Page 27 of Double or Nothing

The shots I order and subsequently drink won’t help me forget. Just like the ballcap on my head won’t hide me from my fans or the desperate women pretending to be them. Neither is anything more than a temporary solution.

Moving onto the next shot, my eyes drift up to the television. The Giants are playing, and the view of the baseball diamond shatters me again, serving as a reminder of the field where I asked Kat to meet me to tell her the good news about my contract with Rocked Records. The place where everything went to hell.

I had been so certain we would ride off into the sunset. Instead, we broke. Irreparable damage kind of shit. All because I was an asshole kid who didn’t get his way.

“Hey, can you turn the game off?” I ask the bartender.

Several people in the bar Boo me.

“Are you crazy? This is the championship,” the bartender says.

As much as I’d like to pull rank, tell this guy who I am and buy my way out of having to watch the game, I don’t. I hang my head and try to focus on the alcohol, even though it’s doing little to dull the pain or stop the thoughts running through my mind. The fear that going back to Vegas instills in me.

Fear of facing my past. My dad. Kat.

Christ, how the hell am I supposed to do that? How am I supposed to face her after five years? That’s a hell of a long time not to see someone, especially someone who owns every piece of your soul.

Over the years, I’ve wanted to reach out. Hell, I almost have a few dozen times, but every time, I chicken out. I’m terrified of hearing her voice, of her anger. If I can’t bear to hear her voice? How the fuck will I look her in the face? Her beautiful, perfect face. The one I caused to be etched in pain the last time I laid eyes on it.

Among all that fear, I can’t help but wonder what she’s like now. Is her smile the same? Do her eyes still have that same sparkle? Has she grown into her curves even more?

Will her kiss taste the same?

With a one-track mind, I focus on the one thing I came here to forget. Kat.

Not that she’s ever really been far from it. Fuck, she’s haunted my dreams since I left Vegas. In the light of day, I can usually push her out, but now? Hearing her name? She’s consuming me all over again.

One thing I know for certain is Kat isn’t an option, no matter how much my heart wants her. And if I know her, which I do, I’m fairly certain she’s going to make sure that I know it, too.

Which is exactly why I need to get my head out of this fucking tailspin. I need to get my head on right and my heart in check before Kat annihilates them both when she sees me tomorrow. The alcohol clearly isn’t working.

That only leaves one other option.

A woman.

I need a woman

Any woman.

Someone to wash the idea of Kat out of my mind and help me remember who I am and who I’ve become. The woman sauntering toward me is exactly what I need to do it.

“Thought I might find you here,” Val says as she runs her fingers down my arm.

“I didn’t realize you were looking.”

Her eyes scan my body. “I’m always looking, Sutton.”

Val Adler works for the record label and was one of the first people I befriended when I arrived in New York. The friendship quickly changed into a friends-with-benefits scenario. I needed sex without emotion, and she wanted to fuck a rock star. It was the perfect scenario. Still is from time to time.

Like now.

“What do you say we get out of here?”

Always ready, always willing, Val’s hand cups me through my jeans.

“I say, let’s go.”

The limo ride from my house to the bar is short but feels like an eternity because Val hasn’t shut up since we got in the car. Her legs are slung over my lap as she continues to babble on about Vegas, the one thing I am trying to get off my mind.

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