hangovers.”

Hearing Jax’s name makes me stiffen, and I drop my eyes. “Did he leave?”

Travis chuckles like I’m cracking a joke. “That man just drove over a thousand miles to see you. He ran down to the grocery store to get some coffee. He was going through withdrawals after drinking a dozen Red Bulls in the last few days.”

I’m surprised by the relief I feel knowing that Jax is still here. Surprised but scared.

Travis puts the tumbler in my hand and motions for me to drink. I start to bring it to my lips when he stops me. “Jax says not to smell it. Just chug it.”

The idea of chugging anything makes me more nauseous, but I’m desperate to make this hangover go away, so I take a deep breath and down half before I can’t stand it any longer.

“Oh my God. That’s disgusting.” My face contorts.

Travis points at my expression and laughs. “Where’s a camera when you need one?”

I smack him in the arm, chiding him for finding any humor in this. After another ten minutes, I’m able to finish the horrible concoction, and I lean back into the couch and close my eyes.

A silence settles over us as I struggle to figure out what I want to say. Finally, I turn to him. “How did you know my mom died?”

“I didn’t. Your boyfriend dragged me here.”

I roll my eyes at the boyfriend remark.

He grabs my arm. “Sweets, I’m so sorry about your mom. I wish I could’ve been here.” He tucks me against him again, and I close my eyes and try hard to breathe through the rising panic that she’s gone.

Once I’m calm, I clear my throat. “I know I freaked out earlier, but it means a lot to me that you’re here. I still don’t get why you guys came, though.”

“Girl, you don’t listen to your voice mail, do you?”

I shrug. “I don’t know where my phone is. Kinda lost track of it after Christmas Eve.”

“Everyone’s been trying to reach you since you got to Chicago. But Jax is the one who insisted we come. By the time I realized you hadn’t written me back, Jax was pounding on my door and dragging my ass out of bed on Christmas morning.” Travis tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Jax found out about that donation you made, and he realized he’s had his head up his ass. He feels like shit.”

“I never expected to see him again.” The reality of that statement twists something inside me.

Travis sighs. “I think he really cares about you. In fact, I think he lo—”

Footsteps on the front porch halt our conversation as Jax walks in carrying an armload of groceries. “Fucking hell, it’s cold. I thought Boston was cold, but it’s nothing like the Midwest.” He sees me and smiles. “You people are crazy for living here.”

His voice makes my heart want to leap out of my chest, and I school my expression because I should be mad at him. Livid. But seeing that stupid grin on his face and the way his nose is red from the sub-zero temperatures outside makes me want to wrap him up in a blanket and spoon-feed him tomato soup.

Shit. What is wrong with me?

“I hate you for making me that terrible drink,” I say, motioning toward my empty glass.

He laughs, his eyes passing over me like he hasn’t seen me in years instead of a few weeks. He clears his throat and looks into the bag he’s carrying.

“I got us some coffee because you only have organic tea here, and I don’t know what to do with that. And I got us lunch.”

“Any Red Bull in there?” Travis asks wryly.

Jax groans. “Dude, I think I might throw up the next time I even look at a can of that shit.”

I glance down, feeling bad for going off on him earlier today. I can’t totally wrap my head around the fact that he drove here.

“Thanks for coming,” I say softly, a thousand things running through my head.

“Yeah, no problem.” Jax shifts in the doorway. “I’m so sorry you lost your mom, Dani. I wish there was something I could do.”

I nod as a heavy silence settles over the room. Travis gets up and holds out his hand to Jax. “Keys.”

Jax frowns. “You know, I’m gonna have your ass if you crash my Escalade.”

“When did you get an Escalade?” I ask. The man already has a Jeep and a BMW that probably costs more than Rhode Island. Does he really need a third car?

He shrugs. “I’ve always had it. I just didn’t have it parked at my condo.”

I stiffen, remembering that money is at the root of what went wrong between us. Well, that and a long pair of legs attached to a life-sized Barbie.

I get up and scoot past the guys, reminding myself not to be an idiot. Jax probably just wants to assuage his guilt for being such a prick. Then he can go back to living in his little world of easy-access skanks.

