I had loved Salem’s sister, Poppy, with every piece of my young soul. She was my one and only, she was the center of my entire world. At least she had been until I followed her to college and ultimately had her tell me we were never going to be a thing. Salem, however, had been my confidante, my confessor, and maybe most importantly she had offered a lonely and unwanted boy friendship and acceptance. She was my very best friend and I was lost without her. When she left without so much as a good-bye it had been the second time in my life that I felt like I was being abandoned. I was once again left behind by someone that was supposed to care about me forever. Salem left me gutted and hollowed out.

“So you were tight and then she bounced and this is the first time you have seen her in ten years and now you’re all twisted up about it?”

If only it was that simple. The Cruz sisters had done a number on me coming and going. I would be perfectly happy to have never had to see or think about either one of them again.

If I didn’t have my hair slicked up and styled like a character out of Cry-Baby, I would have shoved my hands through it in frustration.

“I’m not twisted up. I just don’t have anything to say to her. A decade is a long time. She’s a stranger.” And anything I said wasn’t going to come out right anyway. The words would be twisted with rage and memory.

Jet gave me a look and pointed the open end of his beer bottle at me. “Right. She’s a stranger, a superhot stranger, and instead of talking to her or flirting her up like you normally do, you’re acting like a mute weirdo. Nope, not twisted at all.”

I contemplated cracking him over the head with my pool stick, but I had a soft spot for his wife, Ayden, and I wouldn’t want her to get upset with me.

“Shut up. You’re not around enough to make commentary on how I’m acting anyway.”

I meant it as a joke, a way to change the topic of conversation, but I saw him flinch and his hands tightened involuntarily on his beer bottle.

Jet worked hard. He was hell-bent on making a name for bands he had faith in. He was killing it as the head of his own record label, but the trade-off was that he had to go where the music was. That meant he was forever off to L.A., Nashville, New York, Austin, or even Europe. It was hard for him considering he and Ayden had only been married for a couple of years and they were in love—really, really in love. I could see it wearing on both of them but neither one had said anything, and like I said, there was no stopping fate no matter what that nasty bitch had in store for you.

“Everything all right with you on the home front?” I didn’t want to pry but it was way better than dredging up my past for him to dig through.

“Ayden and I are great. It’s everything else that sucks.” He shook his dark head and looked at me from under a frowning brow. “She’s going to apply to transfer to the grad program in Austin.”

I paused for a second so I didn’t say something stupid.

“You want to move to Austin?”

He chugged back the rest of the beer in his hand and laid the pool stick across the table.

“Want to—no, but it makes the most sense. She can transfer to UT Austin and finish school and I can actually see my wife more than two or three times a month. It just sucks. Our friends are here. Her brother is here and Cora just had the baby.” He shook his head again and his chest rose and fell in a heavy sigh. “It was her idea, but it still makes me feel like shit. I renovated the studio thinking it would be enough, but it just isn’t.”

It did suck but it was understandable.

“When will she find out if she gets in?”

“Not for a while. It takes some time to get into grad school, and even if they do want her she has to go and do an interview and jump through a million hoops before it’s official. Try not to say anything to Rule or Nash. She hasn’t told Shaw or Cora yet. She wants to wait until we know for sure what we’re doing.”

Rule and Nash ran the tattoo shop and Shaw was not only Ayden’s best friend but also Rule’s brand-new wife. All three of the girls in our little world were supertight, and if one of the dudes let this major development slip, there would be carnage to follow for sure. Those girls were a solid unit and the idea of one of them leaving was definitely going to be the cause of some serious emotional upheaval.

“That’s some pretty big news. Keeping it quiet might not be the way to go. Has she told Asa she’s thinking about leaving?”

Asa ran the Bar and was Ayden’s older brother. He was a little bit of a wild card and the only reason he had settled in Denver was to be closer to his sister. The two had a strained relationship due to the fact that Asa had a history of being a major shithead and petty criminal, but they were just starting to mend some long-broken fences.

Jet nodded and propped a hip up on the table. I really did expect those jeans of his to split in half every single time he moved. It was endlessly fun to rip on him about it.

“They talked about it. He told her to do whatever makes her happy. I think it bummed her out he didn’t ask her to stay.”

I grunted and cocked my head to the side a little as I noticed a group of guys several years older than us giving us squinty-eyed looks from the far corner of the bar. I mean I knew we didn’t fit in with the run-down ambience, the rough-and-tumble vibe of the place, but we were minding our own business and we always respected the locals’ territory.

I told Jet absently while keeping an eye on the group, “He spent her entire life asking her to do things for him. After he almost died it makes sense that maybe for once in his life Asa would want her to do something for herself. He knows you’re what makes her happy. He isn’t going to try and keep her from being happy anymore.”

Asa was an enigma. He sort of just showed up out of the blue and had dragged Ayden into a mess full of her past and a group of angry bikers. The end result had landed Asa in a coma and Jet and Ayden in matching wedding rings. We all had welcomed the blond southerner into the fold, but everyone watched him with careful eyes. He was lucky Rule’s brother, Rome, had come home from the war and ended up owning the Bar. For some reason the older Archer took a shine to Asa and had put him to work. I think we were all just kind of waiting to see how it played out.

