“Nah. Napoleon was a little guy. I, on the other hand, am huge.”

“Your ego is huge.”

“Babe, my dick is just as huge as my ego, and they both enjoy being petted by you.”

His husky, cocky way of teasing makes me smile, but I hide my smile against his chest and just lie there, feeling happy and still dazed by our lovemaking. By the new feeling of peace between us. We’re still in bed, sweaty and silent, hands somehow still wandering aimlessly over each other, when there’s a knock on my door and a familiar voice calls, “Mackenna, open up.”

Mackenna groans as he stalks naked to open the door. “Not now, Leo.”

“Answer your phone, man.” Leo spares a glance toward the bed, where I’m clutching the sheet to my breasts. “You won’t be thrilled with it.”

He leaves as Mackenna grabs his phone and checks the messages. “My dad’s parole officer. Fuck.” He punches the number and starts pacing until someone apparently answers. “Hey. What’s up? So when was it that you last saw him? No, I haven’t heard.”

After a brief discussion, he hangs up. “Son of a bitch!” He falls to the bed and breathes deeply, dragging his hands down his face, then down the back of his head and all the way to his shoulders. “Dad’s skipped his last two parole sessions. They can’t find him. He quit his job. Jesus!” He looks at me, shaking his head. “I send him money, you know. But my condition is that he works. Otherwise he’ll dick around with drugs again. Well, it seems like he is.”

Something’s squeezing my chest so hard, I have trouble getting any words past my throat.

“Kenna,” I say, reaching out to make contact with his back, his shoulder, anything. But suddenly he seems so tense and unapproachable, I stop before making contact and draw my hand back. “I’m really sorry.”

He shakes his head, over and over, lost to his thoughts. “If I’d known it was going to be this way, I would’ve just let him serve his sentence. I did the equivalent of slitting my wrists to get him out early, and this is what he makes of it. This is what he makes of his chance to do something good with his life.”

I’m so bad at this. Torn between the need to console him and the fear of how much I care about the haunted look on his face, I just watch him get dressed.

“He’ll be all right. Maybe he found a new girlfriend and lost time in her bed?” I suggest.

“Optimism? From you?” His lips curl softly, and he shakes his head. He leans over. “You really are a softie.”

“Am not.”

“I’m pudding too. At least, I am with you.” He walks to the door and leaves me with that. How can he fucking leave me with that?

Well, he does, and for the next half hour I text Brooke and Melanie in a group chat.

Me: Do you believe in second chances?

Mel: Absolutely.

Brooke: If Rem hadn’t given me a second chance I’d be fucked right now.

Mel: If I hadn’t given Grey a second chance and I hadn’t been spared my life, we’d be fucked now too and NOT in a good way.

Me: Ok. Just asking.

Brooke: Pan, why didn’t you tell me you had a thing with Crack Bikini’s Kenna Jones? Remington plays their “Used” song all the time before a fight starts!

Me: Cause I hate their songs, that’s why.

I’m lying, of course. I just hate one song. The one about me. Although a lot of them do talk about anger, being used, and being betrayed—as if I were the one who walked away and left him to pick up the pieces of his heart.

But if any of that hell was true for him too, what’s going on right now? Why are we getting tangled up in each other all over again?

He could fuck any of his fans, like Jax and Lex do after concerts. He could fuck any groupie, any one of his dancers. They clearly miss him in their beds.

But, like junkies, one taste of each other and we’re obsessed.

“Danger,” that little voice whispers.

Oh, shut up, brain! You’re too damn late.

I squeeze my eyes shut and find myself adding his father’s name to my talisman bracelet.

TWELVE

THERE’S ALWAYS THAT ONE ASSHOLE STONE YOU TRIP ON TWICE

Mackenna

I left ten messages on his cell phone as I waited for my flight. By the time I landed, he’d left a message. Said his parole officer had found him and not to worry myself over it. Yeah, right.

He’d left a hotel name and room number too. I pick up a key at reception and end up having to scribble a couple of autographs, until I’m finally on the twentieth floor, popping the door open to find my father slumped in a chair out on the terrace, staring off into space.

A room service tray holding two glasses of champagne is set up by the window. “What the hell is up with you, Dad?”

The anger on my face gives him pause, and it takes him a hot second to get words out of his open jaw. “Hell I . . . you’re here? Son . . . I wouldn’t be ditching parole if that bitch hadn’t made it such a pain in the ass. I need freedom, Kenna, I’m choking here.”

“Look up, Dad. You see that? That’s fucking sunlight. You want to get a good dose of that every day, then you do your fucking parole.”

“I said I’m choking. Feels like I’m still in jail, only with a wider mile radius.”

“Jesus,” I curse, then lean over, trying to reason with him. “Dad, I know exactly how you feel. You feel trapped by your circumstances, but don’t carve yourself a worse one.”