Amber getting married in Vegas.
I bolt up to a sitting position, my head throbbing like it’s being crushed in a vise and my stomach liable to revolt at any moment.
Amber got married in Vegas.
No. That didn’t really happen. I drank too much and my mind is screwing with me.
I search the nightstand, but my phone is MIA. I shove my hands into the pockets of the jeans I’m still wearing and come up empty.
Hank Williams’s face flashes through my mind, and the vision of my phone shattering against it.
Fuck, that means it really happened.
Amber Fleet, my girlfriend, is now another man’s wife.
It’s not a bad dream or some kind of sick joke. It’s my screwed-up reality.
I roll to the side, my feet finding the floor, and steady myself before standing. Doesn’t matter how many hangovers you’ve had, they all suck.
From outside the door, which I now remember is in Zane Frisco’s loft, I hear a low, angry voice. I push it open and glance out into a large brick-walled room. Frisco is on his phone arguing with someone.
“No way. No one knows he’s here. You send them, the press will be on their ass and he’ll be hounded.”
When I step out, the hinges creak behind me and Frisco looks up.
“Who is it?” I ask.
“He’s up, Nick, you want to talk to him? Because I’m not playing telephone with you two.”
Nick Gaines, my agent.Someone must have told him that I left the venue with Frisco last night.
I hold out my hand for the phone, and Frisco tosses it to me with an apologetic look.
“Sorry, man. Press is having a field day with this shit.”
“About what I expected. Not your fault.”
It’s Amber’s.Even though neither of us voice the words, I’m pretty damn sure we’re both thinking them.
I lift the phone to my ear. “You got Thrasher.”
“Couldn’t you have picked a starlet with bigger tits than ambition?”
“Watch your mouth, Nick. I don’t care what she did, but you don’t get to talk about Amber like that.”
He sounds shocked when he speaks again. “You’re defending what that bitch did?”
“No. But I’m still not letting you talk shit about her. You wanna be pissed about it? Get in line. I’m the one whose girlfriend didn’t bother to tell him that she was gonna elope on the night he planned to propose.”
Nick releases a long sigh. “The press is losing their shit with this. They’re making it sound like you’re the jilted groom and she’s the skank-ass ho who couldn’t keep her legs closed—their words, not mine. At least you’ve got sympathy on your side. She just kissed her career in country music good-bye. No one will touch her after this. Word is that her label is already looking at the contract to decide if they can drop her today.”
Sympathy?I don’t want anyone’s fucking sympathy. All I wanted was a damned woman of my own who could hack living this life with me, and the hope of having a family. Just a fragment of somethingnormal. Like my folks have. Like my brother has.
Instead, I get this.
If I had taken that community-college scholarship to play baseball, I bet I’d already have a wife and three kids by now. Instead, I chased my dream, and now I’m the dumbass Amber Fleet jilted.
Who uses the wordjiltedanyway?