Chapter 1 – Sydney
THE NIGHT SHE FOUND OUT
SYDNEY
I am drunk. Like bike-into-the-back-of-a-parked-car drunk.
Which I, in fact, did.
Thankfully, only one person witnessed it.
He was just as piss drunk as me and watched as I swerved away from the completely open street toward the only obstacle within a thousand feet.
Crash. We locked eyes after I gracelessly pulled myself back up to my feet, my ego more bruised than anything else.
“It’s okay. I’m the only one that saw that,” he reassured me in a stage whisper, emphasizing the words with an inebriated hiccup. How adorably cartoon-mouse of him.
“It’s our secret now,” I answered with a wink before biking away, a little steadier.
And it will remain our secret…unless I fucking die and it makes it to the news: “Local Idiot Bikes into Traffic Amidst Affair Scandal”.
Dark thought, Sydney.
Through sheer luck, I manage to make it home in one piece, with all three bottles of wine stuffed into my bag intact. Necessary provisions to get me through tonight, to help me mourn everything I lost in just a few short hours.
My chest and stomach hurt from crying. My hand hurts from the shattered mirror I had to clean off my bathroom floor. Something deep inside me feels like it was broken tonight.
I don’t bother with a wine glass. I plop down on my couch, open a bottle, and swallow as much as I can straight from the source.
Alcohol isn’t going to solve anything, but at least it will dull the pain.
And right now, all I want is for the pain to stop.
I need something to deaden it, even a little.
It’s funny, but before tonight, I never really believed those stories about people dying from a broken heart.
It’s unrealistic, right? And so ridiculously melodramatic to think that emotions could cause actual physical pain.
People just like to exaggerate what they feel to make their love seem more than everyone else’s.
I used to roll my eyes at that sort of thing—too sentimental, too trite.
Just an excuse for people to dress up their pain as something poetic.
But here I am, lifting the neck of an almost-empty bottle to my lips, feeling like I could die from this. Like this pain could actually kill me.
Breaking up with Chase felt like my heart had been broken, like it had shattered into hundreds of pieces. But this? Losing them? It feels like a gunshot, straight to the chest. And the wound gets bigger as I relive the night, over and over and over again.
Alec is married.
Alec has been lying to me, this entire time.
They’ve all been lying to me since the day I met them.
Another sip, that’ll do the trick.
I take another long drink from my wine bottle to wash it all away.
I’m reaching up to wipe the tears from my eyes with my sleeve before I remember I’m still wearing Alec’s shirt.
After Earl dropped me off, I threw on the first pair of pants I’d found, cleaned up the mess of broken mirror I’d left on the bathroom floor, finished off every drop of wine I’d had in my apartment, and left to get more.
I hadn’t bothered changing my shirt.
It smells like him. And I hate that I love his smell. That it soothes me, even now, after everything he did to me.
I’m a fool for falling for these men when I didn’t even really know them.
How could I have been this stupid? After all the bullshit Chase fed me over the years, after all the healing I did after our breakup, I still ate up every single lie Alec told me like I was starving, ravenous for crumbs of his affection. How humiliating.
Only this time around, it’s even worse. Because now I’m the other woman.
I’m the homewrecker.
And there goes the bottle. I shake the last drop out onto my tongue before reaching for the next one. On the table next to my provisions of wine, my phone lights up with notification after notification.
Ping.
Ping.
Ping.
Ashton: Hey, are you okay?
Ashton: Doc told us what happened. I need to know you’re doing alright Babygirl. Talk to me.
Ashton: Pick up or I’m coming over.
I try to ignore him, but my phone starts ringing, Ashton’s name flashing on the screen. It must be the tenth time he’s called since I got home.
I stare at my phone and wonder what Alec told him. I wonder how Ash is going to try to defend him, explain away all their lies.
The next time he rings, I answer.
“Sydney?” Ashton asks through the phone. His voice is a balm and a toxin all at once, and I hate that just hearing his voice makes my heart skip a beat, makes me want him. “Oh, thank God you picked up! Listen, I know what happened with Sebastian and—”
I hang up the phone.
I manage to open my next bottle of wine and take a single swig straight from the bottle before it rings again.
Ashton chuckles awkwardly when I answer. “Are you there? I think we have a bad connection. The call cut off and—”
“Did you put Chase in the hospital?” I cut in. I don’t bother to hide the anger coloring my voice. I know one of them did it. I don’t believe for one second this was a coincidence, not with what I know about them now. It’s just a question of which one was responsible.
