I grabbed my phone off the bar and darted outside. My hands hit the contacts list and headed straight for Aiden's name. I needed him to help calm me down.

"Hello?" Aiden's sleepy voice answered from the other side.

"Aiden." I cried into the receiver.

"Riley, what's wrong?" He asked, immediately shaking the sleep away.

"He's here." I said between panicked breaths. My chest was constricting and I felt like my heart was trying to escape from my body. "I'm at the new bar tonight and he is here."

"I'm coming up there." Aiden hung up the phone.

I was hyperventilating and I had to place my head between my knees to catch my breath. My head was pounding and I felt like I was dying. I sat down before I collapsed onto the pavement. I was having a panic attack. I tried to slow down my breathing and began counting. I couldn't stay out here until Aiden came, so I had to find a way to get through this alone.

After 15 minutes, I was able to calm myself down enough to go back in the bar. Kiera was drowning and relief flooded through her when I stepped back behind the bar again. Ezra and the rest of his band were standing on the stage about to play. I was shocked when I saw him standing up front with his guitar. I wanted to scream. Not only was he in the band, but he also fronted it. I had to be getting punished.

Ezra was busy searching the bar, trying to find me through the crowd. An evil smile crossed his face when he saw me looking at him. He was going to make me suffer through this. He was going to use his music to torture me, knowing exactly how watching him play always affected me.

The music started playing in the background and I was trying to drown the sound out by singing Jessa songs loudly to myself. I stepped up next to Kiera, who looked at me like I was insane.

I robotically poured drink after drink looking down until I cleared all the backed-up orders. Little beads of sweat clung to my forehead and I grabbed a towel to wipe them away. Kiera grabbed her tray and went back to her section to gather more orders.

The second Ezra touched the guitar strings again. I closed my eyes. It hurt in a way I could even wrap my mind around. I could see his fingers in my mind, sliding up and down the neck of the guitar as he plucked the strings. The phantom feeling of those same fingertips brushing over my skin, had me shivering.

It was too much.  Way, too much.

I opened my eyes again and Ezra stepped up to the microphone and began singing. His music style had changed from emo metal to more of a bluesy rock. When he opened his mouth to sing, everything we went through together came flooding back. The soulful growl and whine penetrated me deeper until I was on the verge of tears.

I looked around and finally saw the familiar long auburn hair pushing through the crowd coming towards me. Aiden leaned up against the bar across from me. He had a furious look in his eyes.

"Is this really happening?" He asked in disbelief.

"I don't know how this even happened. Please don't start anything. Can you just sit here with me until I can get through this shift?" I pleaded.

"He has some nerve." Aiden started exploding and I reached over the bar and covered his mouth with my hand.

"Calm down. He probably didn't even know I would be working here. It's probably just a coincidence. I wasn't even supposed to be at this location tonight." Aiden's shoulders relaxed a bit and I moved my hand away.

"Did he ask about her?" Aiden's eyes narrowed and he clenched his teeth.

"He did."

"What did you say?"

"I told him she was my daughter and she was three." I swallowed as I skirted around the rest of our conversation. I was embarrassed I used Aiden's name as a way to try to get out of this.

"What did he say after that?"

"He called me a slut." I frowned, lowering my face.

"What, why? What on earth made him say that?" Aiden asked, amused.

"Aiden, I said she was yours. I told him we were hooking up when I was together with him." I laid my head on the bar and covered my head with my hands.

Aiden laughed in my face. Cackling. He was cackling. I growled at him and scowled at my infuriating friend.

"Sorry, sorry." He apologized, wiping the tears away. "He can't believe that is even close to the truth." Aiden laughed again. I thought he would be mad at me. "He did see her, right? You can't look at her and not know she's his."

"I had to try something." I said, getting defensive.

"He's not that stupid, Riley. You can't think he will let this be." Aiden said sympathetically, yelling over the wailing guitar. I felt Ezra creeping deep inside of me. I looked up and he was staring at me while he moaned the bridge of his song. Aiden looked up at the stage and shook his head. "Man, I forgot how good he is."

"Uh-huh." I agreed with my mouth wide open at the dark-haired man on the stage. Ezra flipped his hair back from his face like the first night I met him. I used to love tugging on that hair as he devoured me.

