Sloan and I stood in a waist-deep pool of rust-colored water, slapping mud on each other’s faces. I started her bachelorette party at Glen Ivy, a sprawling day spa in Corona.

Hot tubs, steam rooms, saunas. We rented a cabana by one of the pools and spent the first half of the day lounging and having mojitos. We’d just gotten out of massages and we’d made our way to the mud pit, a pond-size pool with a pedestal in the middle featuring a heaping pile of the spa’s signature red clay. We were supposed to smack it on, let it dry, and slough it off to exfoliate our skin.

Sloan’s mom, cousin Hannah, and Brandon’s sister Claudia were already baking their mud into a crusty layer, lying under the sun in lounge chairs.

“Did Brandon say what they’re doing today?” I asked, trying not to sound too interested.

Sloan smeared mud on her stomach. “They were walking on the strip the last time he texted me. And just so you know, that’s the last update you’re going to get from me. If you miss him, call him.”

I pressed my lips into a line and wiped two muddy fingers on her cheek. She’d taunted me earlier with a picture of the guys on their motorcycles. Wouldn’t let me see it. Told me if I wanted to see pictures of Josh, I should send him an Instagram request like a normal person.

“I can’t call him.”

She rolled her eyes. “Kristen, this is so stupid.”

“It’s not.”

Ghosting him was for his own good. Josh and I needed a reset— especially after some of the things I’d said when I was drunk.

Josh was nursing a little crush on me—I was almost positive. And ultimately we needed to stop hooking up altogether. But I couldn’t call off things with him just yet. Once I really thought about it, I realized there were complications with the timing. But his two weeks on a strike team were the perfect opportunity to put some much-needed distance between us. If he still wanted to see me when he got back, I’d see him. But for now this was the right move.

Sloan shook her head at me. “You can’t be serious about this. You miss him. And I bet he misses you too.”

I knew he missed me. He’d said it in a text not four hours ago. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, wondering exactly how he meant that to be taken. Was he horny? Did he see something funny that Brandon wouldn’t get and he wanted to tell me about it and it made him wish I was there? Or did he miss me, miss me.

No matter the answer, it reinforced my decision to back him off these last two weeks. He shouldn’t be missing me. We were fuck buddies—he should only be missing the sex. I wasn’t going to encourage him by engaging. Not talking on the phone or texting him had always been a hard- line rule for me, and I needed to stick to it, now more than ever. I didn’t want to lead him on.

“He sees other women, you know. We date other people,” I said defensively.

“Who are you dating?” She cocked her head to the side.

I rubbed mud on my arms, watching it smear over my skin so I wouldn’t have to look at her. “I went on that one date with Tyler,” I said lamely.

She scoffed. “That’s what I thought. What if he’s having sex with these other women? Doesn’t that bother you?”

The very suggestion of it felt like she’d reached into my chest and squeezed my heart. Yeah, it bothered me. I tried not to think about it. Josh would have sex with other women, and one day he’d have babies with one of them. And that was just the way it was.

I shrugged. “He’s single, so he can do what he wants.” “Hmm. And so why don’t you do it too, then?”

She knew why I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be with another man. I didn’t want anyone else.

I stuck my finger in the pile of red mud on the pedestal. “I won’t be having sex with anyone else until after the hysterectomy.”

“How are you feeling?” she asked, eyeing my stomach.

I wore a T-shirt over my bathing suit to cover my belly. Even though it could be mistaken for a large lunch, I was too self-conscious about it. I knew what it was. And if even one person asked me when I was due, I would lose my shit.

“Well, the IUD kicked in. The doctor said it would take a few months to start helping with the bleeding, and I finally see the difference. It’s been huge, actually. I only spot now.”

Her smile was extra dazzling under the red clay on her cheeks. “Really?

Could you live like this? Maybe put off the surgery?”

I shook my head. “No, I can’t live like this. I’m still bleeding almost daily, the cramps are horrible, and I look three months pregnant. Look.” I pulled my T-shirt tight around my waist and showed her my distended stomach.

She looked mournfully at my belly.

I think of everything, my swollen stomach was what made her get this. She had a beautiful hourglass figure, and what my uterus was doing to mine was her nightmare.

“I’m so sick of this being my normal, Sloan.” I let the shirt drop. “Every day of my life for the last twelve years, this uterus has made me miserable. It’s never done anything for me but give me grief, and it never will.”

It occurred to me that pain was literally a daily part of my world. I took it for granted. I lived with it like someone learns to live with background noise. And I was done doing it.

My doctor had suggested writing a thank-you letter to my uterus before the surgery. To give me closure, he said.

Fuck my uterus.

