His laugh is loud and draws attention from other patrons beginning to fill up the bar. “Struck? More like knocked me on my ass. Dude … I’m sorry…. Wait. No, I’m not.” He slaps his hand on the table. “I’m not going to apologize because when it happens to you, you’ll get it. All of it. The barebacking, being okay with someone holding your balls in their hands, the …” Colton’s head snaps up to mine as the puzzle pieces fall into place. His eyes widen as the smirk starts to play at the corners of his mouth. “No fucking way …”

“Viv?” I look away from him immediately and search for my new best friend and her constant supply of mind-numbing gifts.

“For the love of all things holy … you didn’t … you’re not … you fucking are, aren’t you?” he finally sputters out. And just what I need: Now Donavan knows I’ve been voodooed.

Let the shit storm begin.

I refuse to look up at him, don’t want him to see the misery in my eyes now that it’s unofficially out on the table. Fuck. Here comes the ribbing I deserve but sure as hell don’t need. Viv might as well double up the next round because I think I’m gonna need it.

“Nah …” Denial is my only option.

“Sweet Jesus, dude. I go on my honeymoon, you bang the maid of honor, and then you tie your dick in knots over her—”

“At least you acknowledge it’s long enough to tie in a knot.” I shrug, the beer sliding down so nice, and it feels like I can breathe a bit now that I’m no longer lying to my best friend.

He snorts out a laugh. “In your dreams, dude. Have another.”

“Fuck off. And thank you. I believe I will have another.” I lean my head back against the booth again and sigh, wanting to say more but not sure how much ammo I want to give him because I sure as hell don’t need to take any more shit right now from anyone.

“Good. I’m buying. That way I can get you good and drunk.”

“I believe I’m already on my way there,” I admit. He murmurs his consent, and I force my eyes open so the room stops spinning behind my eyelids. And so I don’t see that image of her standing there, mouth telling me to go but eyes begging me to stay. “I just … It doesn’t make sense…. I … Fuck!”

“That about sums it up.”

I appreciate his silence after the comment as I try to grasp the shifting thoughts in my head. “With Ry … did you … were you …”

“Confused constantly? My dick begging for more, but my head saying back the fuck up?” The quiet amusement in his voice tells me he gets it, understands where my head’s at right now.

“Basically.” I scrub my hands over my face. “This is so messed-up.”

“Yep. And if I wasn’t feeling your pain, I’d be laughing at you too.” I glare at him. “You, pussy perplexed? It’s just too fucking comical for words.”

“Fuck off.”

“Thank you. I believe I will be getting just that later tonight while you’re here crying in your beer. It’s easier all around if you just admit the Haddie Hex is in full effect.” I roll my eyes at him but stop when he clinks the neck of his beer against mine. “Voodoo, bro. Don’t knock it till you try it.”

“Ha. Now you’re all for it when a year ago you fought it every step of the way.”

“Fought it until I realized a voodoo pussy is a grown man’s Lucky Charms.”

Why the hell is he talking about cereal? “Come again?”

His flashes me a grin. “Magically delicious.”

I don’t even fight the laugh that falls from my mouth. Colton Donavan at his finest. “You are so fucked in the head.”

“And your point is …?”

“My point is … you’re right. About all of it.”

His laugh fades as his eyes meet mine over his bottle of beer. “Life hasn’t been easy for her this past year.” His statement is completely matter-of-fact, and as much as I know he’s right, it still fucking sucks. All of this.

“True”—I bob my head in agreement, synapses trying to fire through the alcohol-induced haze—“but I just don’t get it. Why tell me there’s something between us and then tell me she’d rather have someone else?”

“And you believe her about the someone else?”

I look at Colton and try to process the look he’s giving me. His eyes are apologizing, telling me something…. Vague hints of what it might be float in the far-off distance, but I can’t seem to pull them close enough to comprehend. “Her words were about as clear as fucking Crisco.”

Colton laughs at my pain and the fact that Crisco is anything but clear. Sounded good, anyway.

“Fuck! All I know is that she said she was working things out with Dante, wanted to give it another shot.”

“The roommate, the ex-boyfriend?” The startled look on his face rivals how I feel. “Well, all I know is that she’s going through a lot of shit right now and—”

“What shit?” I immediately recall the look Colton was giving me moments ago. What was he apologizing for? For the fact that Haddie is blowing me off or because he knows something I don’t? “Colton—”

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t wonder boy himself.” The voice off to my right snaps my mind from Colton and ignites my temper like a blowtorch lighting a candle.

“The ex?” Colton’s voice is low and even as he asks me the question. His eyes tell me to calm the fuck down but his posture says, Fuck off, Dante. Game on.

“Dante.” I nod my head without even looking at him, knowing if I do that urge I had earlier to push someone else around will come back tenfold. I glance over to Colton and see him checking Dante out, his hand sliding up to the neck of the empty beer bottle in his hand, just in case.

Gotta love a friend who’s willing to break a longneck for you to have your back.

“Why are you over here crying in your beer? Is it cuz you fucked the fight out of our little filly?”

Now that comment has me raising my eyes to meet Dante’s. The warning I flash is met with a matching dare from him. Who the fuck does this guy think he is, and what the hell is he talking about?

Doesn’t matter. None of it matters except he just disrespected her, and that’s all I need to know.

You don’t disrespect women. Ever. Whether you’re sleeping with them or not.

“Leave it,” the king of hot tempers warns from his place across from me in the booth.

