Page 45 of California Wild

But she didn’t look back.

* * * * *

The alley swallowed her heels like it was swallowing her pride.

She didn’t look back.

Couldn’t.

Because if she did, she might do the one thing she always did when it came to Jesse Navarro.

Forgive him.

Beg him.

Let him kiss her into forgetting all the ways he’d already broken her.

So she marched straight through the back door of the Holding Company, straight into the pulsing lights and pulsing bass, straight into the arms of the version of herself who didn’t feel.

The rockstar.

The myth.

The mask.

Someone shoved a shot into her hand before she even made it back to the table.

She downed it without thinking.

Because thinking was dangerous.

Thinking led back to Jesse.

The burn barely touched her.

She was already burning from the inside out.

Somewhere between tequila and neon and a crowd that didn’t know her name, she made her way onto the rooftop stage.

Blink-182 blared over the speakers, and she screamed the chorus like it was a lifeline, her hair whipping in the breeze, her boots stomping the beat, her blood screaming.

And suddenly she was surrounded by Jesse’s friends. The SEALs. The guy beside her—grinning, charming, trouble—tossed a wink her way. She barely clocked his name. Isaac introduced them before they jumped onstage, said something about him being a fan.

She didn’t care.

And when the song ended, when the applause crashed around her like waves against a cliff, she smiled.

Wide. Bright. Fake.

The kind of smile that could convince a hundred thousand fans she was fine.

She made it back to the booth, still laughing, still riding the high.

Zach tossed her a grin. Dominic Laredo slid her a drink—water, thank God—and gave her that quiet, observant look he always wore. The one that said he knew more than he let on.

“You good?” Dom asked softly.

She nodded, too fast.

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