I had nothing to thank it for. It had ruined my life a thousand times over in a thousand different ways. Every time I bled through my pants in public or vomited from the pain. All the times it stole my energy and robbed me of milestones and opportunities. It ruined relationships and vacations, special moments and dreams.

And it wasn’t done. It would never be done taking from me. When it was gone, it would still take.

She sighed. “How do you intend to explain the surgery to Josh? I mean, the man works in your garage. He’s going to know.”

I looked away from her at the palm trees and birds-of-paradise that lined the mud pool. I did have a plan. I’d given it a lot of thought over the last two weeks.

“I’m going to fire him and break things off the day after your wedding.” Her eyes flew wide. “What?”

“I was going to end it after that night at karaoke. But then I realized if I did it before the wedding, it might make things weird, and I didn’t want to ruin your special day.”

With the wedding coming up, the four of us were going to be thrown together. Big-time. I couldn’t vouch for how Josh would feel about the end of our arrangement, but I knew I’d have a hard time pretending to be happy once we were done, and Sloan would definitely pick up on that. There was no way that wouldn’t affect her.

So why make things awkward or tense? What was one and a half more weeks? I’d just stick to my rules, like I always did—when I wasn’t drunk— and it would be fine. It was just eleven days.

I looked at Sloan. “I figured we’d get through the wedding and then I’ll tell him I can’t see him anymore. I’m already putting out ads for carpenters. I need to find someone else anyway. He’s been gone for two weeks, and I had to put my stairs on back order.”

She sighed. “Oh, Kristen.”

“What?” I shrugged. “I knew this was all part of it. I sold my soul, Sloan, for a few good weeks. At least I got to have him, even if it was just for a little while. I’ll cut him loose before the surgery, but after your big day. Problem solved.”

Hopefully he’d already have someone on the side he could slide into. It would be easier for us both when the time came.

Well, it would be easier for him.

He would have the women he’d been seeing besides me. He’d have his free time back. We wouldn’t be able to have sex for months after the surgery anyway, so that would put an end to that.

Less than two more weeks until Sloan’s wedding. Less than two more

weeks of Josh.

Then it would all be over.

* * *

The phone woke me up at 4:23 in the morning. I didn’t recognize the number, but I knew the Vegas area code. I sat up and hit the Answer Call button groggily. “Hello?”

“Hey…it’s me.”

My lips curled up into a smile. Josh. Drunk Josh by the sound of it. “Tell me Brandon’s not in need of bail money,” I said, rubbing my eyes.

“No. He’s fine,” he slurred. “I managed to keep him out of jail. Best best man ever.”

I lay on my side and tucked my pillow under my head. “Sloan’s freaking out, by the way. Neither of you answered her calls.”

The truth was I had been freaking out too. Sloan’s talk about Josh sleeping with other people had haunted me all night. And without Sloan knowing where Brandon was, I didn’t know where Josh was. I hated that.

“Shawn threw our phones in the lake in front of the Bellagio.” I snorted. “What?”

“Yeah. We’re not even in our hotel. We’re at—hold on. The Twisted Palm Motel. We couldn’t make it back. Too drunk.”

“Well, I’m glad you called. At least I can tell Sloan where Brandon is in the morning. He should have gotten to a phone. She worries.” And so do I.

“He’s too fucked up. Shawn made him take a shot every time he said ‘Sloan.’ We had to carry him to the room.”

I cracked up and Josh chuckled with me, a leisurely, tired, intoxicated laugh.

It felt so good to talk to him. I’d missed him so much. I didn’t realize how much until he was on the phone. I wished he were here, in bed with me instead of three hundred miles away.

“I had to go to the business center to call you,” he continued. “I didn’t know your number, so I looked up your website. I’m not sorry I woke you up.”

I scoffed. “Oh, really? And why not? You should feel terrible. I need my beauty sleep.”

“No you don’t. You’re perfect.”

I smiled. “Why, thank you, Drunk Josh. That’s very nice of you to say.” There was a hiccup in the pause. “What did you do today?”

I told him about the spa and the mud and the suck-for-a-buck shirt. “Sloan made sixty-seven dollars. She’s not speaking to me, but we sold all her Life Savers.”

He laughed. “Do you have pictures?”

“Yeah. I’d send you some, but you don’t have a phone. If you’re still in front of a computer, look me up on Instagram.”

Sloan’s insistence that I connect with him on Instagram finally made me fold. I didn’t have any pictures of him. At least I could cyberstalk him if I followed him on Instagram, look at him when I missed him—which was all the time.

The phone shuffled. “Okay. Hold on.”

I reached under the bed and pulled out my laptop. “Can I follow you too?”

