“Amber! Amber!” Grant calls out, but I don’t stop walking. I can’t. If I do, I will break down. Already, my fingers are trembling and my lips are quivering. My heart is breaking and I can do nothing to stop it.

I gave him my heart and he has handed it back to me—in shreds.

Grant—if that is even his name—and I have been dating for a year now. I trusted him with my life. I loved him more than I could possibly dream of loving myself. Perhaps, it is why I ignored the signs—those small tells that showed he was lying; his sudden anger whenever I tried to get to know him or his family; his aggression whenever I asked why he wouldn’t introduce me to them; his agitation whenever I paid a surprise visit.

A single tear slides down my cheek and I wipe it off furiously. My fault. My mistake.

Grant catches up to me and grabs my hand. “Amber, please hear me out—“

I yank my hand from his grip. “Don’t touch me!” I say, jerking my head toward his apartment. “Go finish what you started with her. I apologize for interrupting.”

I’m crying now and I can tell I look horrible because he cringes when he looks at me, brown eyes shuttering. “I can explain—“

I laugh harshly and walk away from him. He doesn’t stop me this time. Good. Because he has nothing he could possibly say to erase what I have seen and heard.

I heard their moans and grunts first. It was supposed to be a surprise visit. I’d brought him a cake to celebrate our first anniversary, but it fell out of my hands just as my smile fell when I saw him hammering into another woman like an animal who hasn’t been fed in years.

You get what I mean.

Oh, and she'd called him Steve when she moaned loud enough to bring the house down, right before I made my presence known.

Steve. My boyfriend’s name is Steve. Perhaps he lied to her the way he did me. My life is laughable, really.

Climbing into a taxi, I weep for the whole ride home, and I don’t stop even after I’m home. I can’t seem to. It seems like a tap has been turned on, never to be turned off again.

I go through our texts and my gallery. It dawns on me that I barely have any of his photos. The few that make up my gallery are pictures of his side profile or the back of his head. He rarely stood for pictures, and understanding makes a new onslaught of emotions attack me.

Typing a break-up message isn’t nearly as hard as expected when one is consumed with anger. Thumbs flying and vision blurred with tears, words form on my screen—not nearly enough to convey the hurt I feel inside but more than enough to express my anger.

"I hope a car runs you over. I hope you die. Maybe this hurt will go away then. In case you’re asking, this is over, Grant. Steve. I hope I never see your lying cheating ass again. Fuck you."

Yeah. That pretty much sums up the hate burning within. Usually, I don’t swear, but there are special cases that push me to the extreme. Grant/Steve is a special case.

Know what? Let’s call him Grant/Steve from now on. Not that it matters anymore. I won’t speak his name ever again.

I consider calling my best friend, July, but I know she’s busy with school and He Who Will Not Be Named isn’t worth dragging her from class. My gaze shoots to the kitchen door and I let out a ragged sigh. Definitely not in the mood to bake either. Exhaustion creeps into my bones, nothing like I have felt since leaving my parents’ home. Tears start to flow down my cheeks again and miserable hiccups follow. I’m grateful no one else is here to witness this. Messy is an understatement for what I look like when I cry—my eyes and face swell; my lips and nose redden; my red hair gets plastered to my head; and my freckles stand out like sprinkles on cupcakes.

Pain shoots through my head when I push up from my tear-drenched pillow, but it pales in comparison to the pain in my heart. I should never have trusted him. Had it been so bad to wish for him to be the one? Had it been so bad to crave unconditional love and affection? Can no man give me that?

At some point, dusk darkens the atmosphere and it is then that I make the decision not to cry anymore. To solidify that thought, I get off the bed to change clothes and clean myself up. Maybe I should stay home and cry the night away.

Instead, I head for the club downtown in hopes of drowning my sorrows in a few shots of whiskey.

Sniffing, I throw back another shot of whiskey and wince at the familiar burn of anger and disappointment in my throat. Rather than feel better, it feels like a battering ram is being shoved into my skull in hopes of splitting it open. The music is a tad too loud for my sensitive ears, and I’ve had to smack someone’s hand off my ass. Twice.

I should go home.

I will, after this last shot. It isn’t my second or third. Perhaps my fourth.

Don’t care.

I am in a serious and committed process of decision-making when he enters.

The music is pounding with furious intensity and I am squinting at the multi-color flashing light when a man steps out of the shadowed entrance of the club. Heads turn his way as he makes his way toward the bar at the other end of the club. He doesn’t seem to notice this attention, as his gaze remains fixed in a direction I’m not particularly interested in. Women and men alike whisper about who he could be and I scowl, looking back at my drink.

