PROLOGUE

R OSIE

"I should have known when you invited me that I'd be surrounded by criminals and druggies."

Jewel, who had been looking down at her phone, slowly lifted her head and stared at Smyth before her gaze landed on me. She raised her eyebrows before she asked, "Can I tell him?"

"Jewel . . ."

"Please, Rosie. Let me do it."

"Would it bring you joy?" When Jewel narrowed her eyes and shot daggers at me, I said, "I'll let you do it if you say, ‘Rosie, it would bring me joy.'"

"It would," Jewel said, looking more disgusted than eager now.

"You have to say the words."

"How about I just say that if you let me tell him, I'll put you at the very top of my Christmas card list."

"You think Christmas cards are stupid." Jewel sighed, and I elaborated, "You think all greeting cards are stupid."

"Why should you have to send a card when you can just make a simple call?" Jewel asked. "You'll have to sift through a bunch of heart and flower crap to find the card, buy it, look all over the house for a stamp, search through countless texts to find the address, and then find a pen. By the time you do all of that, you'll have forgotten why you wanted to say something nice in the first place, so you'll write something that makes no sense and then instantly regret it, but it'll be too late because you wrote it in ink and don't have another card to send. In the end, you'll end up just saying ‘fuck it' and throwing it in the trash. Skip all that bullshit and just call."

Micah Tempest, Jewel's ex who was still one of our good friends, sat down in the chair next to her and asked, "Who got her ranting about the greeting card industry again?"

"She said she'd put me at the top of her Christmas card list if I let her unleash on Smyth."

"Are you Smyth?" Micah asked.

"We've met before."

"We have?" Micah asked. He looked from me to Jewel and shrugged. "Okay. Sure."

"You don't remember me?" When Micah shook his head, Smyth scoffed and said, "We talked about the need for a tax increase on marijuana to . . ."

"Oh! I remember now!" Micah looked at Jewel and said, "Remember that night I drank way too much, and when you asked why, I told you it was because there was a horrible buzzing in my ear that I thought might be tinnitus? It was him."

"What does she want to say to me?" Smyth asked.

"Please, Rosie," Jewel whined. "I've been such a good girl."

"You're a grown woman," I pointed out.

"She doesn't act like it. I still can't understand how you're such good friends with people who are so immature."

Micah put his finger in his ear and wiggled it around before he said, "Shit! It's starting again."

"Sorry, Jewel. I'm gonna have to take this one for myself."

"Meanie," Jewel pouted.

"What are you talking about?" Smyth asked. "When can we leave?"

"You're welcome to leave anytime, Smyth. Do you want to know why? Because I didn't invite you."

"Yes, you did."

"No, you're only here because you assumed that you would be coming with me when I mentioned that I'd be out of town to attend a wedding and booked a hotel room."

"You're my girlfriend, Rosie. It was expected that I would come with you."

"I broke up with you over a month ago," I pointed out. "That's why I was surprised to see you at the hotel this morning when you appeared like an apparition sent to haunt me for my past mistakes and bad decisions."

"I just assumed that I would be your date even though you decided that we need to take a break."

"I didn't say anything about a break, Smyth. I believe my exact words were, ‘I can't do this anymore, and we should see other people.' I'm not sure how you translated that to mean we were taking a break."

"I sent you a message asking if you still wanted me to come. When you didn't respond, I decided to take a chance. Good thing I did because you're obviously alone."

"I didn't plan to be alone for long. I was going to use this opportunity to find some stranger, get laid in a way that would make me walk funny and give me a fond memory to look back on during any future dry spells, which, considering my dating options in Rojo, will likely be long and painful." By this time, Jewel was laughing so hard that she had tears in her eyes, Micah was biting his lip to keep his laughter at bay, and Smyth was staring at me with his mouth hanging open in shock. That didn't deter me, though because, as usual, once I was pushed too far, I couldn't seem to stop, so I continued with, "I broke up with you because the sound of your voice makes me wish for the sweet release of death. If I never see you again, it would be too soon, but here you are, sitting with us and running your mouth, only because I tried to be nice and broke up with you without telling you to fuck off and making you cry. If your head wasn't so far up your ass, you would have realized weeks ago that I'm not willing to put up with your shit anymore. Hell, I can't even remember why I ever did in the first place. Ignoring the fact that I told you we were through isn't helping matters either. I've barely spoken to you in the last few weeks because every time I do, you make me want to commit a fucking felony. I'll just be honest with you here, Smyth . . . I wonder how in the hell you've made it this far in life without somebody beating you into a slimy puddle of goo."

