I just wished he were here to see it. I wished he were here constantly, even when we were arguing. I missed him. The thought struck me harder than the rest of it. I needed to call him, and he needed to come see me.

“I’m going to make a phone call, and then I’ll meet you inside.”

“We’ll wait for you,” Gabi said quickly.

“Seriously, it’ll only be a minute.”

Cheyenne grabbed Gabi’s and Shelby’s arms. “Come on, girls. Let’s go inside. We’ll see you in a minute, but if we wait longer than five, we’re sending out a rescue squad.”

“Fine,” I said, fluttering my fingers at them.

As soon as they were gone, I dialed Grant’s number. It rang forever before clicking over to voice mail. I sighed with regret.

Guess he doesn’t want to talk to me after all.

I’d made the effort. I’d felt so guilty for holding back from calling, but now that I had, he hadn’t answered.

Wishes really didn’t come true. It had been silly to hope that we could fix everything that had gone wrong.

One drink. I’ll stay for one drink, I told myself as I walked into the League.

The room was dark, pitch-black, and I couldn’t see a thing.

What the hell? What was going on? Where were my friends and all the other bar patrons? Had the lights gone out? There wasn’t a storm or anything.

Then, all of a sudden, light flooded the room, and people burst from their hiding spots as they yelled, “Happy birthday!”

Icy wind whipped at my leather jacket as my motorcycle zipped down the narrow side street. My fingers were numb inside the thick gloves gripping the bike. My lips were chapped and raw behind my helmet, and my lungs ached from breathing in the wintry air.

Yet I throttled the accelerator, leaned into the bike, and pushed it to the max. The hum of the bike and the winds high-pitched whistling were my only companions. I was outrunning my problems as usual. I kicked the bike into overdrive and hit the ground, going over a hundred miles an hour. Maybe I could outpace my demons, outpace the fact that my world was crumbling about as fast as a demolition team could take down a building.

My father was out of jail.

My band was picking up steam at the exact wrong time.

My girl wouldn’t even speak to me.

Why had I thought all of this would fucking work out? It made no fucking sense. I’d let Ari in and for what? So she could get pissed at me, fuck some other dude, and then ignore me?

The logical side of my brain, otherwise known as Miller yammering in my ear, had told me I was being stupid. Ari would never go off with another guy. She had picked me. I had taken her virginity. I was the only one for her. She wasn’t a groupie. She wasn’t some slut who would throw herself at the first guy she saw when we were in an argument.

But the other side of my brain, my devil on my shoulder, had told me I was a chump for believing, for even wanting to believe that was true.

The doorman had told me she had gone up to her room with Henry. She had ignored my phone calls. I’d stayed there for over four hours, and he had never come downstairs. He had never left. If they weren’t upstairs fucking, then what the fuck were they doing in her hotel room all night?

I slowed as I came upon the next turn. The roads were shit this time of year. I couldn’t get the same traction I liked during the summer. I wanted to push faster, but it was starting to get dark, and my vision was blurring with the decreasing speeds.

I basically had no fucking clue where I was at this point. I’d turned off the interstate fifteen minutes ago, and these back roads were looking less and less familiar. I wasn’t sure I’d ever gone this way.

But it didn’t fucking matter. I wanted to keep speeding away, to stop thinking about Ari. Even out here in the middle of fucking nowhere, I couldn’t escape her. She clouded my thoughts worse than anything else ever had.

I’d wanted to call her and rush over to her apartment to make things right. I’d wanted to wish her a happy birthday and fuck her until the fighting stopped.

But when I’d hopped on my bike, I’d driven in the opposite direction and kept driving until I was fucking freezing cold and hungry as a dog. I’d driven away from the surprise birthday party I’d planned and her happy smiling face when she realized why everyone was there, and I’d kept driving even though I knew she’d be there, looking for me.

But I couldn’t go to a party I’d planned while wondering about our relationship. I couldn’t fake being okay with her…even on her birthday. And I couldn’t show up and ruin the whole thing either. She’d be better off without me tonight. I’d just end up doing what I do best—make her miserable.

With Ari on my mind, I rounded a sharp blind turn, and I realized my mistake a minute too late. I slammed on my brakes to try to stay upright. The tires squealed against the black pavement. They found little purchase against the slick roads. I tried to bend my body against the oncoming crash, but I only managed to slow my descent marginally.

It made little difference.

My body collided with the ground so hard that my head whipped back at a painful angle. The snow-scattered earth soaked through my clothes as I skidded across the ground, mercifully away from my motorcycle. I bounced once more, hard, and a guttural cry escaped my mouth before I slipped over the edge of the road and down an embankment.

I rolled down the hill at lightning speed, hitting rocks, twigs, and branches. Mud coated my visor, and the world went dark. After what felt like forever, I landed with a dull thud at the bottom of the drop-off. I lay face-first in a pile of snow that had collected from the last storm.

I gasped out for breath as my brain attempted to process what had just happened. Sticky fingers removed the helmet that had saved my life, and I laid my head back in the cold. My heart was thrashing around in my chest. I could feel the blood rushing to my ears.

Shock.

I was in shock.

Oh fuck.

Breathe.

Ari.

Breathe. I saw stars in my vision.

Ari, I love you.

It was the last thing I thought before I blacked out.

“Surprise!” Cheyenne cried, pushing her way through the crowd and to my side.

“Uh…what is all of this?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“A birthday party, of course!”

I stared around at the crowd of faces—all of my friends, the band, a large portion of the groupies that I had started to recognize, even Sydney. I hadn’t seen her since the ski lodge. My eyes searched through the crowd for the face I was sure to find among them.