Dirty Pucking Secret (Hard to Love #3)

Chapter 1

OWEN

Alcohol can make you do really dumb things. So could jealousy. Mix them together, and you get… whatever the hell this is.

Tipping my head back, I winced as the tequila burned a trail down my throat, and slammed the shot glass on the bar harder than I meant to, rattling the lineup of empties. I stopped counting around the time the ceiling fan started spinning in slow motion.

“You should probably pace yourself, man.” Jax nursed his third beer, condensation pooling on the wood beneath it.

Easy for him to say. He had a pregnant fiancée waiting at home and a functioning relationship. I had Cam, who was technically mine but whose heart kept drifting toward someone else.

The bar was packed for a Friday night. My gaze scanned across the room, past the clusters of people shouting over each other, and stopped on Trystan.

He was leaning against the brick wall near the pool tables, talking to Harlow, dressed in his usual ripped jeans and a black long-sleeve shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

Cam said she was over him.

We all knew she wasn’t.

And I had a pretty good suspicion he wasn’t over her either.

Jealousy was stupid. I was aware. Didn’t make it go away.

“How’s everything going with Cam?” Jax asked because apparently, he chose tonight to develop his emotional intuition.

I forced something resembling a smile, feeling my jaw ache with the effort. “It’s all good.”

The lie tasted worse than the bottom-shelf tequila. Cam and I were amazing as friends. We always had been, but as a couple, something was missing. Something big. I loved her the way I loved Jax and Kaia. Which was not the way I was supposed to love my girlfriend.

I needed to tell her. I needed to end it before I destroyed our friendship completely.

But not tonight.

I glanced over my shoulder again. Trystan was still talking to Harlow.

The memory of the beach house crawled back, us on that terrace, standing toe to toe, neither of us wanting to back down. Both of us were staking a claim to something neither of us should have.

I didn’t really want Cam, but I really didn’t want him to have her either.

Syn appeared beside me, blocking my view with a wall of jet black hair and judgment. “Well.” She surveyed the shot glass graveyard spread across the bar top. “You’re really going for a personal record tonight.”

I rolled my eyes, and that was a mistake cause the room tilted sideways for a second. I twisted toward the bar and lifted two fingers at the bartender as he passed. He nodded without breaking stride.

“This has been a blast,” Jax announced, sliding off his stool. “But I’m ready to head home.”

“What?” I checked my phone. “It’s barely eleven.”

He finished his beer and set the empty bottle down, looking around the bar. “We’ve had a lot of good times here. But now the only place I want to be is home with Kaia, watching her fall asleep on the couch halfway through whatever show she picked.”

My lip curled before I could stop it. “That’s disgusting.”

“I know.” He grinned, completely unashamed. “It’s the best.”

They were nauseatingly perfect for each other. I was jealous, not of Kaia specifically, but of what they had. I’d thought Cam and I would find that eventually. That the spark would catch if we gave it enough time.

Wrong.

Some fires weren’t meant to burn. You can strike the match all you want.

The bartender slid two more shots in front of me. I threw one back immediately, welcoming the burn. At this point, it barely registered.

“Cam’s at the house with Kaia,” Jax said, shrugging on his jacket. “You guys can crash in the spare room if you want.”

I shook my head and reached for the second shot. “Nah. Not ready to leave yet.”

“Well.” Syn crossed her arms. “Your designated driver is abandoning you, so unless you’re planning to sleep on this bar…”

“I can take him home later.”

Harlow appeared at my elbow.

“Okay,” Syn said slowly, gaze bouncing between us. “I’ll see if Trystan needs a ride.”

“Trystan’s fine.” Harlow’s response came fast. “He left a few minutes ago.”

He was headed home. The same home where Cam was.

I should care. But the alcohol had dulled everything except this stupid, territorial instinct I couldn’t seem to shake. I didn’t want her. I also couldn’t stomach the thought of losing to him.

What the hell was wrong with me?

I signaled for another round, the world softening further at the edges. The music had shifted to something slower, bass thudding through the floorboards and up through my bones.

Harlow slid onto the stool Jax had vacated, crossing her legs and fixing me with a look. “What’s your problem tonight?”

“What makes you think something’s wrong?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She gestured at the bar. “Maybe the seventeen empty shot glasses arranged in front of you.”

I snorted. “It’s not seventeen.”

“You’re right. I miscounted.” She leaned closer, made a show of counting under her breath. “Eighteen.”

“Hilarious.”

“I’m a delight.” She propped her chin on her hand. “Seriously, though. You want to talk about it?”

“You want me to pour out all my problems to you?”

She glanced around the bar before turning back to me, eyebrow raised. “You see someone better?”

My shoulders sank. She was right. Jax was busy being disgustingly happy. I couldn’t talk to Cam. She was the problem. Or I was the problem. Probably both of us were the problem.

Harlow wasn’t a bad option. We didn’t usually have deep conversations or share feelings. Our relationship existed primarily in group settings and mutual sarcasm.

“Take a shot with me first.” I slid one of the glasses toward her, the liquid sloshing.

Her head jerked back. “I’m twenty. I’m not drinking here.” She pushed it back with the heel of her hand, the glass scraping across the wood.

The corner of my mouth lifted. Right. Harlow, who followed the rules. Mostly. She would drink at someone’s house where there was no risk of getting caught, but not in public, where consequences existed.

I turned on my stool to face her fully, knee bumping against hers. “You know what? It’s really hard to believe you and Syn are best friends.”

She mirrored me, spinning to face me head-on. The movement brought her closer. “Why’s that?”

I leaned forward, not quite invading her space but testing the border. A smirk tugged at my lips. “Because you’re such a good girl and she’s...”

“She’s what?” Harlow’s eyes narrowed, but there was a spark in them. A dare.

“Not.”

She leaned in, closing the gap between us until her breath was warm against my mouth. My pulse kicked up in a way that had nothing to do with the tequila.

“I can be bad too,” she said.

The air between us shifted.

Slowly, I reached behind me and slid the shot glass back across the bar toward her. “Prove it.”

Her eyes held mine. Neither of us moved. The seconds stretched, the noise of the bar fading to static around us. I watched the war play out across her face. The good girl was wrestling with something else entirely.

She broke, snatching the shot glass. “One drink. After that, if you want to keep drowning your sorrows, we can do it somewhere I won’t get arrested.”

I didn’t want to go to her house. Cam was there. Cam and, by now, probably Trystan, and going back meant facing all of it. Going back meant ending things. And even though I knew it needed to happen, even though I’d known for weeks...

I wasn’t ready to possibly ruin another friendship.

“I have a better idea.”

Harlow raised an eyebrow, waiting.

The rest of the night blurred together in fragments; neon signs bleeding color across rain-slicked pavement, Harlow’s laugh filling the car. The bass of a song I’d forget by morning was vibrating through the speakers. Her hand on my arm, steering me somewhere. The click of a door closing.

Then nothing but dark.