Brimstone's was one of the only bars in the entire town that was open past 10 PM. It was also a walkable distance from my parents' house, so I easily could have been fifteen minutes early, and yet I ended up fifteen minutes late after trying on every article of clothing in my suitcase, which I had not packed for meeting with people who changed the trajectory of my life forever.

Oops.

I had twenty-seven of the same white t-shirts and only accessories to mix it up.

Eventually, I found a nice olive jacket that was not warm enough for December nights but looked great with the neutral tones of my pale-ass skin, did my make-up in just the right way to look my-kind-of-hot, but not too feminine, and threw on the clunkiest white boots I owned mostly because they made me feel tough and I was going to need that extra boost of confidence.

Besides, when we were dating, Damien always went crazy for me in boots. I liked to tell myself the former was the real reason, but I knew I was kidding myself.

I didn’t even have to enter the bar before I saw him. He was sitting at the counter with a half-drunk beer—dark. He was the one who got me into stouts back in the day—and talking to the bartender about something obviously funny.

Damn.

Even seeing his smile from thirty feet away made me even more convinced this was a bad idea. He'd gotten so goddamn handsome. I mean, he was always an attractive guy, but seven years did him kind… which was perfect proof karma was a hoax.

His deep, warm complexion, light stubble, eyes so dark they were nearly black to match his hair, that perfect pearl white smile, and the way his gray t-shirt hugged the muscles of his arms—he was everything I liked about the masc.

My general consensus was: I found myself more physically attracted to feminine-leaning folks, and emotionally more attracted to masculine-leaning folks… but dammit… Damien proved that to not be a flawless theory.

Deep breaths. Deep breaths. I repeated to myself and inhaled slowly between each one.

Control. Keep control.

Don't let him get to you.

I pushed through the glass doors which caused a bell to ring and Damien to look over with that perfect-ass smile beaming bright. It dulled a little when he saw me, and I wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but he picked up his hand to wave and mouthed the word, “Hey.”

At that moment, I remembered that I'd lied to Sky. I did have good memories of this town, and all of them revolved around this man.

That was a realization I was not prepared for.

I was ready to hate him, but only half of me did.

The fact that he was hot as hell didn't help convince the other side it was wrong.

Stop. Focus.

All I could do was nod back to him. I was paralyzed otherwise.

Why did I come? Why did I come? Keep it together. Just walk.

I listened to my internal voice and pulled up to the chair next to Damien, sat down, and ordered a beer.

I wanted to order something stiffer but that might’ve given away how uncomfortable I was, and this was about control, no matter how much my brain wanted to throw me off course.

Even the bartender gave us awkward looks as he poured my beer and the two of us sat, no one talking, no one moving. Damien had his eyes on his beer. I had mine on the bartender.

After a deep cough, Damien finally spoke up. “Well, this is, uh… weirder than I expected it to be.”

I let out a quick, fake laugh. “Not for me. This is exactly as weird as I expected it to be.”

“And yet you still showed up,” Damien said and tilted his glass toward me before taking a sip.

The bartender slid my beer over the counter and into my hand not a moment too late. “I’m a glutton for misery, I suppose.” I chugged down half the beer in one swig.

I should have gotten shots.

We finally made eye contact and Damien pulled out that perfect smile once more, though much less genuine than it had been before I entered. “It is nice to see you again, even if it’s awkward.” He gritted his teeth and looked back at his beer.

Damn, he really couldn’t look at me for that long.

I didn’t know what his reasoning was, but they didn’t feel the same as mine. There was something weirdly dark behind his eyes that didn't exist in high school. Everyone had a little darkness in their lives these days, and even after everything, I was sad to see Damien hadn't escaped it either.

Why did I still care about him?

“I uh, didn’t realize you were a teacher. I didn’t peg you for a nerd back in school.” I chuckled lightly in an attempt to get a normal conversation flowing as best I could.

A little tease never hurt anyone. He always had a good sense of humor. Whatever made this as painless as possible until we could both go home and forget it happened.

I just needed that damn closure.

Damien’s brows furrowed like he had no idea what I was talking about.

“What? Oh no. I mean, yeah. Sometimes I substitute. Only when I’m in town. That’s how I met your niece, right.” The way he said it… there was something hidden behind those words and it wasn’t even well hidden. It didn’t matter to me; I wasn’t going to see him again after today if the world didn’t hate me. “Otherwise, my other job keeps me busy.”

“What’s your other job?” I had no idea where Damien ended up. I didn’t use social media much, and I sure as hell didn’t check up on him, not even at my lowest moments. That was something I was proud of.

He sipped his beer with a loud slurp for longer than seemed necessary. “It’s uh, mentorship work.”

“Mentorship?”

“Yeah. It’s boring and complicated and not worth explaining, keeps me traveling a lot.” He spoke the words about as fast as Sky talked when she was excited. “What about you? You still trying to be an action movie star?”

“I figured stunt work was more realistic.”

“Okay, cool. That, then.”

“No. Never happened for me.” I rolled my glass around on the bar, listening to the grinding noise of glass against the wood and the splashing of beer swirling around. “I tried when I got out to LA. I got a couple of good stunt double gigs but after a few mistakes, doctors told me I couldn’t do it anymore because of…”

I sighed, long, hard, heavy. I didn’t want to bring it up, but there was no avoiding it. “…everything that happened.”

Damien’s head fell into his hand and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Fuck man. I’m sorry.”

I heard that hint of guilt in his voice. My heart hurt more and more with each new thud against my ribs.

But why? Why did I give a shit how he felt about the situation? I was the one who ended up broken and alone.

“It’s not your fault,” I said.

