Page 54 of Fallen Hearts

Already regretting having said it, not wanting questions, I had no choice but to answer. “My mother.”

“Pia told me she died when you were young?”

“Eleven,” I said. “Breast cancer.”

And now Dad was gone too.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” I said as Beck came over to us. “That’s life.”

“You two are much too somber,” he said, putting shot glasses in front of us, then Parker and Pia. After filling four of them, plus one for himself, Beck raised his own into the air. “To outspoken women everywhere, may they never be silenced.”

I caught Sophia’s surprised expression just before downing the shot. Whether she was surprised he overheard us—Beck was actually a good listener, especially behind the bar—or his sentiment, I couldn’t be sure.

“What was that all about?” Parker asked from my right.

When I looked over at him, I noticed Pia was gone. Turning around in my seat, I scanned the bar. Nothing.

“Bathroom,” Parker said.

I ignored that as if I hadn’t been looking for her. “Beck overheard Sophia and me talking.”

“Ahh, seems like he’s moved onto another conversation.”

Across the bar, Beck’s elbows rested on the bar as he listened to something two women were saying. Tourists, most likely, since I’d never seen them before. The dirty blonde was Beck’s type, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up with her tonight.

She was coming back.

I should have continued to give my attention to Sophia. Or Beck or Parker. Instead, I watched Pia make her way through the crowd back to the bar. I watched the looks she got from men, and even women. I watched as her attention turned directly onto me, and Pia’s entire body language changed. Before, she’d been relaxed, but now she was on high alert.

By the time she sat, Pia was wound as tightly as me.

Something had to give. There was no fucking way I could sit here like this and pretend I didn’t want to spend the night learning how Pia liked to be kissed, to be touched.

Fuck.

I stood up, tossed some bills on the bar and said, “Parker, you’ll see the ladies back?”

All three of them looked at me with the same “What the hell?” expression. Didn’t matter. I’d done enough damage for one night.

“Sure.”

“Calling it a night,” I said to all three. “Catch you tomorrow.”

Some might call me a coward for hightailing it out of there. I preferred to think of it as self-preservation. As I made my way down the street and beyond the town square downhill toward the lake, my mind began to clear. There was a simple fix to my Pia problem. I just couldn’t be trusted to be with her socially. No more drinking or dinners or O’Malley’s. Work and that was it.

And certainly no more inviting her to stay down the hall from me.

Before they got back, I took a quick shower, considered rubbing one off after hours of an on-again-off-again hard-on, but decided to hit the sack instead. They could come back from the bar anytime, and if I saw Pia tonight, I was pretty certain all of my platitudes about what would or wouldn’t happen between us would crumble to pieces.

All went well, no Pia in the hallway. Her bedroom door, empty. Until ten minutes later, courtesy of me being wide awake, I noticed my phone light up. Grabbing it, I stared at the text from Pia, trying to decide if I should text her back or pretend I was already asleep.

Can we talk?

Three little words, but so fucking dangerous given the fact that she would be sleeping down the hall from me.

I couldn’t leave her hanging.

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