Smyth gulped audibly and then took a deep breath before he took on the condescending tone that made me cringe every time I heard it and said, "I heard you when you said you wanted to stop seeing each other, but I don't believe that's really how you feel. I think that it's the influence of friends like her who make you think that we're not good together when, in reality, we are. You resisted taking our relationship to the next level at every turn, and I blame your friends for that."

"Because I can't make decisions for myself? Let me be brutally honest . . ."

"You don't think what you've already said was brutal?" Micah asked.

"That's my girl!" Jewel cheered as she grinned. "I'm here for it. Keep going!"

"I've been killing time with you, Smyth, because on paper, you're exactly the right kind of guy. However, there's no depth to you at all. You're just a decent-looking mirage that doesn't reflect the uptight poison coiled inside you. I was hypnotized by the good looks and then sucked in by the charm that I now understand was completely fake. And by the way, you weren't the only one faking things in our relationship."

I heard people snorting and chuckling behind us at the same time Jewel burst out laughing and Micah blurted, "Oh shit! "

"I'm the only person in your life who lives in the real world and doesn't feed into your fantasy of throwing it all away and becoming a writer instead of forging a career in your chosen field. I care about you, but we can't have a future if you're not willing to . . ."

"I broke up with you, Smyth! Obviously, I don't want a future with you!"

"Well, it's your loss, Rosie," Smyth said as he pushed his chair back and stood up. "I'll give you the space that you so desperately want, but I suggest you get your priorities in order sooner rather than later because you're not getting any younger and a man like me won't wait forever."

"Please! Don't wait! Get a clue buddy, I'm done!"

"Stick a fork in her, baby!" Jewel hooted as the people at the table behind us erupted into applause.

The three of us watched Smyth storm away, and I let out a heavy sigh of relief. As seemed to always happen after a breakup, I gained a miraculous hindsight and could easily see why it was doomed from the beginning. That was depressing because Smyth was right - I wasn't getting any younger.

"That was fun to watch," Jewel said as she caught her breath. As she ran her fingers beneath her eyes to check her makeup, she said, "Now onto your original plan."

"What was that?" Micah asked.

"Now she needs to find her some strange and have a wild night of meaningless but extremely fun sex," Jewel answered.

"I have to say that my friends and I thoroughly enjoyed that," a voice I didn't recognize said from behind me. I turned in my chair and found a gorgeous man with tousled brown hair and the sexiest dark chocolate eyes. When he smiled down at me, I thought that the dimple winking at me from his cheek was the most adorable thing I'd ever seen, and I couldn't help but smile back. "Thank you for the show, ma'am."

"You're welcome," I said shyly. "Would you like to sit down?"

"Actually, I was wondering if you'd like to dance."

"Go girl," Jewel said under her breath.

"Sure," I replied. I picked my phone up from where it was resting next to my half-finished beer and was surprised when the man put his hand out to help me up. When I took it and felt the rough calluses on his fingertips, I had to suppress a shiver - there was something about a working man that I had always found extremely sexy, and this guy definitely gave off that energy. As I slipped my phone into my pocket, I said, "I'd love to dance with you."

I looked at the table where I'd heard the men laughing and applauding and saw a group of guys I didn't recognize who all had a dark edge to them even though they were jovial and smiling. I noticed that they were all wearing leather cuts with their name patches on the left chest and assumed they belonged to the same MC as my friend Elizabeth's new husband.

When I looked back at the man in front of me, I realized he was wearing a cut too. I didn't have time to ask him about it, though, because he took a firm grip on my hand and started walking toward the dance floor to join the other couples there.

A country song started, and I laughed as the man spun me and then pulled me closer and put a hand on the small of my back as his other hand held mine against his chest between us. We easily got into the rhythm of the two-step and danced together as if we'd done it a million times before.

I loved to dance and always had. I couldn't begin to count the number of times my father had pulled me into his arms and danced us around the kitchen while I was growing up. I smiled when I remembered the last time he'd done that just a few weeks earlier.

"You have a beautiful smile."

"Thank you. I was thinking about my dad."

"Since you're smiling, I suppose that's a good thing."

"It is. He's the one that taught me how to two-step."

"He's a fine teacher because you're an excellent dance partner."

"So are you," I said before he turned us around so that I was the one going forward and he was dancing back. I glanced down at his name patch and said, "Your name is Rooster?"

"That's what my friends call me."

"Is that what I should call you?"

"You can, but after hearing your conversation earlier I was hoping that you might call me Strange."

"If that's the case, you can call me Curious."