“You can follow me anywhere.”

He was flirty when he was drunk. It was cute. He didn’t usually say things like this to me. I shut it down immediately when he did. But Drunk Josh wasn’t really Josh.

“How come Sober Josh doesn’t have all this swagger, huh?” I teased.

He snorted. “He does. He’s just trying to follow your many rules. Drunk Josh doesn’t live by rules. Drunk Josh does what Drunk Josh wants,” he said, stumbling over the words.

“And what does Drunk Josh want?” I smiled, tapping his name into the search bar on Instagram.

“You.”

I arched an eyebrow. “You’re lucky you’re not here. I’d take advantage of you. You sound too weak to fight me off.”

“I consent.”

I sent him a follow request, laughing at his comment. A second later I got his and approved it.

We got quiet as we looked at each other’s pictures.

“I didn’t know you rock climb,” I said. There was a picture of him hanging off the side of a seriously high cliff face. He had on a harness and helmet, and he looked, as always, so handsome. “And you water-ski.”

“Tyler,” he said dryly.

I forgot I had those pictures on there. Tyler and me at the Marine ball. A few more goofy selfies during his leaves. One of him kissing me.

“Celeste’s pretty,” I countered, looking at picture after picture of them smiling together. She was a Sloan. The kind of woman who doesn’t need makeup. The kind who glows when she smiles.

“You’re prettier,” he said.

“And your dick is bigger than Tyler’s.”

This garnered me a laugh. I could imagine the sparkle in his eyes and the dimples in his cheeks.

I missed him.

The ache ripped through me. I hadn’t seen him in so long, and somehow the separation didn’t lessen how I felt the way it had with Tyler.

Tyler faded. He always faded, even though we’d talk on the phone and Skype and write. But Josh just got brighter. The ache got deeper the longer I went without him.

Hopefully it was the opposite for Josh. I hoped the time away from me had cooled any feelings he might be having, because I didn’t think I could keep my walls up when he got back. I missed him too much, and the time I was going to get with him was too short now.

How was I going to do it when things were over, when I told him after the wedding that I didn’t want to see him anymore? It was going to kill me.

I went back to the photos, and my mood dampened.

There were a lot of pictures of him with his nieces and nephews. Him holding a new baby in a hospital. Giving piggyback rides. One picture had him buried to his neck in sand on a beach somewhere, flanked by two little boys who looked a lot like him, holding red plastic shovels.

“You really love kids, don’t you.” It was a statement, not a question. “Come to Vegas. Let’s get married.”

I snorted. God, he was fucked up. “And upstage Brandon and Sloan?” “Come on. Why not?”

“How much have you had to drink?” Another hiccup. “You’re a unicorn.”

I smirked. Yup. Wasted out of his mind.

He went on. “When you find a unicorn, you marry her. I think about you all the time. Do you ever think about me?”

Always. “Whenever I’m horny.”

He got quiet. It didn’t feel like a comfortable silence. It felt like a disappointed one. At least it was for me. I hated the lies I had to tell.

“Kristen…I think I’m gonna throw up.”

I closed the lid of my laptop. The room went pitch-black again, and I sat there against my headboard in the dark. He wouldn’t remember this call. He was too fucked up.

“Josh?”

It took a long minute until I got a slurred, “Yeah?”

I took a deep breath. “I think about you all the time. I miss you when you’re not with me.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. I do.”

It felt so good to say it out loud. And to say it to him. Even if he was too wasted to retain it, it felt liberating to say just once how I felt.

I spoke low. “When you’re not with me, it feels like I’m hollow. I wonder what you’re doing. Who you’re with. I read your texts a hundred times.” My heart pounded. “I wanted to tell you I missed you back, but I can’t say that stuff to you. But I did miss you. The last two weeks felt like torture.”

He groaned and I heard the dragging of something metallic. Probably a wastebasket.

I sighed. “Josh, don’t black out there. Go back to your room.”

“No. I want to talk to you.” He sounded like he was spitting. He didn’t hear a word I’d said.

We sat in silence for a moment. I wondered if he’d passed out. “Josh?” “Get Sloan and drive down here tomorrow. Let’s get married. Come on.” I smiled gently. “I can’t marry you.”

Spitting. “Why? I would be a good husband to you. I would take care of you. I’d be a good dad.”

I moved the phone away from my mouth as a sudden wrenching urge to sob bolted into my throat. I pressed my lips together and forced it back down. “I know you would,” I whispered. “That’s why I can’t.”

More silence.

Then he spoke into my darkness. “I love you.”

My tears spilled down my cheeks and the lump in my throat threatened

to suffocate me. “I love you too.” The line went dead.