I pour myself a glass of water in the kitchen as Jax asks Travis where he’s going. Travis scoffs, and I can almost see him rolling his eyes behind me. “Dad, I already told you. I’m catching up with a hot piece of ass I hooked up with last year.”

I turn and shoot Travis a look, pleading for him not to leave, and he shakes his head. What the hell?

“Text me the address,” Jax says gruffly.

“Good lord, you’re a pain in the ass.” Travis digs his phone out of his pocket and thumbs out a text before he heads for the door.

“When will you be back?” I ask. I don’t know if I can do this, be alone with Jax. Doesn’t Travis understand that?

“Don’t wait up, sweets.” Travis saunters toward the door and blows me a kiss before he disappears out the front door.

Damn it.

I look up and Jax is staring at me, the tension between us palpable. “Make yourself at home.” I start heading back to my room.

He grabs my arm. “We need to talk. I need to apologize.” His hands run up to my shoulders, and I stare at our feet. My fuzzy hot pink slippers look silly next to his black combat boots. I’ve never seen him in combat boots before, but he could wear a paper sack and look amazing. The boots make him seem edgy and dark. Intense.

Even though he looks tired and a little out of his element, he still looks incredible. His jaw is scruffy as he obviously hasn’t shaved in a few days, and his lean muscular frame fills out his faded jeans and plaid flannel like he’s some kind of Calvin Klein lumberjack.

Closing my eyes, I try to shake some sense into my head.

His finger tilts my head up, forcing me to look at him.

“Danielle.”

Hearing him say my name makes the few brain cells I didn’t kill with alcohol scatter.

“Baby, I’m so sorry.” His blue eyes are dark and intense. He grips me tighter. “You should hate me. I know that.”

I pull out of his grasp and turn away, remembering all the ways he’s hurt me. “What are you sorry for, Jax? For leaving me in your room after we almost had sex to run off with another girl? Or for thinking that I’m some horrible person who could be bought off?”

He steps closer until I sense him standing right behind me. “I had nothing to do with that non-disclosure. My mother is a bitch, and this is how she deals with anything that doesn’t go her way. She buys people off. I swear I didn’t know anything until that camp director thanked me for the donation.”

I swallow even though my mouth feels like sandpaper. “You weren’t supposed to find out about that. It was supposed to be anonymous.”

He chuckles, but I’m not sure why any of this is funny. “Babe, you gave the man thirty thousand dollars and then caught a bus. That’s not exactly how these kind of donations are made.”

Right. Because I don’t know jack shit about how to be a rich person. Crossing my arms over my chest, I shake my head. “Sorry, if I embarrassed you. I’m just the riffraff who doesn’t know how to live among the elite.”

I start to walk off, and he grabs me again. The next thing I know, he spins me around, and I’m caught between his arms as he braces himself against the counter.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” he growls. He closes his eyes and stands there, still, and I watch his chest rise and fall. “Fuck, this is not going the way I intended.” He steps back and runs his hands through his hair again and exhales. “Look, I am a dick. I have no excuse for anything I did, but I want you at least know why it happened.”

The plaintive look in his eyes undermines my resolve, and I nod.

He takes a deep breath. “That morning when we were almost together, I remembered what happened at the club.” He stops and looks down.

My conscience twinges. I should have told him.

He says, “I guess I freaked because I couldn’t figure out why you wouldn’t say something about that, especially after all the time we spent together. I started to think of you as a friend, and I don’t have girls who are friends, so thinking you had this secret kind of threw me.” He looks away. “I don’t expect you to understand, but I have a long history of not being able to trust beautiful women.”

He thinks I’m beautiful.

Shut it, Dani. Focus on what matters here.

He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “When I came back that day after Nick interrupted us in the kitchen, I thought we’d talk and I’d explain, but you were gone.”

That snaps me back to reality. “Did you seriously expect me to stay when you left with another girl? Jax, that was so fucking humiliating.” Hello, I was basically spreadeagle on your table! I scream in my head.

I stalk past him to the other side of the kitchen where I stare at the small stained-glass butterflies decorating the window frame. Those were my mom’s favorites. What am I going to do with her butterflies? My stomach turns when I realize I have to go through all of her belongings.