But the demon inside me wanted to rage. A fire burned somewhere deep in my soul, not willing to let him off the hook like that. It couldn’t let things die.

I had control. I was the one who deserved to be upset.

I said with untamed sass, “I mean…it’s not entirely your fault, anyway.”

And there it was.

The blame was brought up and there was no getting rid of it. Damien sat there with his head in his hand, moving it from his forehead to his mouth, eye shut, absorbing it all in.

I couldn’t imagine how much he regretted sending me the text that landed us right here.

Right where neither of us wanted to be, and both knew was inevitable.

The conversation hadn't lasted two minutes.

“I know it doesn't matter, but I didn’t want things to end the way they did,” he finally said.

Not good enough. The demon fire inside only grew and grew.

“Funny because you’re the one who ended them.” I picked up my glass, fully planning to chug the rest.

“It’s not that simple. There were complications—”

Before the glass reached my lips, I slammed it back down. Beer went everywhere, and I didn’t care.

The demon in me had all the power it needed, and I yelled, over the music and over the noise of the bar folks. “Yes, there fucking were complications! My brother was dead. I was hospitalized with a fractured back… and you were just... " I threw up my arms and motioned around before getting out the last word, "gone.”

God dammit. That felt good to say but in the worst way.

The little demon in my brain was so satisfied but another side of me wanted to cry. I had needed to yell those words for years and after it got them out, that demon finally got what it wanted. It was satiated, and it could crawl back into its hole for another day.

But at what cost? Damien invited me out, probably hoping to amend for dumbass choices he made as a dumbass teen, and I chewed his head off the second I could.

Damien shook his head, eyes still shut but didn’t say a word. There wasn’t anything he could say, and he knew it. After a moment, he pulled out his wallet, slammed some cash on the bar, and stood from his chair saying, “I knew this was a bad idea. Sorry, I bothered you.”

He headed for the door and the two halves of my brain started a war about what to do next. The good half wanted me to grab him, pull him back to his seat and actually talk about what happened, pretend everything was okay, and laugh about the good memories I had before it all went to shit.

The demon side wanted me to chase him and not let him walk away from me once again, no matter what that meant.

Either way, both wanted one thing: for it not to end here.

I pulled out my wallet and slipped a credit card from its pocket, because like a normal person, I didn’t carry cash. I flicked it at the bartender and said, “I’ll come back for this tomorrow,” and ran out the door after Damien.

He was turning the corner to the main street, not wearing any jacket at all in the freezing air as I yelled after him, “Hey! You’re really just going to walk away… again?”

His head reared back as he pulled to a stop, but he didn’t turn around. “I’m going to leave you alone. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“You have no idea what I want.” I stayed an appropriate distance away to still be able to yell angrily into the night. It was strange, really, fighting with Damien Matthews. We never fought all that much as a couple, considering how young and idiotic we were.

Which was why part of me wanted to stop.

Damien spun around, hands in the pockets of his jeans and eyes darkened by the shadows of the night. He didn’t yell like I did. He kept his voice low, and smooth. “I figured you came here today to remind me I fucked up. Great. Mission accomplished. Congratulations.”

With that, he turned to continue on his way.

Nope. Still not happening. I jogged to cut in front of him and now got right up in his face. “Meeting was not my idea.”

He still refused to look me in the eye. Instead, he closed his eyes and turned his head in any direction but towards me. I could see every breath he took as steam in the air while he said, “You’re right. It was my bad idea because some absurd part of my brain thought maybe, just maybe…” he stopped.

“What? You thought you could like, hook up with me tonight?” Wishful thinking from the more messed up side of my brain, clearly.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Mick—Mikkie, no.”

Mick. That was the name he used to call me. There was something strange about him using it again, and something stranger about him correcting it.

His eyes did finally meet mine, and I could see them pleading for this all to end, which is exactly how my better half felt.

He said, much softer, “I just wanted to see you again. I didn’t mean for it to come with a reminder of everything that went wrong. The best I can do is go away now. You’ll never see me again, and you can continue on with your life.”

For the third time, he left.

“That’s bullshit,” I said, this time not chasing after him. It was my turn to face away—to let him come back to me. I wasn’t the one trying to run away.

I wasn't the one always running away.

“You really think that you disappearing again is what will help me move on? My life became a living hell that day and you weren’t there. Why would you be now?”

It was the good side of me acting now: the half of me that lived in a fantasy world. The half of me that wished I could go back to that day seven years ago, laughing and drunk in the back seat of my brother’s car with Damien beside me, both of us just waiting to get home so we could be all over each other… or so I thought.

If we’d hit one extra red light. One different turn. One single second of difference, everything would be okay now. Damien was a reminder of the worst day of my life, but also the best years I had before it.

And that was the truth I didn’t want to admit to him or myself.

But the truth nonetheless, and based on everything he'd said, he felt it too.

“Your life bec—?” Damien scoffed behind me but didn’t finish his thought before marching back to me. He grabbed my shoulders and spun me around, forcing my gaze onto his. His perfect, brown eyes begged me for something… I couldn’t tell what.

“Fine, Mikkie. Here I am. I can’t change what was, but I’m here now. If leaving won’t help, tell me what will?”

I don’t know what the final straw was. Maybe it was the way he looked at me. Maybe it was the impossible warmth of his bare hands on my shoulders in the bitter cold. Maybe it was the memories of a better time and how much I longed to live in that moment for even a second longer.

Maybe it was just the fact that I only knew one way to claim my dominance over any situation, and it wasn’t the healthiest… but I liked it.

Before he could get in another word, I threw my arms around his neck and pulled him in, kissing him as deeply as I could—like I would have if we’d made it home safe that night seven years ago.