“I’ve got this,” I tell Colton as the adrenaline begins to surge through me, my mind fixating on the asshole and how he deserves everything that’s coming to him if he keeps this shit up.

Dante’s laugh mocks me. “Apparently you don’t got this.” I’m already sliding out of the booth when he makes the comment. “You might want to brush up on your skills because when I was with Haddie the other night, she sure as hell couldn’t get enough. More I believe was her word of choice.”

My mind flashes back to Haddie on the kitchen table at the farmhouse, telling me, More, and my synapses don’t need to fire because I don’t even need to think.

I just react.

I collide with Dante, moving at full force. I don’t even bother throwing a punch, don’t even think about it because I want the fucker on the ground. And he’s solid, but so am I, when I connect. Our momentum forces us into the table behind him.

Glass breaking and shouts from afar barely register as we fall to the ground cussing at each other. He gets in the first punch as we scramble for positioning, and I feel the connection, hear the whoosh of air as it escapes my lungs from the kidney punch but don’t feel a goddamn thing. I’m so amped up from the past week that my churning emotions manifest in the impact of my fist as I gain top position.

The connection of my fist against his gut feels like a small weight is lifted from my shoulders. And fuck does it feel good.

He lands one.

I land one.

He cusses me out in between our fists flying. I don’t even hear what he’s saying because all I think is Keep opening your mouth and give me access to knock those perfect teeth of yours out.

But the feeling of impact as I land a punch is fleeting because my mind keeps fixating on the fact that he was with Haddie the other night. That she asked him for more when she hasn’t asked me for anything but to leave.

I see red. Can’t see anything else because my mind is so preoccupied with Haddie, with the idea that this asshole touched her.

It’s Colton’s harsh call of my name that breaks through my hypnotic fog of anger. It’s his hands I fight off as they try to pull me away from Dante. And I struggle against him, even when I come to my senses and realize that Dante is securely pinned beneath me, face splattered with the same blood staining my knuckles.

“Goddamn it, Becks! Get off him.” Colton’s strong enough that his arms wrapped around my shoulders prevent me from continuing. “They’re gonna call the cops if you don’t break it up.”

I grunt in agreement, my breath too labored and my head too filled with rage to answer him. I’d take the cuffs in an instant if it meant that Dante was properly put in his place.

“You sure?” he asks me, and I nod before he releases his hold on my arms.

And God strike me dead for lying to my best friend, but the minute he lets my arms go, my fist connects with Dante’s jaw again. The sound of my knuckles hitting him ricochets through my head in a satisfying crunch.

“Fuckin’ A, Becks!” Colton’s arms are back around me, and this time I struggle even harder, wanting to finish the job. He’s successful in pulling me off Dante, and even as I struggle with Colton, I can still see Dante sitting up, using his torn shirt to wipe some blood from the corner of his mouth. “Calm down.”

“Let me go!” I argue, ready to lay one on Colton too if need be to get him to release me.

“Goddamn it, quit fighting me, will ya? They’re calling the cops, dude.” He yanks me up and backward, and I struggle away from him now that I’m on my feet and Dante’s retreated. “Christ! Calm the fuck down.”

“I’m gonna kill the son of a bitch.” I’m so wrapped up inside my own head right now, so deafened by the buzzing anger, that I don’t even hear him.

“Killing him’s not going to get rid of her cancer, dude.”

But I sure as fuck hear that.

I feel like everything stops—then there’s the quick intake of air as Colton realizes what he’s just told me—but my head doesn’t want to believe it.

“What did you just say?” The quiet disbelief in my voice is no rival for the rage vibrating through me. I turn my body now to face my oldest friend. I recognize the apology in his eyes, see acknowledgment of the deceit in his body language, and I’m fucking floored. “You knew?”

“Becks.” It’s that soothing tone that I hate.

“You knew?” I ask again, my voice escalating as I take a step toward him, hands fisted, jaw clenched.

“She doesn’t want anyone to know. No one.” He emphasizes the last words so I can hear that he was torn over keeping it from me, but my rational mind isn’t listening.

My irrational side sure as fuck is, though.

“So that was a slip?” I shout at him as I take another step closer. “You only told me—let it slip—to calm me the fuck down?”

He laughs softly, glancing at the space between us and then back at me. “Calm is not quite the word I’d use about you right now.” He takes a step forward as I grit my teeth because being angry at him means I don’t have to process what he’s just told me.

Haddie has cancer.

“You want to take a shot at me too, Becks?” He goads me, sacrificing himself so I don’t fly off the handle and take it all out on someone else. He lifts his chin and taps at it. “Right here, fucker. Dare you. But I bet your ass it’s not going to do a goddamn thing to help Haddie.”

“Make me feel better, though.” I grumble the words at him, anger still riding high but the oh fuck aspect starting to take over.

Colton judges me for a minute as I stand there stunned, fists loosening, mind scrambling to grasp the magnitude of what he’s just told me.

Trying to understand how Had’s feeling. Why she doesn’t want me to know? The fear she’s facing alone.

My friend approaches me, defense in his posture but sympathy in his eyes. He puts a hand on my shoulder and directs me toward the booth and then pushes me to sit down. “You didn’t tell me.” I say again, the only concept I’m choosing to grasp right now.

He blows out a loud sigh as he sits across from me and motions to Viv with his hand to come near. “I know—it fucking blows—and I’m sorry, but, dude, I’m married now. I promised Ry. I was put in a fuck-all spot between you and her.”