I hated that Ezra still had this power over me.

"I'm staying." Aiden said as he climbed onto a bar stool. He turned to look at the stage and watched his former bandmate play.

Ezra looked up at me again and then noticed Aiden sitting there. He was finishing the song watching every move I made. If he didn't believe me about Jessa, I was going to have to make it more realistic for him.

"Aiden. Will you help me out?" I batted my eyelashes at him and gave him my best smile.

"What now, Riley?" He sighed.

"Can you act like we are together?" I begged him.

"We are together." Aiden looked at me, confused by my request.

"No, not like hanging out a bar as friends together. Like together, together."

"How am I supposed to do that?" He asked genuinely.

"I don't know. Kiss me and pretend like you want to go do it in the bathroom or something." I shrugged. "Something that makes it look like Jessa is really yours."

"Now you ask me." He rolled his eyes. "You know he is going to beat the crap out of me over this, right?"

"No, he is engaged. The fiancé showed me the ring. She's here tonight. You'll be safe. Please, please, please." I begged.

"You're just lucky I haven't had any for a while. I'm desperate for a little something." He raised his eyebrows up and down.

"Don't get too excited. I'm not really going to do it with you. But if you help, I will hook you up with Kiera. You have to make it look convincing or no deal." I said, trying to proposition him.

"Kiera, who?" He asked.

I pointed over to the olive skin girl with the piercings in her cheeks. Aiden would like her and she would like him. He was a musician in his previous life, after all.

"She's hot." He said, leaning in closer to me.

"Help me and she's yours." I winked.

"Deal."

I walked away from the bar and Aiden followed me behind it. I leaned against the wall and shifted my eyes just enough to make sure Ezra was still staring. Ezra's eyes followed us as he continued to play.

I pulled the collar of Aiden's shirt to me and nipped at his bottom lip. I turned my eyes back to Ezra to make sure he was watching us.

"He's looking. Make it look good, Aiden, or no Kiera." I whispered into his mouth.

Aiden tangled his fingers in my hair and pushed me back into the wall. His lips were on mine and he forced my mouth open. I stuck my tongue in his mouth and he traced it with his. He moved against me and then pulled back to run his fingers over the bare skin above my waistband. His fingers tickled the skin and he dipped his fingers in my jeans slightly as he looked down.

I pushed Aiden back, wanting to smack him for trying to pull that stunt on me. He pushed his lips back to mine and laughed into my mouth when I hit him. I smiled back at him. He was terrible.

The song ended and the bar cheered. Ezra's new band was way better than the one he was in with my brother. Ezra was still staring at Aiden, who had me pressed up against the bar wall. He was whispering about a movie he just watched about a homicidal clown in my ear. I wasn't paying any attention to the details. I was too busy watching the dark-haired man as he watched me.

I wondered if his fiancé saw all the looks he had been giving me all night.

Aiden backed away from me and I turned to look at Ezra. He raised his eyebrow at me. The alpha male in him was screaming to escape. He turned to his band, motioning and I saw the drummer nod. Ezra just sent the signal to change up the set. He was up to something.

Ezra slowly picked out a tune on his guitar and then looked over to where I was standing. He wasn't going to let me get away with what I just did to him. I recognized the tune his fingers played. He started playing the song he said he was writing after he met me. It was the same one he played in the basement long ago and the one he played in the living room at my old apartment. Ezra finished it finally and he knew I remembered.

He stepped back up to the microphone and began weaving a tale of beauty, loss, and pain. The guy in the song was broken, lost without the girl. Tears flowed down my face as he looked at me the whole time.

Aiden noticed and turned to me. "Am I missing something?"

"This is the song he wrote for me." I said, unable to hold my tears back. I wiped them back from my face and crossed my arms over myself for protection. Aiden rubbed my arm sympathetically and leaned in to hug me tightly. He knew I need a friend right now, not someone who would beat me up for being so upset.

"Ry, I'm sorry." Aiden said, whispering into my ear. "I wish I could make this all go away for you."

"Just stay with me. I can't be here alone." He nodded and turned to watch the band perform my song. I held onto him and buried my head in his back as I cried over Ezra again.