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I couldn’t help it, my feet moved me a step forward without any input from my brain. “You can stay. I mean, you cooked, after all. You should at least enjoy it.”

She attempted another smile that didn’t come anywhere near her pretty eyes as she moved around the kitchen, winding her way toward the exit without having to get close to me. “That’s okay. If it’s all the same to you, I think I should go.”

“Do you need a ride somewhere? It’s the least I could do.”

Her head came up, her eyes locking on mine, and something cold moved through me at the myriads of emotions I saw in those caramel eyes before she locked it down. “Um, I drove us here last night.”

Fuck again.

Jesus. I just couldn’t stop stepping in it this morning, could I?

“Right, yeah. Of course.” Because I’d been pissed off my ass and so goddamn drunk I hadn’t been able to drive myself.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be quick.”

With that, she darted from the kitchen, her bare feet slapping against the floorboards as she raced to my bedroom for the clothes I’d stripped off her body at some point the night before.

With my hands braced on the counter, the coffee cup she made for me still steaming between my arms, I glanced at the only photo I had in the entire house, the one of me and Cora, trying to remind myself why I was here in the first place so I didn’t lose direction.

A handful of seconds later, the door opened and closed, indicating Iris’s departure. And as she left, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a missing piece inside me that she’d taken with her.

EIGHT

IRIS

There was mortification, then there was whatever the hell it was I felt as I left North’s house and guided my car through the sleepy streets of Ashland to my own. I wasn’t sure what words to put to the emotions swirling around inside of me.

Shame. Sadness. Devastation. All of that with a heaping scoop of humiliation as the cherry on top.

I felt an inch tall as I rushed out of there with my tail tucked firmly between my legs. To add insult to injury, every step I took sent twinges through me, reminding me of what had happened the night before. Unlike North, I didn’t have the luxury of being blackout drunk to help make the memories disappear.

Every time I recalled the look on his face when he asked what happened the night before, I wanted a hole to open beneath my feet and swallow me. Given my past, I couldn’t believe I put another person in that position, and it was going to take a while for me to shake that one off.

But what really hurt, what gutted me, was the fact that the moment that passed between us, the soul-deep shift turned out to be one-sided.

What had been the best night of my life was one the man of my dreams didn’t even remember!

There was no coming back from that.

The sun was halfway above the mountain peaks in the distance behind my mom’s house as I pulled into the driveway.

The grief of what could have been and what definitely never would be, sat on my skin like an oily residue I wanted nothing more than to scrub off my body.

The screen door let out its familiar welcoming creak as I pulled it open and slotted my key in the deadbolt. A fresh wave of dread washed over me when I twisted the key to no resistance and pushed the door open. The door being unlocked meant my mother was awake. There was no way I wouldn’t be fielding at least a dozen questions on where I’d spent my night.

“Rissy? That you?” For a woman battling cancer, she moved surprisingly fast down the hall toward me. The smile that wreathed her face was a punch right to the gut. “When you didn’t come home, I did a reading.” She clasped her hands in front of her chest, pleased as could be. “Please tell me the tarot cards were right and you were with a handsome, virile man last night. You’re too young to be living so old, honey.”

I opened my mouth, but to my embarrassment, the words were blocked by a gut-wrenching sob.

Mom didn’t hesitate to wrap me in her arms. “Oh, baby girl. Tell me what happened. Give it all to me to help you carry.”

The tears I managed to hold at bay since North woke up and crushed my world finally broke free, soaking the front of my mother’s flowy kaftan as she held me in her comforting embrace.

I squeezed my eyes closed, shaking out my shoulders and tilting my head from side to side as I tried to find inner peace. The gentle, soothing white noise coming through my earbuds wasn’t doing any good. The harder I tried to clear my mind and meditate, the harder it was to achieve the stillness I’d been able to sink into without issue since I was fourteen years old.

Every time I tried to silence my thoughts, images of North playing my body like it was a violin and he was a virtuoso filled my head.

This was my second attempt at achieving the calm I so desperately needed, and it was working about as well as my first attempt. My morning yoga flow might have worked if every position I moved my body into hadn’t brought North right back to the forefront.