Iwatched herugh.

She was standing under an ironce balcony on Jackson Square, head tilted back, hair caught in the breeze, coffee cup in one hand, her other linked with Aurelie’s.

Naomi Lenc glowed in a way I couldn’t exin, not even to myself.

But she wasn’t glowing for me.

I shouldn’t havee.

Shouldn’t have let Ezra drag me to Fives.

Shouldn’t have told him her name or anything else.

But I had because a part of me wanted to talk about her, wanted someone else to desperately see what I’d seen, even if I was too much of a coward to say it out loud.

But when Ezra opened his Goddamn mouth and flirted with her like she was just another pretty thing I’d discarded, something hot and sour curled in my stomach.

She felt it too—the slimy oiliness of my stupid fucking friend because the son of a bitch had done it on purpose. The next time I saw his wife, I was so going to rat the bastard out.

Naomi hadn’t looked happy…at all.

Not like she had earlier, when I watched her—yeah, I did watch her like an infatuated idiotughing as people screamed Ste.

She looked soft at that moment. So fucking beautiful.

I’d wanted to go to her, put an arm around her, pull her close, smell her.

But I couldn’t do any of those things anymore. I didn’t have the right.

Even at Fives, when she looked stricken by the hot Creole goddessment—I’d wanted to m my fist into Ezra’s face, but I hadn’t, I’d just walked away, didn’t apologize, didn’t say, “Yes, I told him about you because I can’t fucking stop thinking about you.”

“You’re an asshole,” I said tly as Ezra and I walked down Chartres, the Quarter humming around us with live jazz, drunk bachelorettes, and the asional guy on stilts dressed like a pirate.

He raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“You asked her out,” I snapped. “You know who she is, and you did it anyway.”

“I flirted with a beautiful woman who looked like she could cut me with a nce. What else was I supposed to do?”

“You could’ve kept your mouth shut,” I growled and added like he didn’t know, “You’re married, you prick.”

“I’m married. I’m not blind.”

“She thought I told you she was avable and…how the fuck could you hurt her like that?”

He stopped walking and turned to me. “Are you hearing yourself? I asked to buy her a drink. I’m probably not the only man who’s done that! How the fuck did I hurt her?”

I shook my head as we stopped by Sylvain. “I just…didn’t you look at her face?”

Ezra cocked an eyebrow. “I was looking at her?—”

“Shut the fuck up.”

He chuckled. “You’re the one who told me you two were done.”

“We are,” I gritted out.

The wordsnded wrong. Felt wrong. Like broken ss.

“We are,” I added quietly, “over.”

Ezra shook his head,ughing under his breath. “Bullshit.”

He walked into the alleyway that led to the outdoor bar of Sylvain. He nodded at the hostess. “We’ll just sit at the bar.”

She shrugged.

“What the hell did you mean when you said bullshit?” I demanded once we were seated.

“I’ve known you since college, man. Since before, you had that beard and the whole brooding craftsman with daddy hands aesthetic going for you.”

“What the fuck are daddy hands?” I picked up the menu but didn’t read a thing.

“I’ll have an old fashioned,” Ezra told the bartender and then added, “He’ll have a ss of nails.”

The bartender grinned.

“Do you have an IPA on tap?”

“We have a Gnarley Barley Jucifer.”

“That.” I nodded and set the menu down.

“I know when you’re into someone,” Ezra proimed, turning so he could look at me.

I clenched my jaw.

He went on. “You’ve never looked at anyone the way you looked at her. Hell, I could feel the air change when you said her name. And when I flirted with her—yeah, that was petty. I was testing something. And you failed that test like a jealous twelve-year-old.”

I exhaled slowly, trying to keep my fists unclenched.

Ezra wasn’t wrong.

He was an asshole, but he wasn’t wrong.

“I can’t,” I said finally.

“Can’t what?”

“Can’t give her what she wants.”

“And what does she want?”

I sucked in a breath and let it out in frustration. “Amitment. She…said she loves me…loved me.”

He arched a brow, amusement flickering in his gaze. “And?”

