Page 7 of Whiskey & Wreckage

She works for Weston Financial. Her boyfriend? Matthew Weston Jr.,rich, cocky, and exactly the kind of man who’d cheatand lie with a smirk. His father owns the place.Her boss.Which makes the betrayal even messier. He didn’t just screw her over personally, he screwed her over professionally too.

Her sister: Lily. Nineteen. No real work history.

Her mother works retail. No mention of a father anywhere. No social media. No online rants. Just a woman who worked her ass off and got burned anyway.

She’s strong. She’s smart. And she walked out the second she saw what was happening. No plan, no backup, just pure instinct.

I sip my beer and stare at her file. I shouldn’t care. But I do.

Bear ambles over and drops his head on my foot like a weighted blanket. I run a hand through my hair, eyes still locked on the screen. I was supposed to get her a safe place to sleep. That’s it. So why the hell do I already know this isn’t over?

Chapter Three

POPPY

Pain.Blinding, relentless, jackhammer-in-my-skull pain.

“Oh my God,” I groan into the pillow like it personally betrayed me. “whiskey, you evil bastard.”

Sunlight slices through elegant white curtains like a blade. Not a warm, golden, comforting light,no. A judgmental light. It pours across a king-sized bed dressed in high-thread-count sheets that smell like lavender and expensive cleaning products.

This is not my bed.

I sit up slowly, heart pounding. My eyes land on sleek furniture, cream-colored walls, and a piece of framed abstract art that probably costs more than my rent. There’s even a tiny glass vase on the nightstand holding a single white tulip.

Hotel.

Right. Fancy hotel.

And then the memories come crashing back like a wave of humiliation.

Matt. My sister. The bar. The whiskey. The peanuts. Thomas.

I groan again and push myself off the bed. My body is stiff, my head is pounding, and my clothes feel like they were put through a blender. I shuffle toward the bathroom, trying not to look at the mirror.

Too late.

There she is. The girl who cried into a stranger’s jacket and passed out in his car.

My reflection is tragic. My hair, normally a cascade of dirty blonde waves, is tangled, sticking out at all angles like I lost a fight with a tornado. My eyeliner is halfway down my face, mascara smudged like war paint, and my lips are pale and chapped. My tank top is wrinkled and loose around the neckline. My neon bra straps are on proud display. I look like I went out for a wild night and then got run over by it.

I crank the water on hot, no, hotter, and step into the massive walk-in shower like it’s my personal redemption arc. A rainfall showerhead pours down from above, steam filling the marble room almost instantly.

I scrub everything. My skin. My scalp. My regrets.

I wash away the tears, the sweat, the smell of bar peanuts and desperation. I let the water beat against my shoulders until the sharp edge of last night starts to dull. I lather, rinse, repeat until my fingers are pruney and my mind feels just slightly less like a disaster zone.

Eventually, I force myself to step out, wrap my hair in a towel, and pull on the thick white robe hanging on the door. It swallows me up, cozy and soft, like it knows what I’ve been through and isn’t here to judge.

I shuffle back into the bedroom and grab my phone from the nightstand. I haven’t powered it on yet. The second I do, reality is going to come flooding in like an angry mob.

Still, I press the button.

The screen lights up.

Twelve missed calls from Matt. Eight from my sister. Voicemails. Texts. A few from work. One from my mom.

I don’t even open them.

---