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I smiled at him. “Oh, but I do, Chip.”

“It’s Jason.” His upper lip curled.

I shook my head. “I don’t care.”

He looked at me with the hatred of an entitled man who couldn’t believe that a woman was saying no to him without stroking his ego. Regular women had to say no politely. Because they were trained to be afraid—a rejected man might follow them home. Rape them. Kill them. I was lucky enough to be armed and ready for such attacks, therefore, no ego stroking.

“Bye, Chip,” I waggled my fingers.

When Chip lingered at my side for a moment, I hoped that he’d push it. I could do with the simple pleasure of headbutting a rich, white guy.

But then he left. Smarter than he looked, apparently.

Amusing and distracting. Which were the reasons I was there in the first place. I was happy to drink alone, I did it often enough. But doing it inside my childhood home was depressing. The place felt like a well-decorated tomb.

A small-town bar was only slightly better. Especially since I had chances of running into familiar faces. But at least my face wasn’t overly familiar, and the drunker people got, the less they were apt to recognize me.

Or so I’d thought.

I was two sips into my third whiskey when a new figure entered my periphery.

Not a finance douche. Not an old high school chum. Not even Dante, who I might’ve preferred.

I didn’t have to look to know it was him.

I smelled his cologne. Subtle. Expensive. Classy. Too classy for a small-town cop’s salary, but he had a trust fund and a mother who probably bought him a bottle of it every Christmas. And Colton was the kind of guy who wore what his mother got him. Colton wasn’t the kind of guy who slummed it in places like this. I expected he’d be across town at the country club, or at the very least, at a more upscale bar on Main Street—I refused to think of it as Memory Lane.

Yet there he was.

“Can’t a girl drink herself into oblivion in peace?” I mused to the ceiling before whirling on my stool to face Colton. I knew he wouldn’t be easily dismissed like Chip.

My eyes ran over him. No uniform this time. Simple white tee—clinging to an impressive torso that definitely boasted a six-pack—showcasing bronzed, sculpted forearms. Worn jeans, boots. His hair was mussed in a way that looked too perfect to be accidental. Likely, Colton’s hair just behaved that way for him; no way he’d spend minutes fucking with it.

His jaw was hard, posture tense, hands fisted at his sides.

Hostility emanated from him. Fair enough. Our first meetings after over a decade weren’t exactly warm and cozy. I wished for a second that I’d been nicer to him. That I had the ability to be nice to him. To be the girl he’d loved so tenderly and kindly.

But she was long dead.

This was who I was now. Therefore, I didn’t smile. Didn’t greet him.

“You have a black eye.” Colton’s gaze homed in on the aforementioned eye.

I hadn’t been able to justify keeping my sunglasses on inside the dimly lit bar at nine in the evening. Luckily, it was the kind of establishment where people didn’t blink at a black eye on a woman. Or maybe that was fucking depressing as shit.

I sighed at the question in his sentence, at the brewing anger, possessive and looking for vengeance. I hadn’t bothered to attempt to cover it up. I had nothing to hide. Well, I had plenty to hide. Which was why trying my subpar makeup skills was not something I had bothered with.

“I fell into a coat rack.” I kicked my legs up on the empty stool beside me, lest he get any ideas. I didn’t miss the way his gaze darted to my bare leg, covered from ankle to upper thigh in tattoos, even beneath the ripped cutoffs I was wearing.

“You expect me to believe that?” he scoffed, hand on his hip. It was a distinct cop move, as if he were trying to rest his palm on his piece, but it wasn’t there. Good instincts, to go for an imaginary weapon when he was near me. He might not have been able to accept what I was now, but his subconscious was on the right track.

“I don’t care what you believe, Colton,” I tsked, downing my drink while tapping the bar for another one.

“Did he do it?” He motioned to my eye. “Dante?” He spat out his name.

I barked out a laugh. “He wishes he could land a punch on me.”

I watched the bartender make his way over to me. Too slowly. I was too sober for Colton’s questions, his misplaced ire. And the feelings I was trying my very best to drink away.