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“Not really.” I squeeze my hand around the pick. “But it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

“Are you sure?”

I hope so. I’ll find a way. “Yeah.”

“Well, if you change your mind...”

“I’ll call,” I promise.

We say goodbye and she hangs up. I hold onto my phone for a while, wondering if I’ve just made a dumb choice. Considering whether to call her back and tell her I can’t handle being here anymore. That there’s a good chance I’m making a dumb choice.

I shake off the doubt that wants to paralyze me. Too many things have happened to me that haven’t been my decision. No matter the outcome... at least this one is mine.

Getting off the bed, I enter the bathroom and turn the water on strong and hot. It stings when I climb under it, turning my skin rosy. I can still feel Marco’s bruising grip on my hand.

He’s left invisible grime over every inch of me—inside and out—at some point or another. I can never truly manage to wash him completely away, but I scrub my hand until the top layer of my skin is gone and the pink underneath is exposed and raw.

I wish I could scrub the inside of my brain as easily as I can my hand. I will do anything to get him out. His voice, his words. The memories.

But there’s a trace of another man lingering on my skin. Another man’s hands I can still feel on my body. I concentrate on that. Remember Riot’s lips on the shell of my ear. His cock between my legs. His strong but controlled grip around my throat. His cologne, and the aroma of the weed he smoked, and his musky scent as he fucked me.

Marco recedes back into the depths— at least for now—as I replace fear with other emotions I can handle better. Anger. Jealousy. Sadness. Want.

The water between my feet turns as rosy as my skin and then scarlet. I close my eyes and rest my forehead against the cool tiles. Fuck. That’s just what I need. One more reminder of what could have been. What will never be.

My shoulders shake, but my eyes are only wet because of the constant stream of water dumping over my head.

I saw the way Riot looked at me when he was singing that last song. How his eyes glazed over and sorrow ate up his face. Our hurt was identical in the space that song created. Then Sonatina had to come and steal it.

The first cramp makes me double over. The second has me collapsing to my knees.

Voices in the suite tell me the guys are back already. The door to my room opens and then shuts.

“Kelsey?” Riot calls out.

I want to tell him to fuck off. I want him to hold me. I want everything to be the way it used to be. Or over completely. “Go away.”

He fills the bathroom doorway. His eyes are wild. “I heard about Marco. He won’t get another chance.”

A sorry moan rips from my gritted teeth.

“Fuck.” He stops where he is as he takes in my state. He leaves and a second later he yells, “Tell Doc I want the good painkillers for Kelsey. He knows which ones.”

There’s a pause, maybe because someone else is talking.

“I don’t care that the police are here,” he speaks again. “She can’t talk to them in her present state. She needs those meds right fucking now.”

He reappears a second later with a fresh pair of my panties and a box of sanitary products. Putting them on the vanity, he opens the shower door, steps into the shower stall and crouches down next to me. He’s fully dressed, shoes on, probably has weed and his phone in his leather jacket. His gaze takes in the state of the water—still pink and crimson. My hands on my abdomen and my knees curled to my chest. “Fuck. You’re not doing well, are you?”

I whimper. It’s pathetic. But it’s all I can manage.

He gathers me off the tiles and onto his lap, heedless of the blood seeping into his pants. Holding me with my head against his chest, he wraps both arms around me. His leather jacket is going to be completely ruined after this, and he doesn’t seem to care. “Golden is getting your meds.”

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“You need a heat pack?” He shakes his head. “Of course you do. And white chocolate and macadamia cookies. And Reese’s Pieces. And... Bronx says you don’t like Twizzlers anymore.”

He stops then, kind of awkwardly.