Emmie Armstrong, with a drink in one hand and her son hanging off her hip noticed us as we entered the room and nearly spit out her mouthful of soda when her green eyes landed on Natalie’s hair. Those big green orbs widened and she pushed her son into the arms of his waiting nanny before rushing forward.

“Holy shit,” Emmie murmured as she took hold of Natalie’s arms. “What the hell happened to you?”

Natalie shrugged. “I needed a change.”

“So you lost your mind and chopped off a part of yourself? Gee, way to follow the example of every other heartbroken chick in the world.” Emmie glanced behind her, making sure that no one else had seen us yet, before turning back to her assistant. “Do you honestly think that your brother’s won’t ask questions now that you’ve done something like this? They’ve already been suspicious after the fall tour and the way you kept avoiding the OtherWorld bus and both Devlin and Zander. I’m not going to be able to keep them from questioning your sudden need to shed your freaking hair.”

“I wasn’t thinking about my brothers when I decided to cut my hair,” Natalie muttered. “I just wanted to get rid of my hair. It was too much of a reminder…” She broke off and clenched her jaw.

Emmie’s face softened for a moment. “I can understand that. Just be prepared to field questions from Drake and Shane… And try to act like being around Devlin and Zander doesn’t make you want to stab one in the eye and cut the other’s dick off.”

A small giggle escaped me, because honestly that was exactly how Natalie felt when she was around both men. But Emmie had a point. Natalie had made it plain that she didn’t want her brothers to know about the reasons why she now hated two of their friends with a burning passion that she had once loved Devlin Cutter with. She hadn’t wanted her brothers to have a falling out with the two men and had sworn everyone to secrecy. The only reason that Emmie even knew was because she had been unable to keep her boss out of the loop once Devlin and Zander had trashed a club when the proverbial shit had hit the fan, leaving Zander with cracked ribs and Devlin with a concussion.

Natalie blew out a long sigh and nodded her head. “Okay. I’ll try.”

“Good.” Emmie gave her arms a little squeeze before turning to greet me. “Fuck, you look beautiful. I’m digging that nose ring. When did you get that?”

“About forty-five minutes ago,” I told her with a tight smile. “Figured it was time to get rid of at least one of my virginities.” Next I was going to get a tattoo so that I no longer had virgin skin, and then that would leave me with only one virginity left. You know, the one that girls my age didn’t have. The one that Wroth Niall had point blank told me he hadn’t wanted before he’d gone and screwed some slut.

Wroth

The room was loud with laughter, talking and music and I heard none of it. I was trapped in my own thoughts, my own misery. My self-hate.

I didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to be going back on tour in just a few days. I’d much rather be back in Tennessee working on the farm, hiding away from the world. That wasn’t possible though. Not because of the band—fuck the band. They would be just fine without me. Unfortunately, I needed the band.

The band was my last connection to her.

Damn, I was pathetic. And an idiot. A stupid, pathetic idiot. Over the last year I’d done nothing but make one mistake after the other with the only person who has ever—ever—meant anything to me. Since Marissa had left me, walked away and never looked back, I’ve been in a dark place. Darker than I had ever been when I’d first gotten home from my deployment in Afghanistan when I was in the marines. At least back then, I’d had a sweet-faced, twelve-year-old Marissa to come home to. Now I just had a house that was empty of the sunshine she had always brought to it, a heart that felt dead.

Scrubbing a hand over my face, I just barely refrained from cursing aloud, knowing that all the mothers in the room would make their husbands kick my ass if not actually do it themselves. When a nineteen-month-old pair of identical monsters walked by my table that no one else had seemed brave enough to approach in the last hour, I forced back my tormented thoughts and an involuntary smile broke free for the twin that was now trying to climb up my leg.

I haven’t been around Jesse’s boys very much, so I had no idea which was which. Their mother dressed them as differently as possible so that people who didn’t see the twins on a regular basis could tell them apart, but I still had no clue which one was determined to now sit on my lap. Helping the kid out, I carefully lifted him the rest of the way up and placed him on my lap, facing me. “What’s your name, kid?”

“That’s Luca,” a pregnant Lana murmured with a smile as she passed me with a plate of food in her hands. “Be careful with that one, Wroth. He’s trouble.”

I raised a brow at the kid who glanced up at his aunt as if she had just revealed government secrets. Laughing, she paused long enough to brush a kiss over the top of Luca’s head before heading on her way. Once Lana was out of his sight, Luca turned his full attention back to me. “So, you’re the trouble maker?” Luca gave me a toothy grin and grabbed my shirt with both little fat hands before pulling himself into a standing position. I had very little experience with kids of any age so I had no idea what I was doing, but instinct took over and I held onto the little guy’s waist as he released my shirt and started jabbering like we were old friends. When I felt a tug on my pants leg I found another little monster trying to climb my leg, wanting in on whatever fun his brother was having.

Laughing for what felt like the first time in a century, I lifted the second twin onto my lap and they both stood there jabbering at me, nodding their heads, and giving me grins that produced an outrageous amount of drool. I had no idea what either kid was talking about, but assumed it was about their adventures thus far in their young lives.

“Never thought I would see the day when Wroth Niall had a kid in his arms, let alone two.”

My head snapped up at the sound of Jesse Thornton’s deep chuckle. The twins’ attention went straight to their father, and after only a small hesitation the second twin—Lyric, I remember his name being from when the kid was first born—held his hands out for Jesse. Luca, however, gripped my shirt tighter. Jesse lifted his son into his arms, still grinning down at me. “But at least my boys were able to make you look less like some homicidal maniac. Seriously man, you were scaring the shit out of me for a little while there. You need to relax before you have a stroke or something, dude.”