The group that was watching us bent their heads together and the guy I figured was the leader met my gaze and flipped me off with a sneer.

I set my beer down and looked back at Jet.

“The natives are getting restless. We probably wanna go.”

I didn’t mind a good old-fashioned bar brawl. After all, I had played football up until I had dropped out of college at the end of my freshman year. I was still built like an athlete even if on the outside I looked more like James Dean. I was taller than most of them and definitely in better shape, but I liked to think I had grown and matured in the last few years. Avoiding bloodshed and broken knuckles that would mean I couldn’t tattoo was obviously the better option.

Jet looked over my shoulder and dipped his chin down in agreement, only our decision to depart came a split second too late. We were walking toward the door, eyes up and alert, when the men decided they couldn’t just let us walk away. I stopped and Jet paused next to me when we were suddenly faced with three fairly drunk, middle-aged guys that looked like they worked long hours doing manual labor. The one that had flipped me off made it a point to scan me from the top of my head to the toes of my worn black cowboy boots. He made a face and elbowed one of his buddies in the ribs hard enough to make the other guy grunt.

“Who do you think this joker is supposed to be? Elvis?” His gaze flicked over to Jet. “And who are you supposed to be? Ozzy Osbourne? Marilyn Manson? Someone needs to remind you boys that Halloween is in October.”

I felt Jet tense next to me but neither of us moved.

“How long did it take you make your hair all fancy like that? It would be a real shame if someone went and messed it all up.”

I had awesome hair and it did in fact take longer than I liked to admit to get in the lifted, retro style. If this dude thought he was putting his hands anywhere near my head, he had another thing coming. I was going to tell him that we didn’t want any kind of trouble, that we were happily on our way out the door, when I saw his arm start to lift up. I was going to grab his wrist and tell him to f**k off, when the guy he had tagged in the ribs beat me to the punch.

He reached out and smacked his mouthy buddy’s hand out of the way and pointed at me.

“You look familiar.”

I cut Jet a sideways look and he shrugged.

“I don’t see how. It’s our first—and last—time in here.”

The guy considered me. I mean really looked at me for a long minute until it got kind of awkward. The guy with the mouth looked like he was ready to pipe up again when the gawker suddenly snapped his fingers and broke out into a huge grin.

“I know! You played college ball for Alabama.”

I blinked and it was my turn to stare. No one recognized me from that part of my life. I mean no one. Those days were long past and I had only been on the field for one season.

“Uhh . . .” I heard Jet snicker a little next to me but I didn’t want to waste this chance at making a clean escape. “I did play, a very long time ago.”

“I graduated from the University of Alabama, so I follow the Crimson Tide like it’s my religion. You were a running back. I remember everyone saying that you had a boatload of potential. I remember thinking the coaches had some serious balls putting you in first string. You were fast, fast enough to help them get to the Sugar Bowl that year. Rowland something . . . right?”

I reached up and rubbed the back of my neck. The rest of the superfan’s cohorts had fallen quiet and were now looking at me in an entirely new way. Nothing like football to soothe the raging blue-collar beast.

“Rowdy St. James.”

He nodded. “Right. Rowdy, because you were wild and unpredictable. No one could ever tell what kind of pattern you were going to run. Something happened, though. I don’t remember what but I remember you didn’t play in the bowl game or the following season. I remember them taking about you on ESPN. You just vanished and everyone wondered why.”

That was not something I wanted to discuss, especially not with a group of guys that had been all too eager to start shit a second ago.

I shrugged and forced a sheepish grin. “Well, you know, the pressure got to me. I wasn’t ready for the big show. It just wasn’t meant to be.”

A professional football career really wasn’t in the cards for me, but it had nothing to do with the pressure and everything to do with me not being invested in it. But I wasn’t about to share that with these guys.

“You were a talented kid. It’s a shame you didn’t follow through.”

I gritted my back teeth and offered a shrug. It had nothing to do with follow-through and everything to do with the fact I nearly beat the starting quarterback to death with my bare hands a few weeks before the bowl game. Man, what was it with the ugly past rearing its head and refusing to stay in the dark where I left it?

There was only one way we were getting out of here. I reached out and clapped the superfan on the shoulder and hollered as loud as I could, “ROLL TIDE!”

It was immediately followed by an answering holler from the guy that recognized me and that of course started an epic debate about college football and the Big Ten, which of course transitioned into talk of the Broncos and their tragic loss in the Super Bowl earlier in the year. Before the guys had noticed, Jet and I managed to slip out the front door, leaving the sounds of arguing male voices and clinking beer bottles echoing behind us.

In the parking lot Jet doubled over in laughter and I couldn’t help but smack him on the back of his head as we made our way to the flashy Dodge Challenger he drove.

“Shut it.”

“What the f**k does ‘Roll Tide’ even mean?”