The room was pitch black when I woke up. I looked over to the alarm clock and saw that it was eight fifteen. Shit! I had slept way too long! I sent Mina a quick text that I was running a bit late and would meet her at nine thirty, and began getting ready. I had never been to a bachelorette party before; Mina was my only crazy friend getting married at twenty. I wasn’t sure quite what to wear, but I knew that we were going to a dueling piano bar to begin the night. Mina had told me that she had a fake ID for me, and I hoped that it wouldn’t be an issue. Nonetheless, I opted to dress up quite a bit more than I normally did, in hopes I looked a little older.

An hour later, I was dressed in a form fitting black sleeveless dress that hit mid-thigh with black strappy heels. The dress was very plain in the front, but the back was absolutely stunning~ completely fabric-less down to the small of my back. I applied my makeup heavier than I usually wore it and styled my hair in an up-do with loose hanging tendrils to leave my back exposed. Looking in the mirror, I hardly recognized the young woman staring back at me. Evie would’ve been so proud at how I looked, but I couldn’t help but wonder what she would think about everything else going on. I hadn’t had time to mentally revisit my last conversation with Mason since waking up from my nap, and as the insecurities and uncertainties of where my life was going loomed over me, I took a deep breath and put up a mental block. I didn’t have time to analyze any of that. I needed to go out and have a good time and ensure that Mina had a memorable night. I needed a break from thinking.

At a little after one in the morning, the limo pulled up to Empty’s and all of us girls spilled out, giggling and acting silly from way too much alcohol consumption. We had a blast at the piano bar singing and dancing, and had ended up spending the entire night there before coming to our home base. We were supposed to meet Noah and all of the guys from the bachelor party there for a night cap. As usual, the guys had claimed their normal table, each sitting in the same chair they always sat in.

Even though I knew they had seen us come in, I jokingly sneaked up behind Max and put my hands over his eyes and whispered, “Guess who.”

“Hmmm. I bet it’s someone that’s dressed in pink,” he joked.

“Wrong. No pink at all tonight,” I said laughing as I dropped my hands and allowed him to spin around and face me.

“Wow! Look at you girls. Impressive,” he complimented all of us standing around the table. Mina was already in Noah’s lap licking his neck like a ravenous nymph. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the two of them. Max slung one arm around my shoulder and joined me in laughing at the PDA clinic being put on by the engaged lovebirds.

All of a sudden, my face got really flushed and I felt a bit nauseous. Assuming it was the excessive amount of alcohol that had finally caught up with me, I excused myself to the restroom to splash my face with water and cool off. While I was in the stall, I checked my phone to see that I had missed a call and message from Mason. I felt bad for acting selfish and immature earlier in the day and wanted to tell him how much I loved him and couldn’t wait to see him in the morning. Without listening to the message, I hit the “call back” button on my phone and waited for him to answer

“Hello?” a female voice said into the phone, and I immediately knew who it was.

“Let me talk to Mason, Bentley,” I demanded.

“He’s in the shower right now. Can I take a message?” She asked in a fake ass sweet voice.

“Really? He’s in the shower? Where are y’all?” I had only thought my face was flushed before. She was going to cause me to burst into flames I was so hot.

“We are at his apartment. Is this Scarlett?”

“Yes, this is Scarlett. Why are you there and why is he in the shower?” Alcohol had pretty much erased any filters I may have normally had when speaking to her.

Giggling into the phone, she said, “We have been celebrating Jobu’s Rum invitation to go on tour with VanderBlue and things got a little out of control so he needed a shower.”

“Who’s all there? Let me talk to Cruz or Sophie.” I spat.

“It’s just me and Rat here, Angel,” her voice morphed from sugary sweet to mega-bitch. “He and I had a long talk tonight, and I think it’s time you just flew on along to someone else. He’s gonna be gone for the next six months and doesn’t have time to babysit or worry about you anymore. Don’t worry though, I’ll be sure to take good care of him. I’ve had plenty of practice and know just what he likes.”

Just then I heard Mason’s voice in the background call out, “B? Where are you? Bring me that towel right now!”

In a whisper, she returned to the phone and said, “Gotta go, he’s ready for round two,” before hanging up on me.

Sitting there staring at my phone, my body began to tremble with pure rage. I could not believe the conversation that had just taken place. He didn’t even have the decency to talk to me and tell me he didn’t want to do this anymore before hooking up with her of all people. I couldn’t believe that had just happened. What was I going to do? Where was I going to live? Holy shit.

I didn’t know what to do next, but I knew that sitting in the bathroom stall alone wasn’t going to fix anything. I decided that I needed another drink, and I would just deal with all of it later. It was the only thing I could think of to numb me to the overpowering despair that was slowly taking over.

