Prologue
Once upon a time, there was a man, there was a woman, and some shit went down.
The end.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Just messing with you.
I’m a full-service kind of guy, and I’d never skip the good part.
When I tell a you’ll-never-believe-what-happened kind of story, I’ll stamp it with my personal guarantee that you’re getting the whole Oreo, from the delicious chocolate wafers to the sweet crème filling.
And please, I encourage you to devour it all, every mouth-watering morsel of the tale.
Like that one time on the rollercoaster when we learned exactly why some people shriek at the top of their lungs on the downhill.
Or the tale of the quickie behind the lucky slot machine, when someone nailed three cherries while I nailed her.
Not sure either of those times topped the afternoon with the ladder, though.
What? You don’t have any fantasies involving ladders? You will soon, and you’ll never think of the top rung of a ladder the same way again.
But in between all of that should-be-illegal stuff that I never could have predicted in my wildest imagination—and look, it’s lawless up there between my ears—there was some seriously real shit, too.
The type of real that fucks your heart with a chainsaw.
That damn near rips it out of your chest.
That was what happened to me.
So now, after nearly sixty-nine days with her—and the irony of that number is most decidedly not lost on me—I’m here.
On the steps of the courthouse. She’s going up. I’m going down.
I reach for her arm. Wrap my hand around it. “Is this how it ends?”
My voice barely sounds like my own.
Hers is a whisper, too. “You tell me.”
I could tell you I’m a player. I could tell you I’ve got a big dick, a rock-hard body, and a heart of gold. But you’re not here for my résumé. Besides, you’ve heard stories before of the player tamed.
You haven’t heard this one.
Warning: I don’t give spoilers, so you’ll just need to buckle up and enjoy the ride.
The only thing I’ll tell you is this—our ending is one you’ll never see coming.