Sure, he is kinda hot, but I’m not sure i can stare at a hot man for long enough and not hurl a bottle at his head. Men are scum. I want to scream, to let out all the frustration and hurt I feel.

But I came here to avoid doing that.

So I sip my drink, letting the alcohol wash over me as I think of every moment shared, every kiss, every smile, every fight and—

“Hey.”

I look up from my glass and tip my head further back to find shimmering pools of mystery staring back at me. My breath catches in my throat as his sapphire orbs peer right into me and seem to strip me completely bare. His eyes are framed by thick, long lashes and there are no lines around them—or on his face. No lines of laughter or grief. His face might have as well been made of silk without a single crease.

It doesn’t make him any less. . .beautiful. Beautiful in a savage sort of way. There is nothing delicate about the cut of his jaw or high cheekbones or his sensual full mouth. I have never seen such contrast in one’s face—wild, yet serene; hot, yet cold. He has a presence that commands full attention and there is something about him that makes me gravitate towards him.

My brain begins waving a red flag—which, of course, I blissfully ignore.

My cheeks flush as I realize I have been staring for too long and I look away abruptly as I sheepishly reply. “Hi. Uh. . .need something?”

Absolute nonsense. I have no idea what I’m saying or thinking. In fact, I have no idea where my brain has gone. All I know is, this man has knocked me off balance and my brain has melted into jelly.

His eyes twinkle a little. I finally understand what the term, “lost in his eyes” mean. He slides his glass over to the bartender and makes an order I don’t quite catch because I’m busy staring at his profile.

Yeah. I’m a goner.

“Peace and quiet,” he says, fiddling with the sole button of his suit jacket.

I scoff as he slides onto the stool beside me. “You shouldn’t have come here then.”

He chuckles and the deep baritone of his voice sends a delicious shiver down my spine. Holy lord. Could someone turn on the air conditioner, because the temperature just hiked a thousand degrees?

“I realize that now,” he says and he suddenly looks solemn. “I just didn’t want to be alone.”

Eyeing him as he collects his order from the bartender, who also can’t seem to keep her eyes off him, I wonder what the reason behind the bleak look on his face might be and why he came to the club to not be alone.

“You have no friends?” I ask.

He sips from his glass. “Just one. He died recently.”

Silly me. I just had to ask that. “Oh, I’m so sorry. For your loss. I. . .” My voice trails off. I realize I don’t know what to say. I finally understand what the look is: grief. The man is grieving.

He shrugs. “It’s fine.”

An awkward moment of silence passes and needing to say something after emptying my glass, I blurt, “I lost my boyfriend. Today. It’s why I came here. To—I don’t know—not shed more tears than I can currently produce.”

“My condolences,” he says, shifting uncomfortably on his seat.

I burst out laughing. He thinks Grant/Steve is dead. Shit. Did I really say that?

He observes me strangely as I snicker and a smile starts to bloom on the corner of his lips. I have been told I have an infectious laugh. And he just got infected. Somehow, that makes me laugh even harder, and he props his head on a fist, watching me with unabashed interest. “You have a beautiful smile.”

I stop laughing. I suddenly don’t want to talk anymore. I think I might be drunk because his lips are suddenly starting to look very inviting. I am looking at him, taking in his features and feeling my heart race with unhealthy excitement.

This isn’t good. This rush I feel inside can’t be good or safe.

But I find that I am already leaning into his warmth. He straightens and I have the faint sense that I am about to get told off.

“You’re drunk.”

My eyes are fixed on his lips as I answer, “Maybe a little, but you already knew that before you approached me.”

His lips tilt in a rueful smile. “Maybe, but you can’t blame me. Hard not to notice the only person who isn’t actively undressing you with her eyes. Approaching you was an easy decision after that.”

I laugh and it sounds nothing like me, sultry and throaty. Dare I say I just laughed sexy? “And you’re so sure I haven’t already done this, why?”

“You had a scowl on your face when you looked in my direction. That can hardly be interpreted as interest, or lust,” he says and the intimate look he gives me causes my heart to pound in my chest.

“You’ve been watching me?”

His eyes droop to my lips and a great surge of adrenaline rushes through me, leaving me dizzy and breathless. “Would you still kiss me if I said yes?”

Dangerous territory. I should stand, apologize for stretching things too far, and head back home. But instead I tell him, “Maybe.”

His eyes darken with desire and I know there’s no way in hell that I’m going home alone tonight. “What’s your name?”

“Amber.”

He tucks a lock of my red hair behind my ear as he says, “Want to head somewhere quiet with me, Amber?”