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Hope:I love you.

Hope:I'll meet you anywhere you want.

I stared at my phone and inwardly groaned.

I was too fucking drunk to be reading these messages.

Had I been sober, I would have known better than to switch on my own phone.

Had I been sober, I would have found the strength I needed to stay away.

I would have known better.

But I wasn’t sober.

Hope was throwing me a bone and like the goddamn ravenous animal I was, I took it.

Like the glutton for punishment I was, my thumbs hovered over the screen, tapping clumsily.

Fuck knows what I was writing.

I just couldn’t stop.

I wasn’t strong enough to block it out.

To blockherout.

I felt like I'd been here a dozen times in the past year.

She was playing me like a fucking fiddle and I was supplying the woman with an unlimited supply of strings.

Every time she cracked a piece of me, I handed her another fucking string. I was so damn sick of it all.

"You good, sweetie?" the female bartender asked, distracting me from my thoughts.

"Good?" I chewed the word around for a moment, and then laughed humorlessly. "I'm something."

"Oh, you're something alright," she teased. "Hard day at work?"

"Could say that."

"Don’t tell me," she purred. "You're one of those guys who are married to their job?"

Again, I responded with a simple, "Could say that."

Leaning over the bar, and giving me a perfect fucking view of her plastic tits, she whispered, "Got something stronger out back." Her long red hair brushed against my forearm. "Wanna come back and help me find it?"

"Here's what we'll do. You keep on filling that glass with a steady flow of Jack," tossing back what was left of my whiskey, I slapped the glass back down on the counter and pushed it towards her, "and I'll keep on drinking, so you can keep on staring, but that's the best I can offer, Red, because I sure as fuck ain't filling anything tonight."

She turned bright red, but took my glass anyway. "Your loss."

****

Five beers and countless shooters later, Hope walked in, looking like she belonged anywherebutthis shitty, run-down bar at the edge of town.

The minute my gaze landed on her, I knew I was fucked.

Absolutely fucked.

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