There’s a long pause.
“Okay,” Ash says, his voice unsteady. “I, uh…didn’t think you’d find out this fast. Give me a second. I was just—”
And there’s my answer. Click. But as soon as I end the call, he’s calling back again.
“What?” I snap into the phone.
“Just let me explain,” Ash starts.
Click.
My next gulp of wine is bitter and acidic on my tongue, and it sticks in my throat when I try to swallow. Stupid Shiraz.
I’m not sure why he would even bother trying to explain it. Nearly killing my ex can’t be the worst thing he’s done. Who knows how many people Ashton has put in the hospital?
Or how many people he’s killed.
When he calls again, I pick up and hiss, “Why are you still calling me?”
“Babygirl, what’s going on? Are you drunk?” He sounds genuinely concerned, like he’s worried about me. But between the pain gripping my chest, the storm of rage brewing inside me, and the copious amount of wine in my system, I can’t seem to find the energy to care.
“I am extremely drunk, in fact. Maybe the drunkest I’ve ever been,” I say. I’m genuinely proud of how little I’m slurring. “You’ve been lying to me. All of you.”
Ashton takes a steadying breath. “Listen, I know Doc and Viper scared you. And there’s a lot about our world you don’t understand, but I—”
Click.
Nope. We’re not doing that.
I’m not playing the dumb, naive girl anymore.
They are dangerous, cheating, manipulative bastards.
And now he wants to twist it like this is just about me not understanding their world?
Like this is my fault? No. I refuse to be blamed for someone else’s fuckups.
I refuse to be manipulated by a man ever again.
When the phone rings again, almost immediately, my temper finally snaps. I’m done.
“Fuck off, Ash,” I spit into the phone when I answer, without giving him the chance to speak. “Stop calling me. I need space. Space from all of you. I don’t want to hear from you. I don’t want to see you. I want you all to leave me alone.”
His quick intake of breath tells me he’s going to respond, but before he can, I say, “Call me again tonight and I will block your number. Try me.”
I hang up and glare down at the screen, daring him to call my bluff. This time, he doesn’t call back. I wait a few more minutes before turning my phone off and tossing it across the room.
One night, I promise myself, as I swallow another mouthful of wine.
I’ll give myself just one night to be broken.
I won’t let myself fall apart like I did the last time a man hurt me.
If there’s anything positive that I can take from the last few months, it’s that I am bigger than any relationship.
No matter how much this hurts, no matter how much pain they caused me, I won’t let this break me.
I’m stronger than that. They showed me that I’m stronger than that.
So tonight, I’ll wallow.
I’ll feel sorry for myself.
I’ll likely vomit.
But tomorrow is a new day.
I do vomit.
I vomit more than I thought a human body could possibly manage.
When I wake up the next morning—surprisingly still alive, unsurprisingly still a little drunk—I’m tangled in a blanket on the floor of my bathroom wearing nothing but Alec’s shirt, and my chest and throat burn from my time spent retching into my toilet.
The harsh sunlight streaming into my apartment is blinding, and for the first few minutes while I rise to consciousness, there’s only the bright light and the intense throbbing in my skull to keep me company, before the memories from last night flood in.
Then I remember why I’m lying on my bathroom floor, with the taste of vomit and wine coating my tongue.
Oh.
Right.
Men.
I groan as I peel myself off the ground, wrapping the blanket around my shoulders. The pounding in my head is like an off-tempo drum. Bed. I need bed. I need bed, and I need to never see another man again so long as I live.
Fuck Alec.
Fuck every lie he told me.
Fuck all the secrets he and his brothers kept from me.
I almost make it to my bed, and I’m just about to crawl under the sheets to sleep off the rest of this hangover, when there’s a knock at the door. I freeze, cold anger flooding my veins.
If it’s Ashton, I swear I might break something. Maybe something attached to him. But before I decide what exactly I might break, and whether it’s his penis, a voice calls from outside.
“Syd?” The voice is chipper and muffled by the door, but distinctly feminine. And familiar. “Let me in. I brought you a bagel sandwich and some ginger ale. I heard you might need a bit of help.”
Jade. I let out a shaky breath. My single ray of light in this horror show we call life.
“Don’t make me go all the way home to get my spare key,” she threatens. “I’ll do it, but I won’t be happy about it.”