I leaned against the bar counter, fingers idly tracing its surface. “I can’tmit, fall in love…whatever you want to call it.”

“Because it’s easier to pretend you’re heartless than admit you’re scared?”

I said nothing. The asshole knew me too well.

Ezra’s face softened. “Lia was a long time ago.”

I swallowed, my throat tightening. We’d danced around it before, but I’d always cut him off. “If it was so fucking long ago, why do I go into cardiac arrest when I even think about….”

I shook my head in frustration.

The bartender slid our drinks in front of us and asked if we wanted to open a tab.

Ezra dropped his card and said, “Yes, we absolutely need to do that.”

Lia was my first everything. My first love. My first girlfriend.

I met her when we were sixteen. I knew I was going to marry her.

I only had three years with her.

I ran a hand over my face as memories crashed through me.

The ident. The impact. The sound of ss. Metal crashing.

We’d been driving home from a concert in Baton Rouge. I’d had a couple of beers, so she was driving. It was raining. There was a curve, and she took it too fast; we hit the guardrail.

I walked away with a broken wrist and a few bruises.

She died instantly.

“If you were driving, it might have still happened,” Ezra reminded me as he always did when we talked about Lia.

I’d gotten past the guilt. It was an ident. Lia was a damn good driver—more careful and skilled than I used to be.

Sometimes, there was no one to me.

It was just life. There was just one guarantee: death.

I loved Lia. I may have only been a kid, but I’d loved her, heart and soul.

Nearly fifteen years had gone by, and I couldn’t remember her face as clearly as I used to. My love for her had tempered. But the pain of losing her—hell, that I remembered clearly in my bones.

I’d decided after Lia, while I was dealing with her loss, that I’d never put myself through that shit again. I already had people I loved. My parents, my brother, and my sister. If anything ever happened to one of them, I’d….

Ezra let the silence sit for a while before he spoke. “So, you’ve spent your whole adult life avoiding love to avoid loss?”

“I’m not going to add anyone to the list of people who are important to me.”

Ezra took a long sip. “Ka is going to get married one day and have kids. You’ll have nieces and nephews. And Ryan has a girlfriend and?—’

“I get your point,” I interrupted him, angry with him. Myself. The world. “I can’t take the risk, E.”

Ezra’s brows knit in irritation. “You’re not living, Gage. You’re maintaining. Preserving. Like one of your old buildings. But Naomi? She made youe alive. Even all the way from DC, I could hear your excitement about her. Now, I can see your devastation at losing her.”

I closed my eyes for a moment and then shrugged stiffly, avoiding his gaze.

“Look, she’s not going to take me back. I kissed another woman in front of her. Told her that I slept with her. And all that just two days after Naomi told me she loved me. I made sure she knows she means nothing to me. Just a woman I fucked. So…there’s nothing to discuss.”

Ezra leveled me with a stare that screamed, Are you serious?

“What?” I muttered.

“The woman I saw today is not past you. And you’re not over her.”

“Haven’t you been listening to me? I fucked it up with her. She said she loved me, and I dropped her like she was burning my hands.”

Ezra sighed, shaking his head in quiet disbelief. “Dude, get your head out of your ass and fix it. You’re in love with?—”

“Fuck you.” I drank some more beer.

“You’re in love with her,” he finished.

I shot him a re brimming with frustration. “You should stop drinking anytime now because this is crazy talk.”

Ezra finished his drink and waved to the bartender, indicating he was ready for a refill.

“I think if you told her honestly and openly why you’re so fucked up, she’ll give you a chance. She looks like a softy.” Ezra patted my shoulder. “And maybe you should grow a fucking spine.”

“Mind your own fucking business.”

Ezra grinned. “You are my business, buddy. So…what’s your n?”

“n for what?”

“For getting your girl back?”

I gave a long-suffering sigh. “E, I’m not getting her back. What I am going to do is find someone to spend time with and fuck into the mattress. That’s my n.”

“Sounds simple enough. So, howe you haven’t gotten your dick wet since Naomi dumped your tight ass?”

Because no other woman will do!

Hell.

Kill me now!

I gave him the finger and asked for another beer.