Jax clears his throat. “Nothing happened with that other girl, Danielle. I swear. I was upset, and I overreacted. I guess I was hurt, and I wanted to hurt you.”

I turn around, livid. “Sure, because those two situations totally equate.” I huff out a breath wondering how my omission even compares to him leaving me the day we almost had sex in his kitchen. “I didn’t tell you because I was embarrassed. You didn’t remember me from the club, and nearly every time I saw you thereafter, you had a girl draped across you. And then there was your sister, and she hates everyone you date.” I tighten arms over my chest. “I had just moved in with her, and all I heard was how you had a reputation for one-night stands with slutty girls, so forgive me if I didn’t volunteer that I willingly stood in that line.”

His eyebrows furrow. “But why didn’t you say anything after the car accident?”

I bite my lip, not wanting to say what’s been holding me back from telling him the truth.

“Dani?”

Exhaling loudly, I look up at him. He’s standing in the middle of my mom’s kitchen, and she’s gone, and it feels so surreal, I want to smash something. “Have you looked at me lately, Jax?”

He frowns and starts to say something, but I cut him off.

“I almost told you on Thanksgiving, but I liked how well we got along, how you felt like a friend, how we laughed over sports and goofed around, and I didn’t want to screw that up. Then after we started to mess around, I really didn’t want to fuck it up. It was fun being with you. It felt like we clicked in so many ways.”

I swallow, forcing myself to get to the heart of the problem. “Jax, you date tall, gorgeous women.” Glamazons. “Models, actresses, heiresses. Blondes with big boobs and long legs. Girls who are aggressive and catty.” Turning back to the window, I watch fresh snow begin to fall. “I’m not saying I’m ugly, and I’m not fishing for compliments, but it’s hard not to be insecure and think maybe you were slumming it because I look like the exact opposite of the women you date.”

“I don’t date,” he says firmly.

My eyes drop. Ouch.

I nod, realizing my mistake. Damn it. I bite my lip again. I will not cry any more over you, Jax Avery. I should be crying over my dead mother whose funeral I can’t afford or the fact that I don’t have the money to go back to school in Boston. Because even though my mom had life insurance, it won’t pay out for a few months, and there’s no way I can afford the mortgage and tuition with what’s left in our savings after the funeral costs.

Forcing myself to finish this godawful conversation and be done with him, I take a deep breath, but then he whispers, “Or at least I didn’t before you.”

My heart beats a crazy rhythm in my chest as his hands come up and grab my shoulders, turning me to face him.

I focus my attention on his plaid flannel shirt. It’s buttoned up wrong, and an extra button waves at the bottom of the fabric.

“Look at me.” He tilts my chin up. “I didn’t drive a thousand miles to have you insult yourself.” He laughs and shakes his head. “Babe, I’ve had a crush on you all fall.”

He laughs again when he sees the confusion on my face. “I couldn’t understand why I wanted to kick Brady’s ass when we went rock climbing and I saw him put his hands all over you. I couldn’t get over how you felt like you were mine.” He runs his hands up and down my arms until goosebumps prickle my skin. “But I guess what happened at the club would explain my possessiveness of you.” He smiles, and it’s so warm and sweet that it melts my anger just a little.

He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “And that was before we really spent time together. Before we watched scary movies and sports and laughed our asses off over Thanksgiving. Before we curled up on the couch together and I realized how much I loved waking up with you in my arms.” He clears his throat. “Look, I know I’ve done everything wrong, and you have no reason to talk to me, but I want to make it up to you.”

Part of me is jumping for joy at his declaration, but I don’t want to get burned again, and I have a hard time believing he’d be able to withstand the temptation of a tall, busty woman.

He must sense my reservation, and he asks, “Can we sit down? There are a few more things I need to say. If you still want to kick my ass when I’m finished, you can throw me out, and I’ll never bother you again. Just so you know, I plan to grovel, so hopefully you won’t toss me out into that fucking Arctic weather.”

I let out a weak laugh and nod. He smiles, leans down and kisses my forehead, and it’s so tender it makes me catch my breath.