I rejoined the party out in the bar, trying to look like nothing had happened, that my life had not just changed with one phone call. Unfortunately, Max knew something was wrong the moment he saw my face.

He motioned for me to go join him and I scurried over to his chair.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” he asked concerned.

“I need a drink,” I answered.

“Ok, I’ll get you a drink, but what happened? You were in such a good mood when you got here.”

“It’s over between Mason and me. He’s with Bentley again,” I replied emotionless. Operation shutdown was underway.

“What do you mean?” he asked unbelievably.

“I just got off the phone with ‘em. Jobu’s Rum is going on tour with VanderBlue and Mason and Bentley got back together tonight,” I answered. Turning around to look at him, I pleaded with him, “Can we get out of here? I just want to get somewhere so that I can drink until I pass out. I just want to not think about anything for a while.”

Without saying another word, he grabbed my hand and pulled me through the bar, out the door, and put me in his car. Luckily my car was already close to his place, since he lived at the same apartment complex as Noah and Mina. We pulled into his parking spot after a short, silent road trip and I followed him inside. He led me straight to the kitchen and grabbed two shot glasses from the cabinet.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” His piercing blue eyes had just as much pain in them as I felt.

“Pour them,” I responded.

He grabbed a bottle of tequila out from the freezer and filled up each of the tiny glasses. We both grabbed one and held it out in the air to toast.

“To forgetting it all… at least for tonight,” he offered.

“To forgetting it all,” I repeated. We clinked our glasses together and tossed the potent liquid down the backs of our throats, slamming the empties to the bar. I shuddered as I felt the burn down my spine, but couldn’t help but smile a bit once it had settled.

Max held up the bottle and asked, “Another?”

Greedy to further escape the sorrow and destruction I felt, I nodded yes.

Six shots later for each of us, Max and I had moved to the couch in his living room, joking around, flipping through the channels. I had stolen the remote from him when he had left it on a sports talk show for entirely too long, and he lunged at me to try and get it back. I unsteadily jumped off the couch, just out of his reach and took off running around his apartment trying to keep it from him. He chased after me, and due to the lack of places to run and my being way more than a little tipsy, he had me cornered quickly. We were both laughing so hard we could barely move, but instead of conceding defeat, I made a final attempt to escape. As I tried to run by him, he slung his arm around my waist and tackled me into the couch.

I couldn’t stop giggling as he tried to wrestle the remote away out of my hands. Lying flat on my back with him straddling my thighs, he tried to use his weight to hold me in place. Changing his strategy, he began to tickle me to see if I would drop the treasured item, which I did… over the arm of the couch above my head.

“You little brat!” he joked. He stretched his body forward , hovering over mine, and reached over the furniture to grab the remote off of the floor. As he brought his arm back over and rocked his weight backwards, his body rubbed against mine and I whimpered. His stormy eyes shot to mine and I swallowed hard .

He relaxed his body so that he was lying on top of me, but not crushing me with his weight. Our faces were mere inches from one another, and I couldn’t do anything to control the pounding of my heart or the fluttering in my stomach. He leaned his forehead down so that it was touching mine.

“Scarlett,” he breathed.

“Max,” I whispered back.

In the few silent moments that followed our names being spoken, as we looked helplessly lost in each other’s eyes, the thought crossed my mind that these drunken tequila nights I had read about over and over again never ended up good. But despite that knowledge, when he brought his hand to my face and began brushing his thumb back and forth on my cheek, I closed my eyes and leaned my face into his touch. I felt his cock jerk against my thigh and I muffled my moan.

“Look at me Scarlett,” he said quietly. I opened my eyes and looked at his handsome face.

“I wanna kiss you so fucking bad right now,” he confessed. His words made me clamp my legs together, trying to ignore the building ache.

Allowing the tequila to block out all the reasons why his idea was a really horrible one, and instead remembering what we had toasted to with our first shot of the night ~ to forgetting it all, I selfishly replied, “Then kiss me.”

MASON

I had been looking forward to going home to see Scarlett since the minute I had left her the last time. Living apart was fucking killing me; I had already decided when I went back for the bachelor party weekend, I was going to ask her to move in with me since her semester was over. I just couldn’t handle it anymore. My stress level when I wasn’t with her was out of control, and I had basically become a dick to be around. I was constantly struggling internally about the right thing to do by her or by the band, and knew that if she lived in Austin with me, I could do both.

I hated the fact that I wasn’t able to make Noah’s bachelor party, but even more because it was one more night that I spent away from Angel. I had good intentions of going back to see her at least weekly, but our schedule had been so incredibly busy, that all I did was eat, sing, and sleep. However, I knew when Bentley had told me who was going to be at the show and why we had to play, that there was no option. I had called the guys and told them about the delay and we got our asses ready as soon as possible.